Keri Putnam, who recently served as president of production for Miramax Films, has been named executive director of the Sundance Institute. Ken Brecher, her predecessor, stepped down last April. Putnam is scheduled to start her new position in mid-April.

"In the spirit of moving forward with new ideas and a fresh approach in the environment that surrounds us, Keri's appointment reflects the new direction in which Sundance Institute is headed," Robert Redford, the institute's founder and president, said in a statement. "Keri Putnam has a passion for the arts, a leading profile in the film community, and a stellar reputation for her intelligence, creativity, collaboration and leadership at the highest levels of business," said Redford. "Working together to expand our international presence, connect to new audiences, and experiment with emerging areas of artist support, I have every confidence Keri's knowledge and talent will be critical to the fulfillment and expansion of the Institute's mission and vision in the years ahead."

As executive director, Putnam will oversee all programs of the 29-year-old, nonprofit Sundance Institute, which include its Feature Film Program, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Film Festival, Film Music Program, Theatre Program, and Native and Indigenous Program. She will also be responsible for continuing the Institute's international work, initiating strategic partnerships, cultivating relationships with foundations and corporate sponsors, and growing the Institute's annual operating budget.

"Throughout my career I have witnessed the breadth and impact of the many programs of Sundance Institute, and I am both thrilled and privileged to become a part of this organization's leading work," Putnam said in the statement. "Sundance is truly unique not only for its mission but for its entire culture, brand and influence. This is an incredible opportunity for me personally and there is also tremendous potential for all of us--staff, trustees, alumni and friends alike--to explore new opportunities and expand on our global reputation. I can't wait to get started."

Prior to joining Miramax in 2006, Putnam was executive vice president of HBO Films, responsible for overseeing the development and production of feature films for both the cable network and for theatrical release. From 1996 to 1999, Putnam served as vice president, HBO NYC Productions.

A graduate of Harvard, Putnam studied theater and began her career working for Williamstown Theater Festival, McCarter Theater, Arena Stage, the ART, and others. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Today's theme: Hello and Goodbye...

Austin-based distributor, marketing and festival scheduler B-Side is closing effective March 1. CEO and founder Chris Hyams announced the news in a post on the B-Side blog, citing economic pressures and the ongoing upheaval in the film business as the reasons behind the decision of their investors to stop funding the company. He writes, "The timing is especially disappointing, as the past year has been our best ever. In 2009, we opened our New York office and launched a new distribution business, successfully releasing 8 films. We grew to 220 film festival partners worldwide and started off 2010 with our widely praised Sundance collaboration." IDA worked with B-Side for the 2009 DocuWeeks event, and we'll be sad to see them go. 

Another online video site has bit the dust. As reported in VideoNuze, Veoh is closing shop. The site was never quite able to best YouTube at the user generated content game, and when they switched to premium content aggregation, Hulu came along to ruin that party for them. In addition to male-skewing featured categories such as "Popular Anime," "Cool Sci Fi" and "Beautiful Girls," Veoh had a "Documentary and Biography" section which included selections ranging from 1925 Battleship Potemkin to short pieces on the atom bomb and marijuana. 

On a happier note, Quentin Tarantino has saved classic movie house New Beverly Cinema from being turned into a generic storefront! Owned and operated by the Torgan family since 1978, the theater had hit hard times in the mid-2000s. It was at that point that the Inglorious Basterds director began making regular contributions to help keep the theater's doors open. When family patriarch Sherman Torgan passed away unexpectedly in 2007, the Torgan's discovered that they had right of first refusal to find another buyer, and Tarantino stepped in. While I doubt he'll be manning the popcorn counter anytime in the near future, keep an eye out for specially curated evenings that have the Tarantino stamp.  [Source: The Hollywood Reporter]

The Cove director Louie Psihoyos blogs about the adventure in getting his Oscar-nominated doc out to the world at The Wrap. Find out about the film's comparisons to Avatar (yes, that Avatar), how it's inspired Quentin Tarrantino to think about making a doc and more.

