GOOD Magazine
and
The International Documentary Association

Invite you to two special screenings

The Youngest Candidate on Dec. 16
&
Beautiful Losers on Dec. 17

The Youngest Candidate Film Screening
Tue 16 Dec 2008 at 07:00PM + Director Q&A with Jason Pollock

It follows the story of 4 teens that ran for public office in America. Funny, inspiring, poignant, and ultimately uplifting, 'The Youngest Candidate' is not just a film about running for office. It is the coming of age story of four idealistic young adults who dared to confront the corrupt political systems in America. Through their journey these young candidates learn about fair play, leadership development, racism in politics, the importance of family, and many other lessons that they will carry with them throughout their lives. In the face of great adversity, these four young adults braved all the odds to make it to Election Day to show that regardless of the outcome, it didn't matter... It's all about how you play the game. RSVP NOW!

Beautiful Losers Film Screening
Wed 17 Dec 2008 at 07:00PM + Director Q&A with Aaron Rose

In the early 1990's a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop & graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Developing their craft with almost no influence from the "establishment" art world, this group, and the subcultures they sprang from, have now become a movement that has been transforming pop culture.

Starring a selection of artists who are considered leaders within this culture, Beautiful Losers focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes "in" as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today's youth. RSVP NOW!

THE GOOD SPACE
@GOOD Magazine
6824 Melrose Ave. (Btwn La Brea & Highland)
Both events are free and open to the public.

Most call for entries is pretty much the same: fill out your form, pay your fee and hope some judge somewhere actually looks at your submission.

Ok, you still have to do all of that if you want to enter the 13th Annual Webby Awards. But the folks who honor the best of the best in websites, interactive advertising, online film & video, and mobile web (that's the International Academy of the Digital Arts and Sciences, FYI) are actually calling on some of the Internet's most creative folks to promote the call for entries. Smart, huh?

Included in the fun already are comedic pals Jake and Amir, Jerry and Orrin Zucker of the oddly wonderful It's Jerry Time site and Tony and Paul from stop-motion loving creative team Free Poster Films.

Check out some promos below and peek at http://webbys.tumblr.com for more. Oh, and you only have until Dec. 19 to get your own entry in for a Webby. Get on it here. 

The Sundance Film Festival announced its selections among the short documentaries, both US and international, including a few docs nestled among the animated shorts and New Frontier shorts.

US Documentary Shorts

575 Castro St. (Director: Jenni Olson)-Set to the original audio-cassette recorded by Harvey Milk in November 1977 to be played, "in the event of my death by assassination."

The Archive (Director: Sean Dunne)-An eight-minute documentary about the world's largest vinyl record collection, examining the man who owns them and the current state of the American record industry.

Chop Off (Director: M.M. Serra)-An exposition of the dark, fearful recesses of the human psyche by filming the body modification of performance artist R.K. who literally risks 'life and limb.' R.K.'s body is his medium and amputation is his art.

Good: Atomic Alert (Director: Max Joseph)-An examination of nuclear arms that asks, Who has them, what are their intentions, and what would happen if a nuclear weapon hit New York City?

Good: Internet Censorship (Directors: Morgan Currie, Lindsay Utz, James Jones; Screenwriter: Mattathias Schwartz)-Internet censorship can take many forms, from restricting private Internet access to blocking searches for politically volatile keywords. This film explores how different countries apply their bodies of censorship to cyberspace.

I Knew It Was You (Director: Richard Shepard)-John Cazale appeared in just five films -The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather: Part Two, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter-and all were nominated for Best Picture. This documentary is a fresh portrait of the acting craft and a tour through the movies that defined a generation.

The Kinda Sutra (Director: Jessica Yu)-A combination of interview and animation, that explores the youthful misconceptions of a spectrum of people over the universal question: How are babies made?

So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away (Director: Annie P. Waldman)-Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, desiring to graduate high school with their friends, a group of students return to New Orleans despite their parents' relocation and absence.

Sister Wife (Director: Jill Orschel; Screenwriters: Alexandra Fuller, Jill Orschel)-DoriAnn, a Mormon Fundamentalist, shares a husband with her younger biological sister. During a private bathing ritual, DoriAnn explores the surprisingly universal challenges of her marriage.

