Marina Goldovskaya's newest film Art and Life: Finding the Thread. L.A. Diary with Peter Sellars offers an intimate portrait of the famous avant-garde artist, opera and theater director, activist and professor. The 57-minute film was shot over the course of six years, and moves between the Sellars' complex private and public worlds. The film screened in February as part of the UCLA Documentary Salon. The Salon is an ongoing program of screenings and events for the Los Angeles documentary community.

Alan and Susan Raymond report that they will be receiving this year's CINE Trailblazers Award at the 46th Annual CINE Golden Eagle Film and Video Awards in April. The Raymonds also received an America at a Crossroads Research and Development Grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for Feeling at Home in America, a cinema vérité profile of teenagers from a large Arab-American community that explores how the events of September 11, 2001 have changed their lives and their sense of identity as Americans. The Raymonds' recent work, The Congregation, profiles a progressive United Methodist church in the midst of profound change as it struggles with the arrival of a new minister and must reinvent itself under new leadership. It aired on PBS in December.

Producer/director Christopher Toussaint has been awarded the annual Roy W. Dean LA Film Grant for his proposed one-hour documentary special The Secret Life of Water. The $50,000 grant is comprised of production goods and services donated by film and video companies, and was started in 1992 by Carole Dean to fund films that are "unique and make a contribution to society." In Toussaint's film, scientists and physicians will demonstrate how so-called "structured" water can be a powerful new tool in cleaning up and vitalizing our bodies and the environment. The production is seeking additional funding and has already interviewed several leading experts.

While in the middle of production on her documentary on Roman Polanski's controversial court case, Marina Zenovich was driving down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles with her boyfriend Peter. As they were approaching the El Rey club, he pointed out the marquee, which said, in big letters, "Dear Marina, Will You Marry Me? Love Peter XO." Once she regained control of the car, she said yes.

Ray Zone reports that his book 3-D Filmmakers: Conversations with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures has just been published through Scarecrow Press. Go to www.scarecrowpress.com.