Strand Releasing has acquired all U.S. rights to Picture Me, a documentary by Ole Schell and Sara Ziff about the glitzy world of high fashion modeling, from photo shoots with celebrated photographers to runway shows in New York, Milan, and Paris. New York-based Paladin acquired Angela Ismailos' doc Great Directors, which celebrates films and filmmaking by interviewing ten of the world's most acclaimed living directors. The documentary had its world premiere at the 2009 Venice Film Festival.

Make some time for these must-reads: The profile of film critic Roger Ebert in Esquire is simply amazing. Then slum it for a bit and find out how reality TV has changed all of us over the last decade in a great Time magazine piece.

Hot Docs launched its new Doc Library at www.hotdocslibrary.ca. Featuring hundreds of Canadian films and videos, the Doc Library offers free access to homegrown documentary work, with full-length features by some of the country's leading non-fiction filmmakers.

Geeks rejoice! Rumors are that Joss Whedon and Morgan Spurlock are teaming up to make a documentary about the superfans who attend the annual comic book/geekfest Comic-Con in San Diego, CA every year. Word on the street is that they're casting for it now.

Presidents, new and old, are always good subjects for docs. Filmmaker Jeff Deutchman has tried to capture the hope, experience and emotions wrapped up in the last presidential election with his doc 11/4/08, shot cinema verite-style by his friends from around the globe. And he hopes to get more footage from everyone with a special website project which will kick off after the premiere.

Lots of acquisitions recently! Here they are, in alphabetical order:

As reported in indieWire, former Warner Independent Pictures colleagues Paul Federbush and Laura Kim, along with investor Ron Stein, announced a newly launched distribution company, Red Flag Releasing, along with their first acquisition, Reed Cowan's 8: The Mormon Proposition, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Red Flag will handle theatrical and VOD releases for the film, which is slated to premiere this spring.

Magnolia Pictures acquired the North American theatrical rights to Lucy Walker's Countdown to Zero, about nuclear proliferation in the 21st century. Countdown to Zero is produced by Participant Media, which also handled Robert Kenner's Food, Inc. and Alex Gibney's Casino Jack and the United States of Money, which Magnolia will release in April. Countdown to Zero, which will also air in History in the future, will arrive in theaters this fall.

Sweden-based NonStop Entertainment will distribute Marina Zenovich's Emmy Award-winning Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired in Scandinavia.

As reported in Screen Daily.com, HBO snatched up broadcast rights to Adrian Grenier's Teenage Paparazzo, at the European Film Market in Berlin. Grenier stars in the series Entourage, which also airs on HBO.

North American rights to Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze's Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak comes out on DVD March 2 through Oscilloscope Laboratories to coincide with the DVD release of Jonze's cinematic rendering of Senadak's classic Where the Wild Things Are. The documentary will air on HBO later this year.

The Weinstein Company acquired theatrical and DVD rights to Amir Bar-Lev's The Tillman Story. A&E Indie Films, which produced the film, will air the film.

Film Movement picked up Beadie Finzie's Only When I Dance for a theatrical and VOD release this summer.

Finally, New Yorker Films, which ceased operations in March 2010 after an impressive 44-year run, got a reprieve last week in the form of Aladdin Distribution LLC, a Los Angeles-based company launched in late 2009 by David Raphel, a former president of Twentieth Century Fox International; Christopher Harbonville, a producer formerly associated with the Cambridge Film Group; and Hani Musleh, a former investment banker. Aladdin acquired New Yorker Films, along with its library of some 400 titles, which include such documentaries as Claude Lanzmann's Shoah; Nicolas Philibert's To Be and To Have; and Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect.

Jose Lopez, former business partner of New Yorker Films founder Dan Talbot, has been named president, and Peter Marai has been hired as Acquisitions Consultant. According to an article in indieWire, Talbot will focus on the exhibition side of things, overseeing his Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. "I started as an exhibito and I'll end as an exhibito," Talbot told indieWire.

New Yorker Films is committed to continue releasing quality art and independent films from around the world. The company plans to acquire six to eight titles each year for theatrical release. The non-theatrical and home video departments, both integral parts of the company, will continue acquiring and releasing numerous films.