SUSPENDED (Director: Kimi Takesue)-The film both documents and re-contextualizes the experience and perception of suspended time, capturing a range of evocative moments that reveal states of emotional and physical suspension.

Utopia, Part 3: The World's Largest Shopping Mall (Directors: Sam Green, Carrie Lozano)-A tour of the world's largest shopping mall, located near Guangzhou, China. Built three years ago, the South China Mall was supposed to be a celebration of consumerism and Vegas-like spectacle.

International Documentary Shorts

China's Wild West (UK; Director: Urszula Pontikos)-This part observational, part impressionistic study of a day in the life of a Muslim community illustrates their hopeful efforts to discover jade in the harsh conditions of a dried-up riverbed in a remote town on the Silk Road in Western China.

Lessons from the Night (Australia; Director and Screenwriter: Adrian Francis)-As dusk approaches and workers stream out of the city, Maia is about to begin her day. She reflects on life, work and toilet bowls as she goes about her nightly cleaning round through silent, empty spaces.

Ma Bar (UK; Directors: Finlay Pretsell, Adrian McDowall)-Bench-pressing isn't a hobby for 73-year-old Bill McFadyen; it's a way of life, and he is on a quest to be the best in the world.

Magnetic Movie (UK; Directors: Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman + Joe Gerhardt)-Natural magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries, as scientists from NASA's space sciences laboratory excitedly describe their discoveries.

My Surfing Lucifer (Switzerland; Director: Kenneth Anger)-Using found footage, Kenneth Anger introduces us to the short life of Bunker Spreckels, Clark Gable's stepson and surfing legend.

The Real Place (Canada; Director: Cam Christiansen; Screenwriter: Blake Brooker)-An animated poetic film celebrating the life and spirit of playwright and librettist John Murrell.

Steel Homes (UK; Director: Eva Weber)-Self-storage units are windows into human histories: the silent cells with their discarded objects and dust-covered furniture are inscribed with past dreams, secret hopes and of lives we cannot let go.

US Animated Shorts

From Burger It Came (Director: Dominic Bisignano)-An animated film that recounts early 1980s-era Cold War fears of a young boy in middle America. Using a variety of techniques, the visual narrative is colorfully assembled over semi-documentary audio conversations between a grown adult recounting his fears and his mother's memory of the time and her own concerns.

Joel Stein's Completely Unfabricated Adventures (Director: Walter Robot; Screenwriter: Joel Stein)-Journalist Joel Stein takes us on an animated adventure through the waste treatment plant of Orange County.

International Animated Shorts

Cattle Call (Canada; Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk)-A high-speed animation film documenting the art of livestock auctioneering.

Lies (Sweden; Director: Jonas Odell)-Three perfectly true stories about lying. In three episodes based on documentary interviews we meet the burglar who, when found out, claims to be a moonlighting accountant, the boy who finds himself lying and confessing to a crime he didn't commit and the woman whose whole life has been a chain of lies.

New Frontier Shorts

The Beekeepers (USA; Director: Richard Robinson)-An experimental documentary on the environmental crisis surrounding beekeeping and colony collapse disorder. It explores this ancient profession in its current crisis and the implications for our environment when millions of bees just disappear.

In a wall-to-wall day of screenings that began at 9:00 and closed just after midnight, DocuFest, IDA's annual unspooling marathon of the Award-winning films, bowed to an appreciative crowd at the Eastman Kodak Screening Room. Most of the filmmakers were on hand to field questions from the audience, including Remy Burkel from Sin City Law, Karim Chrobog from War Child , David Novack from Burning the Future, Laura Waters Hinson from As We Forgive; Isabel Vega and Luis Colina for La Corona; and Maureen Ryan from Man on Wire.

