Colleges and universities, often at the foreground of providing creative incubation for the research and development of new technologies, are beginning to explore the boundaries of virtual reality (VR). A few of them have funded incubators with agendas that differ in both practice and theory. Graduates and undergraduates are creating prototypes that include everything from documentaries to mapping systems, and off-campus collaborators—be they media giants or government agencies—are exploring a myriad of possibilities with a technology that's still in its infancy. "I'd say when you ask where we
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April 18, 2016 Dear Sir, On behalf of the International Documentary Association, I am writing to express our deep alarm and concern at the recent rejection of a visa application for documentary filmmaker Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami by Immigration New Zealand. Ghaemmaghami was scheduled to attend the prestigious Documentary Edge International Film Festival in May 2016. Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami is an award-winning Iranian filmmaker who regularly shows her work at festivals all around the world – including throughout Europe and the US. Her recent film, Sonita, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016
Following a brief test run in the 1990s, virtual reality has rapidly taken hold over the past few years as a potent tool for exploring the possibilities of storytelling—first among the gaming community, then among such early adaptors as Nonny de la Pena, who started in journalism. The Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW have all incorporated VR programming into their respective new media mixes, and the medium hit the mainstream in Fall 2015 when The New York Times distributed Google Cardboard viewers to 1.5 million subscribers to experience what The Old Gray Lady has to
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! From the Full Frame Documentary Festival website, filmmaker R.J. Cutler shares with director of programming Sadie Tillery his vision behind the program that he curated for the festival, "Perfect and Otherwise: Documenting American Politics." "Looking at the films together reveals all sorts of fascinating through
By shining a light on what is becoming an increasingly dynamic relationship between the documentary filmmaking and journalism worlds, two recent conferences have focused attention on these two separate but occasionally overlapping and intersecting areas of inquiry and art. Add into the mix last year's Dangerous Documentaries report from the Center for Media & Social Impact, which also highlighted this relationship, and there is definitely something in the air. The two conferences, both held within the belly of major journalism schools, reveal key similarities and differences between
Way back in the analog days, in 1993, DocuClub was launched in New York as a means for filmmakers—emerging and established alike—to get together and share their works-in-progress, give and receive feedback, and make the kind of connections that sustain communities. DocuClub attracted enough attention from the New York doc community to establish itself as a membership organization and attract sponsors like HBO and A&E, as well as partnering organizations like IFP, IDA, Third World Newsreel and Arts Engine. As for screening venues, DocuClub grew accordingly, starting out in the offices of the
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! From Current, a new report commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls for an overhaul of its relationship with the National Minority Consortia. The major hurdle identified by Coats2Coats [Consultancy] is the impaired relationship between the corporation and the consortia, which "is built
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! From Re/code, a roundup of the reviews of the long-awaited Oculus Rift. The general takeaway from the half-dozen or so reviews is that the Rift is still built for gamers. And even then, it's probably too expensive for the masses. Product reviewers are not known for brevity; plus, unlike a new Apple product or free
The 34th annual CAAMFest, produced and presented by the San Francisco-based Center for Asian American Media, blew into the Bay Area, along with some long-awaited rainstorms that tossed our umbrellas up and down the streets of Chinatown, the Mission and Oakland. And in the warm and dry screening venues around town, CAAMFest proved what it does best: showcasing documentaries about Asians and Asian Americans.
Why has A Poem Is a Naked Person, a film Les Blank considered the greatest he ever made, remained virtually unknown and unseen, until now, over 40 years after it was completed? An answer to this question can be found in the newly restored, Criterion-released Blu-Ray. (The film had a brief theatrical run last fall through Janus Films.) It is clear that such a project would never have happened if it were not for the persistence and memory of Harrod Blank, Les Blank's son. As a young boy, tagging along with his filmmaker dad in the backwaters of 1970s Oklahoma, Harrod drew admiring portraits of