New Yorker Films has a legendary legacy, boasting a long-standing track record in foreign film distribution, bringing a staggering number of international auteurs to American movie theaters for more than four decades. The company's illustrious roster of directors whose films were released by New Yorker Films includes Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Louis Malle, Wim Wenders, Errol Morris, and many others.

The buzz around the nearly dialogue-free documentary Babies, which follows four newborns in four corners of the world for the first few months of their cute lives is building louder than, well, a baby's hungry cry.

The trailer was first seen last fall, and even had cranky bloggers like Andy Dehnart of Reality Blurred stating: "I’m not that fond of babies, especially the way some adults respond to them, especially if they’re sitting one row behind me on a five-hour flight, but this documentary looks fascinating."

A recent piece in USA Today proclaimed "Parents, movie fans are cooing over Babies documentary" and spotlighted not only the director (French documentarian Thomas Balmes, father of three), but the babies also in separate pieces.

James Schamus, the head of Focus Features which is releasing the film, said in the article: "It is 80 minutes of jaw-dropping wonder. The great thing about babies is you can never direct them. They never do something fake."

You'll have to wait until the movie's release date of April 16 to be the judge of that. Until then, the trailer will have to pacify your cravings for cuteness.

My partners Suki Hawley, David Beilinson and I tend to focus on immersive documentaries about subjects that are in process. As such, we can't wait around for grants. If we don't start shooting, we miss all of the action. From an artistic viewpoint, it's the only way to get the films done, but from a financial perspective, it's lunacy. Recently, after shooting our doc Battle of Brooklyn, about an eminent domain case pitting Brooklyn residents against a real estate developer, for over six years with only one medium-sized grant, we successfully carried out a kickstarter.com campaign to raise $25,000 to keep the project afloat.

Kickstarter is an arts funding site that utilizes the power of game theory to notch up fundraising energy. What sets it apart from other crowd-sourcing ideas is the fact that it's an all-or-nothing situation. The artist sets a fundraising goal and a timeline (up to 90 days). If the goal isn't reached in the time allotted, the artist gets none of the pledges. The artist also sets rewards for different pledge amounts to incentivize supporters. Before we launched our Kickstarter campaign, we did some research and we followed a few projects to see how they worked. We saw that as projects neared the end of their time limit, there was a flurry of pledging activity that pushed them past their goal. It appeared that even projects that didn't seem capable of reaching their goal shot way past it. 

My brother does research on negotiation. In one study, he and his colleagues examined eBay auctions of a certain type of camera. They found that the cameras that were offered at a very low opening bid sold for much higher than ones that started out with higher bids. Their research demonstrated that people who bid when the price was low became emotionally invested in the process and tended to bid repeatedly. I think that the same theory holds true with Kickstarter (and was borne out through our anecdotal evidence). People who pledge towards a project become invested in seeing the project succeed, so they are likely to reach out to others to help reach the goal.

We set a fairly high goal of $25,000, with a pretty short timeframe of 30 days because we believed it was a reachable goal that we could focus on. We set up a wide range of pledge rewards from $10 for a download of the film in the future to $2,500 for a producer credit. We expected that the majority of people would pledge $25 for a DVD when the film was finished.  As such, we tried to put together a list of 50 to100 people we could reach out to and enlist them as partners in our goal. We wanted these people to aim to get 10 other people to support the project. In addition to reaching our goal, it was important for us to have as wide a base of support as possible, because we wanted to prove to foundations and possible TV partners that there was a great deal of interest in the subject of our film.

During the course of our filming, we refrained from reaching out for funding from the local community that was fighting the eminent domain case because we didn't want to cannibalize the support that was needed to fund the fight, and it felt like a conflict of interest to get support from the community that we were documenting. However, eminent domain abuse is an issue that has interested parties throughout the country. We compiled a list of groups that might help us spread the word about the film, and we reached out them before launching.