As We Forgive, the winner of the IDA/David L. Wolper Student Documentary Achievement Award, examines the process of forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda in the decade and a half since the horrific massacres there in 1994. This endeavor has proved a vital foundation on which to heal and rebuild the nation, and Hinson follows two victims and two perpetrators as they go through the painful process of reflecting on their tragic losses and their horrible crimes and then, through mediators, facing each other. IDA Interim Executive Director Eddie Schmidt remarked to Hinson how impressive the film was a student work, noting that as a student, he had made a doc about "busing trays in the school cafeteria." The key to the success of her film, she noted, was, as with countless docs, access-here, to one of the bishops who was a key player in seeing the truth and reconciliation initiative through at the grassroots level, and through her translator and driver, who, as Hinson put it "got the vision of the film." Hinson, who admitted she's "just learning about outreach in documentary filmmaking," has been screening the film at the US Congress, the State Department and the Library of Congress. In addition, she founded the Living Bricks Campaign in support of continuing the reconciliation effort in Rwanda.

La Corona, from Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega, followed As We Forgive, and although Micheli was not able to be there, it's worth noting that she's the first David L. Wolper Student Documentary Achievement Award winner to "graduate" to a higher honor. She earned the Wolper in 1996 for Just for the Ride, and she noted from the stage on Awards Night that many of those in the room back then who were key in helping launch her career were in the room 12 years later. La Corona covers a beauty pageant inside a Bogota, Colombia women's correctional facility. Vega said that the biggest challenge was getting the daily permission of the warden and the guards. "You're the last on the list, because no one wants to take responsibility for an American crew," she said. "You needed the warden's signature, and you had to have a guard with you at all times." They shot for four hours a day, for two months. "We would have liked to have made a longer film," Vega admitted, "but the structure was going to be the pageant, which had a built-in arc, so we decided to stay with the characters and let the narrative unfold within that structure."

See more pictures of DocuFest 2008 on the IDA's Flickr Photostream.

The IDA Awards closed out its 2008 edition with a screening of Stefan Forbes' Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story at the new headquarters for GOOD, the media platform that produces a magazine, a website, films and live events-all in the spirit of doing good, in a progressive, innovative way. GOOD December is a nearly monthlong series of happenings from nonprofits throughout the LA community, and IDA helped inaugurate GOOD's new space with the screening and Q&A. Other films coming up include Jason Pollock's The Young Candidate and Aaron Roses' Beautiful Losers.

I recall a screening of The Fog of War, and Errol Morris quoted writer Philip Gourevich, who, in referencing his extensive reports about the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, remarked, "It's easier to condemn evil than it is to understand it." Evil characters are always more interesting, whether in literature or in film, and in Boogie Man, Forbes has created a fascinating figure, informed as much by the rich and troubled history of his native South as by the take-no-prisoners bloodsports that is American politics. Here's an article about the film that appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Documentary.

IDA’s Award weekend kicked off with a luncheon for the award winners and nominees sponsored by Kodak on Friday, December 5th. IDA’s Interim Executive Director/Board President-elect Eddie Schmidt described the intimate, casual gathering as “the Senior Class trip before graduation,” and he urged the nominees and winners to get to know one another.

Attendees of the 2008 IDA Awards Filmmaker Luncheon. Photo by Meg Madison.

Each awardee and nominee present was given the opportunity to say a few words about their project. Tom Dziedzic, director/producer of short film nominee Redemption Stone, kicked off the remarks by telling everyone that he was so surprised when he received the call about his nomination that he actually called back to double-check that the call was indeed meant for him.

Kassim the Dream director/producer Kief Davidson made fun of his own lame response to the news of his nomination. He was on the phone with his wife in Germany, and his response to the IDA’s Peggy Ellithorpe’s call was an apologetic, “Oh shit, let me call you right back.”

Davidson and I chatted for awhile about the recent whirlwind of activity surrounding his film. Kassim won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at AFI Fest, as well as the Doc U Award at IDFA. Davidson had just arrived back in Los Angeles from Santa Fe, where the film screened at the Santa Fe Film Festival as part of AFI’s 20/20 Program, an international initiative designed to enhance cultural understanding and collaboration through films from the US and abroad. Davidson is now waiting to find out where his film will screen internationally with the program, but he told me he’s gunning for South Africa and Paris.

Many of the awardees took a lighthearted approach when expressing their appreciation for their honors. “I’m a virgin – this is my first major award!” joked Remy Burkel. The director was honored with the Limited Series Award for Sin City Law, along with Denis Poncet, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Remy Burkel, Maha Productions, Arte and Sundance Channel. 

Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega, the filmmakers behind La Corona, the winner of the 2008 IDA Documentary Award for Short Documentary. Photo by Meg Madison.

The eternally charming Marina Goldovskaya, winner of the Preservation and Scholarship Award, had the audience laughing with her when she said, “I don’t know if I deserve it, but I got it!”

Like Goldovskaya, Sam Pollard, the recipient of the inaugural Avid Excellence In Editing Award, also took a playful tone when expressing his appreciation for his career honor. He said, “I feel like I’m a little young to be getting a lifetime achievement award, but I’ll take it!”

Laura Waters Hinson from American University is just starting her career. She received the IDA/David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award for As We Forgive and was thrilled when Kodak’s Candace Chatman presented her with a surprise $1000 grant for Kodak film stock.

Several of the nominees and awardees got personal about why they had chosen to work as documentary filmmakers. Short film nominee Jenny Mackenzie (Kick Like a Girl), who was a social worker for 20 years prior to becoming a filmmaker, said that making docs has given her the chance to reach audiences and effect social change in a different way than her previous career.

Pare Lorentz Award Winner David Novack (Burning the Future: Coal in America) said that for him, “Making documentaries is like always being in grad school, just for a different thing each time. You get to learn everything about a topic you’re passionate about.” He cited the ability to meet people with whom your paths would never otherwise cross as an additional bonus.

Filmmakers look on at the 2008 IDA Awards Filmmaker Luncheon. Photo by Meg Madison.

Stefan Forbes, winner of the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award and director of Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, eloquently spoke about the meaning of being recognized with an award. He said, “Documentaries are often treated like the red-headed step-child of the film industry. As documentary filmmakers, we grapple with the problem of how to tell a story. The very story we’re grappling with is often something that society is not yet ready to deal with.”

See tons of photos from the luncheon on the IDA Flickr photostream.

"It's a great night to have a few laughs, drink a vodka mojito and talk about documentary films," said 2008 IDA Documentary Awards host Morgan Spurlock in the lobby of the Directors Guild of America building during a cocktail reception preceding the night's show.

Mingling among the crowd were many of the nominated filmmakers, special presenters Ann Magnuson and Adrian Grenier, and honorees such as Werner Herzog (Career Achievement Award), Stefan Forbes (Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award) and Sam Pollard (Avid Excellence in Editing Award).

While David Novak, the filmmaker behind Burning The Future: Coal In America who had already won the Pare Lorentz Award said, "It's great coming to an award show when you've already got it because all of the pressure's off," others had to wait to see who would take home the Feature Documentary and Short Documentary honors.

Yet Man On Wire co-producer Maureen Ryan remained humble about her film's chances as Oscar. "I think there are a lot of great films out there this year," she said.

The show kicked off with IDA Interim Executive Director Eddie Schmidt playing guitar to introduce Spurlock, who made cracks about the economy, the struggles of doc filmmakers and even the not-so-super-sized success of his latest film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Spurlock, who's been an IDA member since being nominated for a Pare Lorentz Award for Super Size Me in 2004, couldn't turn down the hosting gig. "I love documentary films and I'm a huge supporter of the IDA, so when Eddie called me and asked me if I would do this, how do you say no? You say no by going like this," he joked while nodding his head.

IDA first-ever Audience Award went to Chris Taylor's Food Fight, a look at American agricultural policy and food culture. "I applaud the IDA for having this type of award," Taylor said. "Winning an audience award is exactly the reaction I want. That's what I made the film for. It's a little lighter, it's meant to be entertaining."

Someone who is no stranger to winning, Ira Glass, won the Continuing Series Award for the second year in a row for radio show-turned-Showtime doc series, This American Life. "We're trying to recreate the Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan years of the Chicago Bulls," he said. "If we can do that, we feel that we've achieved all of our goals and we can stop broadcasting forever."

Get links to all sorts of other coverage of the 2008 IDA Documentary Awards in our Announcements and Updates section on that page.

