I. Acquisitions

Audience of One (Dir.: Michael Jacobs)--Elephant Eye Films

http://www.indiewire.com/buzz/080511.html#012310

Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin' with the Godmother (Dirs./Prods.: Billy Corben and Lisa M. Perry)--NonStop Entertainnment: all Nordic rights

Bigger Stronger Faster (Dir.: Chris Bell; Prods.: Alexander Brono, Jim Czarnecki, Tamsin Rawady)--NonStop Entertainment: all Nordic rights

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=story&id=1061&articleid=VR1117985091&cs=1

Global Metal (Dirs.: Scot McFadyn and Sam Dunn)—Warner Home Video: US, UK and Mexico Home Video Distribution Rights.

I Am Because We Are (Dir.: Nathan Rissman; Prod.: Madonna)—Fortissimo Films: International Rights.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985212.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=3078

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine (Dirs.: Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach)--Arthouse Films: Worldwide Rights (excluding North America).

http://www.indiewire.com/buzz/080511.html#012300

Of Time and the City (Dir.: Terence Davies)—British Film Institute: UK Distribution Rights

http://www.oftimeandthecity.com/

Planet B-Boy (Dir.: Benson Lee)—MTV: US Television Rights; Arts Alliance America: US Home Video Rights. http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/05/cannes_08_biz_d_2.html

RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy (Dir.: Shane O-Sullivan)—The Documentary Channel: US Television Rights.

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=doc051608.htm

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Dir./Prod.: Marina Zenovich; Prods.: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Lila Yacoub)—THINKFilm: Domestic and Home Video Distribution.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=story&id=2470&articleid=VR1117984873&cs=1

Yasukuni (Dir.: Li Ying)—Film Library (Hong Kong): International Sales.

http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6081/1&nid=3597

II. Cannes-Do

Just in time for Cannes, Davis Guggenheim is following up his Academy Award-winning An Inconvenient Truth with a subject far removed from global warming: the electric guitar. It Might Get Loud features The Edge, from U2; Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Jack White of the White Stripes, all telling the story of the electric guitar, and getting together for a jam session. Thomas Tull, Lesley Chilcott and Peter Aterman are producers.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=cannes2007&jump=story&articleid=VR1117985122&cs=1

The late Laszlo Kovacs, ASC and Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, fled their native Hungary as the Soviet tanks rolled in to crack down on the 1956 revolution. The filmmakers eventually landed in Los Angeles, and although their storied careers over the next 50 years would be primarily in fiction film, their story is the subject of a new documentary from James Chressanthis: No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo and Vilmos. The film is premiering at Cannes. Here’s a story from Student Filmmakers.com:

http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/news/article_1656.shtml

Michael Moore has been trolling around Cannes—not with a film this time, but drumming up buzz for a sequel to his monster hit—and Palm d’Or winner—Fahrenheit 911. Moore has secured Overture Films and Paramount Vantage as partners. Here’s the story from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/VR1117985577.html

Waltzing with Bashir, Ari Folman’s animation doc about the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, has been getting a fair amount of attention at Cannes. Here’s a review from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=review&reviewid=VE1117937141&nid=2853

III. Indie Blues

Sundance Channel, long rumored as a target for acquisition, has indeed been sold—to CableVision, owners of Rainbow Media, which, in turn, owns IFC and AMC. CableVision paid $496 million for the Channel, whose previous owners were NBC Universal, CBS Showtime and Robert Redford. Time will tell whether such an acquisition will strengthen the Channel, since it’s distinguished its brand with such series as The Staircase, Iconoclasts, Transgeneration and Nimrod Nation and such initiatives as The Green. Such a strong slate could impel IFC and AMC to step up their respective games. But then again, any acquisition implies a significant adjustment to a different corporate culture for the acquired entity, as well as a concomitant consolidation of resources (read: layoffs and budget cuts) for the acquirer. Here’s the story from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985215.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

In another tale of the perils of consolidation, Time Warner, which had shuttered up operations at New Line/Fine Line a couple of months ago, announced that it would close Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, as well. Not that either of those division were chock full of docs—March of the Penguins was one of the few nonfiction titles between the two—but what does this mean for the future of specialty titles? Will Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage be next on the chopping block? If docs are henceforth to be marketed, packaged and released with the same tools and strategies as with studios releases, my guess is that these docs will either die a quicker death or they’ll be taken out of the hands of the filmmakers and into the hands of MBA-trained moguls and re-worked beyond recognition. Here’s a report from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/VR1117985299.html

And amid reports of the troubled financial conditions of THINKFilm and Capitol Films surrounding the halted production of Nailed, the relatively muted release of Then She Found Me, and the unpaid fees for Alex Gibney for his Taxi to the Dark Side, one has to speculate whether THINKFilm’s appetite for docs may have been a tad too voracious, in the face of the box office slump of 06 and 07. For much of this decade, the company has been a true friend of docs, and in the early going, had some genuine hits with Spellbound, The Aristocrats, Born Into Brothels and The Story of the Weeping Camel. But things have been quiet since then; THINKFilm’s best performing doc, In the Shadow of the Moon, performed way below expectations. One has to see if two summer releases, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World and Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, will help restore some luster and luchre.