In addition to lining up potential supporters, we also developed an implementation strategy that included figuring out potential rough and deleted scenes to post as updates each day to keep piquing interest in our campaign. Once people become backers of a project, they get alerts about every update, and we knew that blogs were likely to pick up some of the more controversial ones that would help us spread the word. For example, one scene in our film shows Bertha Lewis, the head of ACORN, proclaim at a press conference that they were working with the renters in the project footprint to ensure they were treated fairly. After the conference, our main character pleasantly confronts Lewis with the fact that the renters are all being kicked out. She replies that she hasn't actually started to work with the tenants--but she plans to....With ACORN in the news due to the "hooker/pimp" gotcha video, we knew that this scene would get play on other sites--and point back to our Kickstarter project. Lastly, we decided to stagger support from both individuals who would give larger pledges and groups that could reach large amounts of people because we didn't want to blow out all our steam in the first few days.

By the time we were ready to launch, we had lined up about 15 to 20 people who had committed to helping us spread the word, as well as several groups and websites that were against eminent domain abuse that pledged to help us out. Within a few minutes of launching, a close friend of ours pledged at the $2,500 producer level. This simple act of kindness gave us a huge boost and almost instantly legitimized our efforts. Our status bar pointed out that we were 10 percent funded, which signaled to others that we had a reachable goal. Over the next few days we slowly clawed our way to 20 percent funding, and then it leveled off for a few days.

Over the course of our campaign, I personally wrote back to every supporter, thanking them and gently urging to spread the word to friends. I'm not sure that it helped significantly, but it was important to me to acknowledge that even the $10 pledges gave us a huge boost emotionally. After working for so long below the radar, it was a great feeling to have people backing what we were doing. Once things had leveled off, we had one of the groups supporting our goal, The Institute for Justice, send out an e-mail mentioning the campaign, and we saw a flurry of activity that carried on for a couple of days. We repeated this type of strategy with other groups over the coming weeks.

By the time we had two days left to go, we were only 65 percent of the way there. I was a little worried, but I figured that the Kickstarter effect would go into overdrive--and it did. Over the next 48 hours, we had a steady stream of pledges that picked up steam as we got closer to our deadline. At 7:00 p.m., with five hours to spare, we crossed the $25,000 mark with nearly 400 supporters. The vast majority of our supporters pledged at the $25 level, but we also had a number of $50, $100 and $500 pledges. I talked with a lot of people who told me that they were constantly watching the progress all day and thinking of other people to send the link to. As we suspected, they became invested in the process and became our essential allies in reaching our goal.

For us, raising that $25,000 won't exactly get us to the end of our film. It was a lot of work, but it was huge boost for us. Over all, the process worked for us because the film had a large set of untapped affinity groups that were interested in supporting a project on the subject of eminent domain abuse. We did research before launching so that we could set up a clear, executable plan of action to reach our goal. In addition, when things slowed down we continued to brainstorm and reach out to friends despite the fact that we feared we were bothering people. We knew that they knew that we had invested six years of our lives in the project, and as such we knew that it was OK to push them a little bit.

Michael Galinsky is a filmmaker/father based in Brooklyn, NY.  After over six years of filming, he and his partners Suki Hawley, and David Beilinson are nearing the completion of Battle of Brooklyn. www.rumur.com /battle

It's been tough to get Japanese distributors for the film because of the controversy it generated in the country. The doc, directed by Louie Psihoyos, is about the international dolphin capture trade practiced in Taiji, Japan.

The movie was previously screened at the 2009 Tokyo Film Festival to a sold-out audience.

This is a big win for Psihoyos and his team who has been focusing on the film's impact over the award recognition it's been getting. When Psihoyos heard about his Oscar nom, he told the IDA exclusively: "The reason the Oscar nomination is so important for me is because it's the most watched program in Japanese television. I didn't get into movies to win awards. I got into making this movie to start a movement to save the ocean. I've been trying to give the oceans a voice and an Oscar nomination amplifies that voice."

In other Cove/award news, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has determined the nominee credits for the Best Documentary Feature nominee. The Academy's Documentary Branch Executive Committee announced yesterday that the official nominees are director Louie Psihoyos and producer Fisher Stevens.

In a statement, the Academy said, "(R)ules for the documentary feature category state that a maximum of two persons may be designated as nominees, one of whom must be the credited director, and the other of whom must have a producer or director credit."

Yet, February 19, 2010 marks the 20th Anniversary of Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe is getting together with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) to celebrate the anniversary of the software that changed the face of photography and design forever.