Following its announced competition films for the 2009 edition, the Sundance Film Festival yesterday unveiled additional programming strands in which documentaries will appear, including Premieres, Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and Frontier. Here are the line-ups:

Premieres

Earth Days / USA (Director: Robert Stone)-The history of our environmental undoing through the eyes of nine Americans whose work and actions launched the modern environmental movement. World Premiere. Closing Night Film

Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight

It Might Get Loud / USA (Director: Davis Guggenheim)-The history of the electric guitar from the point of view of three legendary rock musicians--The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White. U.S. Premiere

No Impact Man / USA (Directors: Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein)-The documentary follows the Beavan family as they abandon their high-consumption Fifth Avenue lifestyle in an attempt to make a no-net environmental impact for the course of one year. World Premiere

Passing Strange / USA (Director: Spike Lee; Lyrics: Stew; Music: Stew and Heidi Rodewald)-A musical documentary about the international exploits of a young man from Los Angeles who leaves home to find himself and "the real." A theatrical stage production of the original Tony-Award winning book by Stew. World Premiere

Tyson / USA (Director: James Toback)-An intimate look at the complex life of former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. North American Premiere

Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy / USA (Director: Robert Townsend)-Using rare archival clips along with provocative interviews with many of today's leading comedians and social critics, Why We Laugh celebrates the incredible cultural influence and social impact black comedy has wielded over the past 400 years. Includes appearances by Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Steve Harvey, Dick Gregory. World Premiere

Wounded Knee / USA (Director: Stanley Nelson; Screenwriter: Marcia Smith)-In 1973, American Indian groups took over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota to draw attention to the 1890 massacre. Though the federal government failed to keep many of the promises that ended the siege, the event succeeded in bringing to the world's attention the desperate conditions of Indian reservation life. World Premiere

The Yes Men Fix the World / France/ USA (Directors: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno and Kurt Engfehr)-A pair of notorious troublemakers sneak into corporate events disguised as captains of industry, then use their momentary authority to expose the biggest criminals on the planet. World Premiere

Park City at Midnight

The Carter / USA (Director: Adam Bhala Lough)-An in-depth, intimate look at the artist Dwayne "Lil' Wayne" Carter Jr., proclaimed by many as the "greatest rapper alive" World Premiere

Frontier

Lunch Break/Exit / USA(Director: Sharon Lockhart)-Lunch Break and Exit yield from Lockhart's timely new film and photographic series about the bleak state of US labor. In Lunch Break, a single tracking shot through a long corridor where workers take their lunch hour at the massive shipyard, Bath Iron Works in Maine, reveals how 42 workers spend their lunch break. In Exit, the frame constantly fills with teaming workers each day as they head for home after a long day's work.

O'er the Land / USA (Director: Deborah Stratman)-A meditation on our national psyche and the milieu of elevated threat, O'er the Land addresses gun culture, national identity, wilderness, consumption, patriotism and the possibility of personal transcendence.

Israeli director Ari Folman can't remember the time he spent as a 20-year-old IDF soldier during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. When a fellow veteran recounts his own haunting by a recurring nightmare from the war, a single vision appears from the mires of Folman's mind: He and two other recruits rise naked from a black sea like some modern myth, clutching machine guns, their somnambulant lurch toward Beirut's Corniche illuminated by flares in the night sky. Are these the Israeli flares that lit the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps? Folman knows he was there during the infamous massacre, when Phalangist militias stacked bodies high in the narrow alleys as Israeli commanders stood watch; the event burns on the edges of his subconscious. So he sets off to retrieve his own memory of the war by tapping the memories of his comrades--and in turn rouses the collective consciousness of a nation.

But memory is a strange beast. At once fallible and persistent, over time it inevitably colludes with imagination to reveal things that might have otherwise remained hidden. Objective truth, while the overt impetus of documentary, proves not only fallacious but less interesting than the subjective, visceral truths elicited from an imaginative retelling. Reality, we find, is only intelligible through imagination.

Thus Folman's journey to reconstruct his personal experience of the massacre, which a comrade agrees "is not stored in my system," takes on a life of its own, moving freely through dreams, memory--and the dynamic spaces in between.

From the beginning, Folman saw Waltz with Bashir as an animated feature, drawing inspiration from graphic novels--many coming out of post-war Bosnia. "If you look at this film," he says, "with [its] lost memory, dreams, war--which is pretty surreal--there is no other way to tell this story."

