Dear IDA Members: As this issue of ID goes to bed, the first virtual film festival—Yahoo's On Line Film Festival—is streaming on the World Wide Web! (www.onlinefilmfestival.com) During the last century, film festivals became an integral part of every documentary filmmaker's release strategy. We are all familiar with stories about the most recent documentary "discovery" from Sundance, Berlin, New York, Yamagata or Amsterdam. The fortunate few that received press attention at festivals often then secured limited theatrical distribution, faithful art house audiences, critical acclaim and
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The Sundance Film Festival has always provided a home for documentary-makers, veterans and rookies alike, to share their work and war stories with a receptive community. Documentaries get equal billing with dramatic features, and over the past few years, docs have caught that sacred Sundance buzz like nothing else. Sundance 2000 upped the ante this year, not only introducing digital projection for several of the documentaries, but also opening the House of Docs. I arrived in Park City just in time for the World Premiere of Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury, which chronicles the rise and
Beads of sweat ran down the starving filmmaker's face. He held the crisp Anamorphic sub-master between his teeth as he struggled around the Convergence Jungle, trying not to think about what his wife would say when she learned they had to mortgage the house...again. Suddenly, he saw it. A lamp. A magic lamp. He scrambled to grab it and rubbed it incessantly, conditioned as he was to force people to listen to him. Slowly, the Genie came out. Flipping mindlessly though his appointment book, he asked. "And who are you?" "I'm the filmmaker." "What do you want?" "I want a conference where people
A review of 'A New History of Documentary Film,' by Jack C. Ellis and Betsy A. McLane.
The breadth and depth of the Internet are unfathomable--in both the information it contains and the services it provides. I can now work, shop for groceries and have a great social life, all without leaving my bedroom. This new, virtual world is laden with egregious irony and a myriad of possibilities. One such possibility has emerged over the past few years that has taken the movie rental industry by storm. In the past, to rent my favorite documentary, Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot's The Corporation, my experience would be a multi-step process that would involve (1) driving to the nearest
Dear IDA Members: Congratulations to this year's Oscar Nominees in the Documentary Short and Documentary Feature Categories. This year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences revised its nomination process for the Documentary categories and from everything I hear, the changes have been met with popular approval from the field. Chaired by Oscar-winning documentarian and long-time IDA member Arnold Schwartzman, the Academy's Documentary Committee announced the following nominees: Best Documentary Short Eyewitness, directed by Bert Van Bork, reveals the horror of Auschwitz some five decades
Nominees: Best Documentary Feature One Day in September (*Winner) Produced by Arthur Cohn and John Battsck Directed by Kevin MacDonald Executive Producer: Lillian Birnbaum Cinematography by Alwin Kulcher and Neve Cunningham Edited by Justine Wright Narration by Michael Douglas An Arthur Cohn Production, 91 min Few events have brought home to the world the realities of modern terrorism quite so dramatically as the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich by a Palestinian group known as the Black September. The global media, there to cover the great sporting symbol of
Documentary filmmakers, in their attempt to grab and hold viewer attention in a competitive environment, sometimes resort to sensationalizing their topic. The ocean floor! Snowboarding! Heart bypass operations! Errol Morris does it another way. Morris' projects get star billing at film festivals, and he is regularly included in "best filmmaker" categories. In fact, Morris was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by members outraged at the institution's failure to honor his work. Like the sensationalists, Morris reveals to us the weird, the bizarre, the horrifying and
IDA 2000 is off and running with smooth transitions, active programming and worldwide visibility! As the annual election ballots rolled in from you and your colleagues in 50 countries, we say adieu to two dedicated volunteers. Lynne Littman and Joan Sekler have retired from the IDA board after years of active and enthusiastic service. Joan, as many of you know continues to work tirelessly promoting independent documentaries and working actively with new media coalitions. Lynne, who has directed more clip shows for our annual Awards and Oscar receptions than we dare count, will continue her