The Photoshop 20th anniversary celebration on February, 18 at 7:30 p.m. PST will be streamed live and feature Photoshop luminaries including NAPP's Scott Kelby, John Loiacono, Adobe Senior Vice President and General Manager, Creative Solutions Business Unit, NAPP Photoshop gurus Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski, Adobe Photoshop star Russell Brown, and other key members of the Adobe Photoshop team. This fun-filled night will feature a walk through Photoshop history, a glimpse into the future, and celebrates all things Photoshop.

It's easy to attend--and you don't even have to leave your computer to do it! Sign up at http://www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th, and come back to that page on February 18 at 7:30 p.m. PST to take part.

For Love of  Liberty: The Story of America's Black Patriots premieres on  PBS stations in February in commemoration of  Black History Month in the United States. The two-part, four-hour documentary is introduced by Colin Powell, hosted by Halle Berry and narrated by Avery Brooks.

The film takes audiences on a journey through the history of how African-American patriots have served the country from the revolution against the English monarchy through today's war on terror.

It's a treasure trove of little-known history with words culled from diaries and letters, speeches, newspaper and magazine articles. There are no talking heads. The words are narrated by some 50 volunteers, including Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Kris Kristofferson and Bill Cosby.

As powerful as the words are, For Love of Liberty would be a compelling and remarkably informative documentary if it were a silent movie. The images include re-enactments of history, as well as paintings and drawings, but the most compelling visuals are the still and motion pictures dating back to the dawn of the age of  photography. It's one thing to read or hear someone tell you that African-American soldiers went to battle with Teddy Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War. It is a totally different experience to see it happening with your own eyes.

The genesis of the making of  the documentary dates back to 2000, when filmmaker James Crite found an intriguing book at a garage sale. The title was Black Americans in Defense of  Their Country. The book was published by the Department of Defense when Colin Powell was chairman of  the joint chiefs of  staff.

Crite instinctively felt that the book could be the foundation of an important documentary. He brought his idea to Lou Gossett Jr ., who readily agreed and suggested that Crite contact documentary filmmaker Frank Martin.

"That's how I got involved," says Martin, who is based in Los Angeles. "When I delved into the subject, I realized how relevant the topic is to all Americans, because it's an important part of our history that most of us don't know about.

"It's not a story about Black history," Martin maintains. "It's about American history. I felt it was important to find a way to tell this story from a first-person perspective, using the words of people talking about their experiences."

That was the beginning of a 10-year journey for Martin, who co-authored the script, produced and directed the film. There were no grants funding the project. It was a labor of love for Martin and the people who supported him in this ambitious endeavor.

"It wasn't like we uncovered some secret stash of letters," Martin says. "There have been many books dealing with this subject, including Grand Army of Black Men, which is about African-Americans in the Civil War. It contains many letters. We also found slave narratives on the Internet. It just took digging. A lot of people wrote to say they heard what we were doing, and enclosed letters from their fathers and grandfathers who had fought on the beach at Normandy and in battles in Korea and Vietnam."

Officials at the Pentagon and at veterans organizations provided access to their archives, which included letters, still photographs and posters. But it was no walk in the park for Martin, who travelled to 21 states and various countries in Europe. "We made this documentary the old fashioned way," Martin continues. "We begged. For instance, Air France donated air plane tickets to and from France, and Southwest Airlines gave us free tickets to travel around the country.

 "Producing a documentary like this one is like being an archeologist," he points out. "You are sifting through old bins of film looking for scraps of history. We found thousands of still photographs and hundreds of  hours of  film in archives and in rusty cans in people's homes. The earliest film we found were the Buffalo Soldiers marching off to the Spanish-American War in 1898. John Goodman narrates a newspaper article that was published by The Washington Post while those images are on the screen: ‘If it had not been for the Negro Cavalry, Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders would have been exterminated.' We also found color film of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American pilots who flew P-51 Mustang airplanes during World War II."