Funding this vision, and the challenge it poses to documentary stricture, proved more difficult. "The budget for the film was such a tough mission," says Folman. "People [in the industry] couldn't understand how it could be a documentary...and why they should support this kind of film."

Before sending a script to animation, Folman edited original footage of real-time interviews with several comrades whose memories of the war might overlap with his own, on which the drawings were modeled. This footage was then cut with their vivid, sometimes surreal visions of the war--which Folman thought would be best conveyed, "like a bad acid trip," by the artists' renderings.

Some scenes convey the unthinkable beauty of death; elsewhere, death is lyrical, poetic and absurd.

"There is a contradiction in the film," says the director. "It's really beautiful: War is horrific, but the design is romantic. I'm aware of that, and it's one of my main intentions to attract you as an audience."

The unorthodox use of animation makes us keenly aware of the form--and how we experience representations of war, violence and suffering.

In the film, a trauma specialist tells Folman about a soldier who walked through combat "looking at everything through an imaginary camera." Then, confronted with a field of slaughtered horses, his camera breaks. "Watching the war on film protected him." We might ask: does it protect us?

As much as Folman stresses the apolitical nature of his personal journey, it is disingenuous to remove the film from its wider historical context (Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the 17,000 Lebanese casualties that resulted, most of them civilian). Like all films dealing with contested or painful historical events, this one contributes to the social meaning of the event, and determines how we will remember it.

And as all documentary, it implies a responsibility to convey truth about history. Knowledge is subjective, but it is also shared.

In Lebanon, where the film will not be shown, Christians might notice that they are only represented by the Phalangist militiamen--barbaric, bloodthirsty, oafish, inhuman. Palestinians might recognize their victimized ghosts.

In Israel, where a recent surge of government funding has resurrected the national film industry, reception has been positive, with some criticism for leniency in portraying Israel's role in the massacre--or the conflict surrounding it. (At the time, Sabra-Shatila generated enough outrage to force then-defense minister Ariel Sharon to step down).

As it continues to rack up prestigious honors and stir critical acclaim, the film raises difficult questions for Israel, and the world is watching. Asked if he thinks Israel would have received Bashir similarly 10 years ago, Folman replies, "No. Five years ago, even three years ago, it would have been different. The second Lebanese war changed things. Israel was exposed to a lot of embarrassment. And the army was shown in a very embarrassing manner. It was on television, soldiers came back and spoke about the war. Compared to this reality, this is a cartoon movie."

It was also the government's "chance to show that it wasn't the army that did the massacre," he says. "This is a thing that the government couldn't buy in money, this propaganda. They understood that, and they went for it."

At the end of the film, Folman finds his way backwards to the moment he "realized" what had happened inside the camps, and the question arises, "What do these camps most resemble?" Indelibly pressed with the suffering of the six million who died in the other camps, the Israeli consciousness is quick to make the connection: A death camp is a death camp. The guilt, even by association, that weighs on Folman and his comrades (most of whom have parents who survived the Holocaust) reflects their own psychic weight of annihilation, and the wider context of the suffering of the Palestinians--not just at the moment of their execution.

Thus, when 45-year-old Folman is shaken from his coma, seeing his 20-year-old self finally realize why women run screaming from Sabra-Shatila, this ending is also a conception of sorts--a moment designed to cross boundaries. In the last frames of the film, Folman switches to real documentary footage of the aftermath inside the camps. The camera breaks. We awake from our dream, unprotected. The broken bodies and wailing women are no longer faceless, and speak almost as loudly as the silent suffering that still lingers.

Folman remains skeptical.

"I just don't think that films can change the world," he says. "How many Americans know about the massacre in Sabra-Shatila?"

Cautiously, the director will admit that he has opened a door. "If people walk out of the theater, go home and read about it," or if "teenagers see what war really looks like when you're a common soldier, then it's something."

Beige Luciano-Adams is a Los-Angeles-based journalist and former associate editor of Egypt Today and Business Today Egypt magazines in Cairo, Egypt. She is also co-founder and managing editor of EastsideLivingLA.com.