Discovery Films is another possible casualty, according to AJ Schnack's blog. Discovery Films came of age in partnership with Lionsgate for Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man. But then there was In the Shadow of the Moon. Discovery, too, is banking on Encounters at the End of the World, and another lauded doc feature, James Marsh’s Man on Wire, which Magnolia is releasing this summer. Perhaps this is the ongoing extreme makeover of the David Zaslav era, which began with the exit of Billy Campbell, one of the prime movers of Discovery Films in the first place.

IV. Orphan Works

While the IDA and other media arts organizations have toiled diligently to make Orphan Works legislation a reality, thereby aiding filmmakers seeking to use works whose copyright holders cannot be tracked down, photographers have an altogether different take on the issue. Here’s a piece from the Advertising Photographers of America newsletter:

http://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:8349.1071372704/rid:712d1896d63354aac93ee33f63c6335a

And here’s an op-ed piece from The New York Times, along with 25 comments. The majority of opiners come out against both the House and Senate versions of the bill. At issue are the terms and extent of the “diligent search” that one must prove prior to acquiring the rights to use an Orphan Work; the expense in registering and back-registering one’s work; the vulnerability of one’s work to be posted on and downloaded from the Internet, unbeknownst to the creator of that work; and the plight of the independent contractor, who more often than not creates works on a work-for-hire basis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

V. Indie News

In a recent press release, Seymour Wishman, president of First Run Features, and Jonathan Miller, president of First Run/Icarus Films, announced that First Run Features had sold its interest in First Run/Icarus Films back to the company. First Run/Icarus Films is now wholly owned by Miller, who will continue as president of the company. Additionally, First Run/Icarus Films will change its name to Icarus Films, as of June 1, 2008.

First Run/Icarus Films was formed in 1987 when Icarus Films (founded in

1978) and First Run Features merged their non-theatrical divisions to create a new company to serve the non-theatrical marketplace.

Founded in 1979, First Run Features is a leading distributor of fiction and documentary films, with a library of approximately 450 titles. First Run releases between 10 and 15 films annually in theatres, and around 50 new films per year on DVD. Recent releases have included Michael Apted’s 49 UP, Daniel Karslake’s For The Bible Tells Me So and Oren Jacoby’s Constantine’s Sword.

First Run Features (www.firstrunfeatures.com) will continue its distribution in the theatrical, home video, and television markets, and also offer many of its titles to the non-theatrical market through Icarus Films. In the coming months it will announce plans to offer a select number of its titles directly to the non-theatrical market exclusively through a new division of First Run Features.

First Run/Icarus Films (www.frif.com) is a leading distributor of documentary films in North America, with a library of almost 900 titles and releasing approximately 50 new documentary films each year. Recent releases have included I for India (Dir.: Sandhya Suri), and Forever (Dir.: Heddy Honigmann). Upcoming is Nina Davenport’s Operation Filmmaker, opening at the IFC Center in New York on June 4.

Arts Engine, the brainchild of Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur, just celebrated its tenth anniversary. Arts Engine is the parent company of MediaRights.org, one of the earlier searchable online databases of social issue docs, and the Media That Matters Festival. Here’s a piece about that first decade from Agnes Varnum, for indieWIRE:

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/05/doc_column_arts.html

Representatives from Arts Engine Leading are among the Lab Leaders for IFP’s Documentary Lab this summer. The selected projects for the Lab, and their respective artistic personnel, are the following:

Burning in the Sun--Cambria Matlow (Dir./Prod./Writer/DP); Morgan
Robinson (Dir./Prod./Writer/DP); Claire Weingarten (Exec. Prod.)
The Hand of Fatima-- Augusta Palmer (Dir./Writer); Chris Arnold (Prod./Editor)
Mine: Taken by Katrina--Geralyn Pezanoski (Dir./Prod./Writer); Erin Essenmacher (Prod.)
Ocean of Song and Dance--Ngawang Choephel (Dir./Prod./Writer); Tim Bartlett (Editor)
The Presence of Joseph Chaikin-- Troy Word (Dir./Prod./Writer/DP); Encke King (Writer/Editor)
The Stranger's Land-- Xavier Marrades Orga (Dir./Prod./Writer/DP/Editor)
Tijuana, Nada Más--Yolanda Pividal (Dir./Prod./Writer); Carmen Vidal (DP); Sara
Booth (Editor)
Ulises' Odyssey-- Lorena Manriquez (Dir./Prod./Writer); Miguel Picker
(Dir./Prod./DP/Editor)
Up With People--Lee Storey (Dir./Writer); Bari Pearlman (Prod.)
The Visitors --Melis Birder (Dir./Prod./Writer/DP/Editor)
http://www.ifp.org/ifpnews/newsitem.php?id=602

Abel Raises Cain, Jenny Abel’s endearing doc about her prankster cum conceptual artist father, Alan Abel, was a hit on the festival circuit in 2005, having won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance, was only recently released on DVD. Jenny Abel talks about the making and marketing of her and Jeff Hockett’s film with Independent Films Direct:

http://www.independentfilmsdirect.com/content/view/2340/82/

In another grassroots tale, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer have been wedded to their film Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea for quite some time. The filmmakers chat with The Independent’s Fernanda Rossi about the pains and pleasures of making their film and getting it out around the world:

http://www.independent-magazine.org/node/1103

Guy Maddin screened his latest film, My Winnipeg, which he dubs a “docufantsia,” at Tribeca, and, while he was in town, spoke with journalist Dennis Lim at the Apple Store. Here’s the story from indieWIRE:

http://www.indiewire.com/people/2008/04/iw_profile_my_w.html

III. New and Future Docs

Dori Beninstein followed up her 2005 film Showbusiness with two docs this year—Some Assembly Required, about a competition featuring child inventors, and Gotta Dance, about a group of senior citizens who are part of the first senior hip hop dance team of the New Jersey Nets professional basketball team. Here’s an interview with Berinstein from MovieMaker.com:

http://www.moviemaker.com/producing/article/dori_berinstein_has_gotta_dance_20080501/

Kim Dong-won’s 2004 documentary Repatriation, a four-hour epic about relations between North Korea and South Korea through the stories of individuals who were repatriated from the North to the South, won an award at Sundance and went on to screen at IDA’s DocuWeek. Dong is back with 63 Years On, an examination of the plight of the Korean “comfort women” who were forced by the Japanese into sexual slavery during World War II. The film is screening at festivals around the world. Here’s a story from Variety:

http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6067/1&nid=3597

When he’s not judging competitions for Nokia and Babelgum, making commercials or scrambling to finish a World War II-era feature for an October release, Spike Lee is prepping a documentary about basketball great Michael Jordan, financed by the National Basketball Association. Lee aims to have that doc finished in time for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Here’s the story from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=story&id=2505&articleid=VR1117986150&nid=2853

VI. Festivals

Doc Alliance is a new consortium of five leading doc festivals in Europe will select five outstanding documentaries to be showcased at each festival. This initiative is to encourage more adventurous work and get it in front of commissioning editors who attend these festivals. Here’s the story from FilmFestivals.com:

http://www.filmfestivals.com/cgi-bin/shownews.pl?obj=ShowNews&CfgPath=ffs/filinfo&Cfg=news.cfg&news=festival&text_id=32170

Here’s the line-up of the Los Angeles Film Festival. The Documentary Competition boasts eight world or US premieres:

http://lafilmfest.com/dev/films.php

VII. TV

Spike TV announced its new slate of testosterone-fueled nonfiction series, befitting of the male-dominated audience this channel targets. So, get ready to sink your chompers into River Men, Tank and Cobra, Human Predators, USA vs. The World and Idiot Hall of Fame. Here’s a report from WorldScreen.com:

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=spike050808.htm

Nobel Laureate, Emmy winner and docu-star Al Gore recently announced that he’s opening up an office for Current TV in Italy, which joins the US, UK and Ireland as the countries that air the online channel founded by the ex-US VP. Here’s the story from Variety:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985296.html?categoryId=19&cs=1&nid=3078

VIII. Other News

The Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University (CA) launched a new scholarship initiative to develop documentaries abroad with the intention of bringing attention to the efforts of Non-Governmental Organizations in different countries. For the inaugural project of this program, two faculty members and five students will travel to Cambodia for a two-week residency. Here’s the link:

http://ftv.chapman.edu/news/press/051208001.cfm