My career in documentary film began when I was brought on as a production assistant for Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor's Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race, about the former mayor of Los Angeles. During the four-year period on which I worked on the film, I ended up taking on the role of primary archival researcher. The work came at a perfect time for me: I had only been in Los Angeles for a short time, so working on the film gave me the opportunity to learn about the history of my new city. I have since researched several films at various stages of production, as well
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Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Monday, February 5 is TCM's Day of Documentaries, devoted to docs that won or were nominated for Academy Awards. Set your DVRs! Screening at 8pm is Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, a look at former Vice President Al Gore's commitment to expose the myths and misconceptions that surround global warming and inspire actions to prevent it. The film won the 2006 Oscar for Best Documentary, and is also streaming for free on VUDU. Screening at 9:45pm is Rob Epstein's The
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! At Oscilloscope Musings, John Redding & B.A. Hunt consider "the two Werner Herzogs" and the insidious effects of branded content on documentary. After Lo and Behold played Sundance, several reviewers mentioned NetScout had provided the funding, but not one writer took that detail further. Critics focused on the
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Now streaming at Hulu is Neil Berkeley's Gilbert, a poignant portrait of one of comedy's most iconic figures, Gilbert Gottfried. Premiering tonight, Monday, January 29 on HBO is Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio's May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers, which follows the popular Americana band as they record their album True Sadness. Premiering tonight on Independent Lens is Nanfu Wang's I Am Another You, in which the filmmaker explores the meaning of persona freedom
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! At Electronic Frontier Foundation, Daniel Nazer outlines an amicus brief urging the California Court of Appeal not to let celebrities censor realistic art. A huge range of expressive works—including books, documentaries, television shows, and songs—depict real people. Should celebrities have a veto right over
Yesterday, the IDA filed an amicus brief in support of defendants FX Networks and Pacific 2.1 Entertainment in a case brought by plaintiff Olivia de Havilland in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In a decision related to FX's broadcast of the fact-based docudrama series Feud: Bette and Joan, the Court ruled against FX and Pacific 2.1, holding that it is against the law for a filmmaker to make an unauthorized portrayal of a celebrity with the goal of "mak[ing] the appearance of the [celebrity] as real as possible," using a "literal depiction or imitation of a celebrity" if that use can be
For this column at least, January has become what I'll call "mental differentness" (as opposed to "illness" or "disability") month—a chance to celebrate those who refuse to be "fixed" by (and thus incorporated into) society, who instead choose to valiantly live their own truth, in parallel realities far from our own. A year ago Michelle Smith, star of Garrett Zevgetis' Best and Most Beautiful Things, and a proud kinky nerd who happens to be legally blind and has Asperger's syndrome, inaugurated this column. And now Dylan Olsen, vagabond protagonist of Nanfu Wang's poetic and important I Am
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering tonight, Monday, January 22 on Independent Lens is Peter Nicks' The Force, which presents a fly-on-the-wall look deep inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to confront federal demands for reform, a popular uprising following events in Ferguson, Missouri, and an explosive sex scandal. Premiering Friday, January 26 on Netflix is Dirty Money, an investigative series that exposes blatant acts of corporate greed and corruption. Episode
The International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced thirteen grants to films through its Enterprise Documentary Fund and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund totaling $205,000.
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! At Moviemaker, Ryan Stewart lists the best big cities to live and work as a filmmaker. Whether you're a contented Southerner who'd like to get out of dodge but continue living and working below the Mason-Dixon line, or you've got your hot new passport in hand and are weighing the pleasures of life in Vancouver vs