Though The Edge of Democracy is Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa's final piece in a personal trilogy, it's the first to nab her an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature. A year after the doc was acquired by Netflix at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, the cinematic exploration appears to have struck a timely chord far beyond the borders of the divided nation in which it is set. Costa's epic film is a sweeping mélange made up of the director's expert cinéma vérité camerawork and vast trove of home movies, plus archival footage and media coverage spanning decades of her country's history
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For many years Yusuf Abdurahman, the charismatic protagonist of Eunice Lau's Accept the Call, seemed to be living the American Dream. A refugee who fled civil war in the '90s, Abdurahman went from a life filled with famine and death in Somalia to one of hope and possibility in Minnesota. One of the founders of what is now the largest Somali community in the United States, Abdurahman married, had kids, and today works as a translator and facilitator at a Head Start office. Though divorced, he continues to lovingly devote himself to his seven children—including his eldest, Zacharia, the reason
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. As the impeachment trial of President Trump gets underway, and as the US launches into another rough-and-tumble presidential election year, FRONTLINE presents America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump, a two-part, four-hour documentary series investigating America's increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics. Michael Kirk directs. Following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, explore the history of the American Civil Rights Movement through the definitive series Eyes on the
Sundance Film Festival is back at Park City this month. In addition to seven IDA-supported film screenings, our Executive Directory, Simon Kilmurry, will be moderating “ Streaming: Next-Generation Opportunities for Documentary Storytelling” panel. The protagonists of two IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantees, A Thousand Cuts’ Maria Ressa and Welcome to Chechnya’s Masha Gessen will open up about what it takes for journalists to go up against powerful regimes in the “ Truth to Power” session. Other IDA staffers will also be in attendance in various capacities: Filmmaker Services Manager Toni
It's been a bit of a hiatus since the last Essential Doc Reads, but we’re back with 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! On the eve of Sundance, Ben Sisario and Nicole Sperling of The New York Times investigate the story behind Oprah Winfrey’s last-minute pullout as executive producer of Kirby Dick and Amy Zeiring's Sundance-premiering On the Record, which tracks allegations of sexual abuse leveled against music mogul Russell
"I take half, and I leave half" is the wise refrain, often repeated by Hatidze Muratova, apiarist and central character in Honeyland, one of the most honored films of 2019. The documentary, by Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska, kicked off the year by garnering three awards at the Sundance Film Festival: the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema and Special Jury Awards for Cinematography and Impact for Change. At year's end, among many other accolades, the film won two IDA Documentary Awards: the Pare Lorentz Award and the Best Cinematography Award. And now, completing the trajectory that began
The spa resort of Hot Springs, Arkansas bubbles with history. Grand bathhouses that date from more than a century ago line one side of Central Avenue, leading to the foot of the imposing Arlington Hotel. On the hotel's 7th floor is the Babe Ruth Suite, a tip-of-the-cap to a famed visitor to Hot Springs, back when the town hosted some Major League teams for spring training. Another celebrity of yesteryear, Al Capone, was also known to patronize the Arlington. The history that the town is making today is of the cinematic kind. The community hosts one of the longest-running documentary film
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Now streaming on Ovid.tv, Chez Jolie Coiffure, from Rosine Mbakam, tells the story of Sabine, whose hair salon serves as a cultural hub for the largely immigrant Brussels district of Matonge. Here, Sabine and her employees fit extensions and glue on lashes while watching soaps, dishing romantic advice, sharing rumors about government programs to legalize migrants, and talking about people back home in West Africa. A new season of the documentary series Link Voices premieres
Feras Fayyad has been denied a visa to visit the U.S. in support of his latest film, The Cave, due to his Syrian nationality. He is being denied a voice to speak to us out of fear. Likewise, Americans are being denied the opportunity to hear from a vital voice in documentary filmmaking.
The Mill Valley Film Festival, which screens every October in affluent Marin County, north of San Francisco, is known for its music, film and environmental documentaries, many of them produced in the Bay Area. A moderate few in each category stood out this year. Things went smoothly despite the widespread PG&E pre-emptive fire-prevention power shutoffs, causing no cancellations and only a handful of films to change venues. The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash, directed by Thom Zimny, is a lyrical, almost dreamy account of the Arkansas country boy's life and career, undistracted by the sight of