For Love of Liberty: The Story of America's Black Patriots flows from era to era. Martin says one of the unifying visual principals occurred to him while he was at Arlington National Cemetery. He realized that one thing stories from different eras had in common were the tombstones of people whose letters and diaries were used. "A lot of the people whose stories are told died in combat," he explains. "We traveled all over the world filming their tombstones. It's a powerful testament to them. We asked ourselves, Why did they give their lives in defense of a nation that treated them worse than second-class citizens? The answer is that they were fighting for liberty."

Martin cites a letter written during the Civil War by an African-American, who said, "I would be willing to fight for three years for this government without one cent of the mighty dollar. Liberty is what I am struggling for." That theme was repeated in the letters and diaries of African-Americans who served their country in every war.   

"People have asked me, Why would you spend 10 years making a documentary?" Martin says. "The answer is that it became an obsession, because I was telling a really important story. Some documentaries that I've made are important if you're a film buff. I worked on MGM: When the Lion Roars for two-and-a-half years, and won an Emmy. I'm proud of that film, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important.

"Making this documentary was a process of discovery," he continues. "How many people know that every battle [in which] people in this country fought for liberty had Black heroes? Most of us also don't know how unfairly most African-Americans soldiers were treated. Did you know there were no Medals of Honor awarded to Black soldiers during the First or Second World Wars? One Black soldier who fought in World War I had a Medal of Honor presented to him by President George H. W. Bush. President Bill Clinton presented Medals of Honor to seven Black veterans who fought in World War II. You see reflections of that in our current culture. Patton was a wonderful movie, but the only Black face was the general's orderly. That's just wrong. Patton's army was rescued by the 761st Tank Battalion; they were called the Black Panthers. They were amazingly heroic fighters, but you never hear about them. That's what kept me working on this film for 10 years."

On the brighter side, Martin points to director Ed Zwick's 1989 movie Glory, which highlights the heroism of members of a brigade of Black soldiers during the Civil War. "But that's about it in popular culture," he laments. "How many people have heard about the Harlem Hell Fighters, the Black Panthers or the Black soldiers who fought in the Revolution? The First Rhode Island Regiment did amazing things, but their members were still denied citizenship and rights that most of us take for granted. Nobody knows about any of these things, and that's the thing that surprised me the most. I was in a supermarket not too long ago. I was killing time at the magazine stand flipping through a World War II photo book. It was an inch thick, and filled with wonderful pictures, but there wasn't a single Black face, even though a million or more African-American soldiers fought in that war." 

Asked what his biggest challenge was during the production of For Love of  Liberty: The Story of America's Black Patriots, Martin replied without hesitation, "Picking the right material and editing it down to size."

Bob Fisher has been writing about documentary and narrative filmmaking for nearly 40 years, mainly focusing on cinematography and preservation.

Opening:                    January 31
Venue:                       Camp Hill, PA (opening of national tour)
Film:                          Takedowns and Falls
Dir./Prod:                   Todd Hickey
Distributor:                Self-distributed
http://www.takedownsandfalls.com/

Every autumn thousands of wrestlers throughout Pennsylvania begin their seasons with the dream of making it to the PIAA State Championships. Few ever make it and even fewer win. But, for all who try, the journey to obtain the most elusive titles in high school wrestling is one of dedication, pain, sacrifice, failure and triumph.

Takedowns and Falls tells the story of a group of Pennsylvania teens and their relationships within a high school wrestling team on a journey to attain a state championship. It chronicles  a season of the Central Dauphin Rams in Harrisburg, PA, and highlights the sacrifice of its athletes, the commitment of their families and the dedication of its coaches. Inspired by their love of the sport and their coaches, this group of teens grows up before our eyes, in an attempt to over-achieve and do the impossible. 

Opening:                    February 11
Venue:                       Anthology Film Archives/NYC
Film:                          American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein                       
Directors:                   David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier
Distributor:                Typecast Releasing
http://www.americanradicalthefilm.com/

American Radical is the probing, definitive documentary about American academic Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israel and US Middle East policy, and author of five provocative books including The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein has been steadfast at the center of many intractable controversies, including his recent denial of tenure at DePaul University. Called a lunatic and disgusting, self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity and nationhood.

From Beirut to Kyoto, the filmmakers follow Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among both supporters and critics, providing an intimate portrait of the man behind the controversy while giving equal time to both his critics and supporters.

Opening:                    February 12
Venue:                       Quad Cinema/NYC
Film:                          Barefoot to Timbuktu
Director/Writer:          Martina Egi
Producer:                  Mesch & Ugge AG
Distributor:                Self-distributed
http://www.barefoot2timbuktu.com/

A film about tolerance, conflict and friendship between cultures.
Araouane, a settlement in the middle of the Sahara, seven days by camel from Timbuktu.... In 1989, the once prosperous oasis was disappearing under encroaching dunes, when the noted Swiss-American artist Ernst Aebi passed through on a caravan. The population's destitution leaves a deep impression on him. Trying to help them becomes an obsession for Aebi because attempting the impossible satisfies his quest for adventure.
Aebi, one of the pioneers in the transformation of New York's SoHo factory spaces to lofts, stays for three years in the desert and becomes so engrossed in the project that he is willing to bury his capital there. Under his guidance, the village awakens to a new life: a productive vegetable garden, a school and even a small hotel rise from the barren sands.
A civil war in Mali forces Aebi in the early '90s to escape "his" village. He leaves behind a blooming oasis and a family of friends who await his return.
Except for a few earlier unsuccessful attempts, almost 20 years pass until Aebi is finally able to get back, on a journey between hope and doubt.
Barefoot to Timbuktu cleverly weaves archival and new material into a fascinating portrait of an out-of-the-ordinary

Opening:                    February 12
Venue:                       Gene Siskel Center/Chicago
Film:                          Life as Lincoln
Director:                    Caitlin Grogan
Distributor:                Self-distributed
http://splitpillow.com/lincoln/index.html

More than 300 men across the country live and work as Abraham Lincoln impersonators, or presenters. From a former White House staffer to a truck driver, these men vary in appearance, age, background, and creed. Despite their differences, Lincoln presenters share the common goal of introducing their audiences to the principles Lincoln cherished.
Life as Lincoln explores the lives and ambitions of three of these presenters who live in the states that Lincoln called home: Larry Elliott in Kentucky, Murray Cox in Indiana, and Lonn Pressnall in Illinois. Each man shares the common responsibility of presenting Lincoln admiringly, yet honestly. But for each presenter, Lincoln has come to represent something different-a sensitive thinker who was simultaneously buffeted by emotion and rooted in reason, a judicious diplomat whose political and personal ethics intersected, and a deeply noble man who was guided by spiritual and familial devotion. The meaning each presenter has found in Lincoln defines both his presentations and the principles he carries throughout his own life.

Opening:                    February 12
Venue:                       IFC Center/New York
Film:                          Videocracy
Director:                    Erik Gandini
Distributor:                Lorber Films
http://www.lorberfilms.com/videocracy/videocracy/

How can you explain what has happened to Italy in the age of its current prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi? Videocracy is director Erik Gandini's critically-acclaimed inquiry into the mercenary underbelly of the high-glitz, low-politics, skin-baring media culture promulgated by Berlusconi's ownership of the majority of the country's television stations - a powerful tool in shaping public opinion to his financial and political benefit. Approaching the material as both insider and outsider, Gandini (Gitmo: The New Rules Of War) gains remarkable access to the opulent world of Berlusconi's associates and the armies of willing wannabes that swarm around them, examining the key players (and their conflicted interests) and unveiling a modern Italy as both comedy and tragedy.

Opening:                    February 19
Venue:                        W Scottsdale/Scottsdale, AZ
Film:                           Blood into Wine
Directors:                    Ryan Page, Christopher Pomerenke
Distributor:                 Self-distributed
http://www.bloodintowine.com/

Blood into Wine is the widely anticipated documentary that shares the story of Tool/A Perfect Circle/Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan and his mentor, Eric Glomski, as they pioneer winemaking in the hostile deserts of Arizona.
Maynard's various musical entities have sold over 30 million records worldwide. His band's have headlined the world's most prominent music festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Roskilde while the man himself has reveled in revealing little of his personal life.
On stage Maynard dresses in costume and stands in the shadows as an affront to typical rock star theatrics. He even bolted from Los Angeles just as his band began to pay off, leaving behind a potentially lavish lifestyle for the craggy rocks of Northern Arizona, settling into an area of 300 residents and a rumored ghost town.
Blood into Wine gives unprecedented insight into Maynard's world and his motivations for taking on the arduous task of bringing winemaking to the region's unforgiving landscape and how winemaking fits into his creative trajectory. 

October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of an American family struggling for stability while haunted by the ghosts of war, teen pregnancy, foster care and child abuse. A collaboration between filmmaker Michael Palmieri and photographer and family member Donal Mosher, this vibrant and penetrating documentary examines the forces that unsettle the working poor and the violence that lurks beneath the surface of American life.
Every family has its ghosts. The Mosher family has more than most. Shot over a year from one Halloween to the next, the film creates a stunning cinematic portrait of a family who are unique but also sadly representative of the struggles of America's working class. The film was created to be both a universal story of family struggle and a socially conscious portrait of compelling, articulate individuals grappling with the forces that tear at their homes and relationships.
Combining the access only available to a family member with an intimate visual style of a filmmaker encountering the family's dynamics for the first time, the film gives a deeply personal voice to the national issues of economic instability, domestic abuse, war trauma, and sexual molestation. As the Moshers do their best to confront their ghosts, we confront the broader issues that haunt us all in the continued struggle for the American Dream.

Opening:                    February 19
Venue:                        Cinema Village/New York City
Film:                           Phyllis and Harold 
Director:                     Cyndi Kleine
Distributor:                Rainbow Releasing
http://www.phyllisandharold.com/

Phyllis and Harold is an astoundingly frank journey through a disastrous 59-year-old marriage. Drawing on a lifetime of her family's home movies and interviews made over 12 years, filmmaker Cindy Kleine mixes reportage, cinema verité and animation to uncover family secrets and tell a story that could not be shown publicly as long as her father was alive. Phyllis and Harold delves into the mystery of time passing, the nature of living a life, and the challenges of losing those we love.  But it is also a loving, funny expose on the sins of suburbia. Imagine Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage seen through the prism of I Love Lucy.

Opening:                    February 26
Venue:                        IFC Center/New York City
Film:                          The Art of the Steal 
Director:                     Don Argott
Distributor:                 Sundance Selects
http://www.sundanceselects.com/films/the-art-of-the-steal

In 1922, Dr. Albert C. Barnes created The Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion Pennsylvania, five miles outside of Philadelphia. He formed this remarkable collection of Post-Impressionist and early Modern art to serve as an educational institution. 
Dr. Barnes built his foundation away from the city and cultural elite who scorned his collection as "horrible, debased art," and set it on the grounds of his own home, an arboretum in the leafy suburbs. Tastes changed, and soon the very people who belittled Barnes wanted access to his collection.
When Dr. Barnes died in a car accident in 1951, he left control of his collection to Lincoln University, a small African-American college. His will contained strict instructions, stating the foundation shall always be an educational institution, and the paintings may never be removed. Such strict limitations made the collection safe from commercial exploitation. But was it really safe?
More than 50 years later, a powerful group of moneyed interests have gone to court to take the art--recently valued at more than $25 billion--and bring it to a new museum in Philadelphia. Standing in their way is a group of former students who are trying to block the move. Will the students succeed, or will a man's will be broken and one of America's greatest cultural monuments be destroyed?

Opening:                    February 26
Venue:                        Cinema Village/New York City
Film:                           Prodigal Sons 
Director:                     Kimberly Reed
Distributor:                 First Run Features
http://www.prodigalsonsfilm.com/

Returning home to a small town in Montana for her high school reunion, filmmaker Kimberly Reed hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother, Marc. But along the way she uncovers stunning revelations, including his blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender that forces them to face challenges no one could imagine.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Best Documentary Jury Prize at NewFest, and Special Jury Prizes for Fearless Filmmaking at the Florida Film Festival and Bravery in Storytelling at the Nashville Film Festival, Prodigal Sons is a raw and provocative examination of one family's struggle to come to terms with its past and present.