Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering May 1 as part of Oscilloscope Laboratories' virtual cinema initiative, The Infiltrators, from Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera, tells the story of young immigrants who are detained by US Border Patrol and thrown into a detention center. These detainees, Marco and Viri, are on a mission to stop unjust deportations—by being detained. Their attempt at a prison break, however, doesn't go according to plan. This hybrid film—a blend of documentary footage of the real
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As a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, I was required to take a class on law and ethics (students still are). As a student, I grumbled about reading case law and decades-old ethical case studies when I’d much rather be running around with a crew and a camera. But when I found myself in a newsroom setting, I immediately realized that it was potentially the most consequential class I had taken. Whether or not we are conscious of it, the work we do as journalists and filmmakers is laden with ethical decisions. That common ground is part of the DNA of the IDA
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! IndieWire's Kate Erbland examines the virtual cinema landscape. And, almost immediately, there was something else: the proliferation of so-called "virtual cinema," new programs that allow audiences to rent new releases or library titles online for a flat fee, with part of the revenue going to specific movie theaters (as chosen by the ticket buyer). As the doc world
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Rachel Mason's Circus of Books, a project of IDA's Fiscal Sponsorship Program, premieres April 22 on Netflix. The film tells the story of the Los Angeles-based gay porn shop, Circus of Books, owned and operated by Mason's parents. The store served as the catalyst for LA's LGBT community for over 35 years, and the Masons themselves, a straight couple with three children, became one of the biggest distributors of hardcore gay porn in the United States. Circus of Books was the
In one of Pare Lorentz’s defining films, The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936), Lorentz illustrated the impact of destructive agricultural practices with striking imagery and an artistry that moved audiences in a way that headlines did not. Its release pioneered the power of film to magnify injustice, spur national discourse and create change. More than 80 years later, the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund continues his filmmaking legacy by supporting feature-length documentary films that reflect the spirit and nature of his work. The fund empowers filmmakers to use cinema for social justice and
Letter to Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell CC: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Re: Replenishing PPP funds to support self-employed workers impacted by COVID-19 pandemic Today we are facing the greatest crisis to the freelance workforce in modern history. Freelancers — including self-employed, sole proprietors, and other independent workers — comprise over 57 million of America’s workforce and contribute an estimated $1 trillion to its GDP. Freelancers are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 closures. The signatories as a group represent and support freelancers in independent media who
While the planet's human population reels from the devastating impact of the COVID -19 crisis, many have become aware of their immediate natural environment responding to the sudden drop in activity. With social media and news articles discussing bluer skies, cleaner water and a resurgence in wildlife activity, among other phenomena, the possibility for slowing down climate change has been one of the more positive topics of discussion of late. At the same time, our optimism has to be tempered, since the amount of plastic waste generated has increased significantly, alongside the loosening of
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Sundance Institute announced a $1M Artist Relief Fund on Friday, and the Los Angeles Times' Mark Olsen sat down with CEO/Executive Director Keri Putnam to discuss the specifics of this fund. I think that is one of the most important pieces of this actually. There are several pieces of it that are very different from what we typically do at Sundance. And I think that's
The New Virtual Normal: Covering a Film Festival During COVID-19 Covering CPH:DOX—the first spring fest to respond to COVID-19 by moving entirely online rather than cancel or postpone--remotely from several time zones away proved a surprising respite from the global coronavirus chaos. Not only was I able to tune in to fascinating virtual talks (see Edward Snowden) at all hours of the day, and discover nonfiction gems (via the online CPH:MARKET, the most abundantly stocked market I'd seen in weeks), but I was able to do it all from the comfort of home in my pajamas (and sans jet lag). Of course
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Gabor Kalman, one of the founding members of IDA and the creator of the IDA David L. Wolper Student Documentary Achievement Award, passed away on April 12. Gabor was a sweet, kind-hearted person, with a profound heart-wrenching story. Born in Hungary, he was ten years old when Hitler's troops marched into his country; Gabor was forced into hiding when his name turned up on the "Jaross List" of Jews from his village slated for "extermination." He survived the Holocaust and World War II, as well as the post-War Soviet occupation. A decade later, while a