Walking toward the new IFC Center in the West Village, I passed the site of the old Bleecker Street Cinema, one of the mainstays of independent exhibition that closed in 1990 after 30 years in operation. It reminded me of the days when one felt like part of a club that met in a member's oversized, shabby living room. In contrast, the IFC Center is a plush, highly designed, velvet-and-brick womb, with high-end projection ranging from 35mm to HD Digital. It is the latest entry in a landscape of increased and improved exhibition for independent film in Manhattan below 14th Street. While Uptown
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Best Feature Award winner 'Nostalgia for the Light' on how filmmaking is like jazz.
After a night filled with moving speeches, worthy honored guests, delicious food and drink, and a couple of laughs, we reflect on the ceremony and the past year in non-fiction filmmaking.
From Jerome Hill's Film Portrait It's the 1960s and I'm sitting in Professor Haig Manoogian's advanced film production class at NYU. We're awaiting guest lecturer Jerome Hill. I'm excited because Haig has told us that Hill won an Oscar for his documentary on Albert Schweitzer and also made an innovative film about the painter Grandma Moses. Unlike my fellow classmate, Marty Scorsese, I'm not dreaming of going to Hollywood. I'm hoping to become a documentary filmmaker. Cinema vérité is just beginning to rattle the aesthetic of documentaries, and I'm all for shaky hand-held camerawork and
Over the next couple of weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work will be represented in the DocuWeek TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, August 18-24. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far. So, to continue this series of conversations, here is James Longley, director/producer of Iraq in Fragments. Synopsis: Iraq in Fragments illuminates post-war Iraq in three acts, building a vivid picture of a country pulled in
We welcome Homegirl Café as caterers of this year's IDA Documentary Awards.
The Redemption of General Butt Naked has been nominated in the Best Feature category at this year's IDA Documentary Awards.
Attention media makers addressing aging and elder rights!
The chopping sound of helicopter blades hovers over a black screen, feeling less like an entrance than a continuous perpetual drone, a cloud that does not lift. The soldiers of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment are launching the largest helicopter offensive since Vietnam: 4,000 Marines countering the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. A group of soldiers kneels low in loose sand, their weapons in hand; they resemble a football squad posing for a yearbook photo. A young soldier smokes a cigarette, the background blurred out of focus in shallow depth-of-field: It is a quiet
'These Amazing Shadows' premieres December 29 on PBS' 'Independent Lens.'