Day 7--Deliberation Day

We wrapped up our screenings and, following a final fantastic lunch and two more screenings, we sat down for two hours of bare-knuckled deliberations. Actually, the process was quite civil, with two films rising to the top of the Wolf pack, and one clear winner emerging among the Cubs. With more discussion, driven by our predominant criteria--does this film push the form forward?--and our subsidiary criteria--what is the best synthesis of subject, story, POV, form, style and relevance/timeliness?--as well as our independent visceral passions about our favorites, we came to a consensus with our third Wolf nomination and the other two Cub nominations. We felt so strongly as a group about the runner-up in the Wolf category that we awarded with a Special Jury Prize.

And who were the nominees? Well, dear readers, you'll have to wait until I present the nominations at the Talkshow on Day 9--which, since it will air locally in Amsterdam and on the web, will be my television and Internet debut!

That's Me in the Corner: The Silver Wolf/Silver Cub Competition Jury, wrapping up deliberations. Left to right: Jeanne Wikler, Tom White, Rik Stallaerts, Jess Search, Nishtha Jain. Photo: Jannie Langbroek.

Day 8--ParaDocs; Capturing Reality

Saddled with writing the Jury Report and prepping for its presentation, I nonetheless took time to explore a couple of the many programs at IDFA--in addition to the 307 docs that were apportioned among the seven competitive strands and ten non-competitive strands, there was The Forum, the pitching session of buyers and sellers; Docs for Sale, an emporium of viewing booths for distributors and festival programmers; and the Documentary Workshop. It's doc-tastic!

I opted for ParaDocs, a program that explores the outer edges of the documentary practice, via hybrid forms-not just fiction and nonfiction, but nonfiction and conceptual art and nonfiction and other artistic disciplines. The ParaDocs installment that I attended-in the ever-versatile Escape club-was an amalgam of ideas: choreography based on actual maneuvers by Israeli soldiers; a short film of a woman sitting at a desk talking about being a Taiwanese immigrant in the United States, while that same woman-the filmmaker-sits in silence at the same desk, situated below the screen...

While some of the pieces fell short of the mark, the most provocative was a reading from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a prelude to an excerpt from Renzo Martens' Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty (See IDFA: Days 2 and 3: Meet The Jurors), followed by a discussion with Martens himself. He lays the irony and postmodern self-reflection on thick; playing himself in the film as a conceptual artist, he visits the Congo, under the premise that poverty is Africa's biggest export, benefitting everyone from NGOs to journalists to photojournalists to, yes, documentary filmmakers, all of whom capture the stories and images for Western consumption. Martens, in the film, prevails upon the Congolese to take ownership of their poverty, that they could earn more from horrific images that they could from photos of weddings and parties. In addition, Martens creates a large neon sculpture that exclaims "Please Enjoy Poverty." In a Kurtz-meets-Fitzcarraldo gesture, he pays the Congolese five euros a day to transport this sign 20 kilometres, which he leaves as a parting gift.

Martens had no qualms about the fact that he himself would be benefitting from his film, and that we all benefit. "We're all complicit," he claimed. "The film is about showing the rule, rather than the exceptions.

In positing his claims of exploitation, Martens has perhaps created for himself a hall of mirrors in which one irony begets another. But perhaps he has also unwittingly entrapped himself in a Chinese box, in which one irony trumps another. Whether a postmodern conceptual documentary or a cynical repurposing of a kindler, gentler Kurtz for the 21^st century, Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty provokes further thinking about the storyteller and the story, and the filmmaker and his subject. Martens' premise is susceptible to many refutations, from the empowering works coming out of Witness and Pangea Day and the myriad of docs that have a difference in confronting poverty, and changing lives.

But if you really want a wry observation of post-colonial Africa from a post-colonial African perspective, why not showcase the works of Jean-Marie Teno instead?

Later that evening, I trekked to the most remote screening facility-at the Bibliotech, a beautiful 21^st-century library reminiscent in its translucence of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus' Seattle Public Library. I saw Pepita Ferrari's Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, which, as the title suggests, is a survey film, featuring over 30 of the greatest names in documentary talking about every aspect of their creative process, punctuated by clips from their films. At once exhaustive and exhausting, Capturing Reality has great value as an educational tool-and as a validation for why we do this in the first place. For more information about the film, click here.

Here's a clip from the film: