Nothing stirs you from your morning film festival slumber faster than hearing your own name mentioned out loud in front of a packed audience. There I was on day one of the CPH:FORUM at the CPH:DOX Festival minding my own business, studying my program guide, trying to stay upright on one of the festival's cushy couches in its brand new Social Cinema, when suddenly the words, "I was talking to Ken Jacobson of Documentary magazine…" drifted toward me from the front of the room. "Huh? What? Who, me? Could there possibly be another Ken Jacobson in this room? (It is Denmark, after all, where there
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Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering Monday, May 15 on HBO, as well as HBO Now and HBO Go, is Erin Lee Carr's Mommy Dead and Dearest, a true-crime mystery about a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life. The New York Times writes: "if you were still luxuriating in the feel-good aura of Mother's Day, this disturbing film will put an end to that." Also premiering Monday, May 15 at 10pm on Independent Lens, Maya Zinshtein's Forever Pure looks at a national scandal involving
In the 1970s, there were few American artists as brazen and as dangerous as the Los Angeles-based Chris Burden. His career-defining series of performances included being confined to a tiny locker for five days, taking a hostage on live TV, getting shot in the arm by a friend, and staging a crucifixion on the back of a Volkswagen Beetle. Years later, Burden transformed into a genre-bending sculptor and installation artist, creating audience-friendly works like the intense kinetic toy-car sculpture Metropolis and the highly Instagrammable L.A. landmark Urban Light, comprised of 202 ornate gray
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! Realscreen reports from Hot Docs on the ins and outs of funding applications, featuring Amy Halpin, Director of Filmmaker Services at IDA. Applicants don’t always properly contextualize their work sample. Halpin said people think the sample speaks for itself, but it needs to be contextualized: who are these
In humans and in landscapes, documentarians have two enormous subjects at their disposal without having to look far, and inexhaustible potential in the convergence of the two. At CPH:DOX's NEW:VISION, a competition that collects works from artist filmmakers working in a documentary mode, the landscape loomed large. From this year's selection, four films foregrounded the landscape, in varying ways and through various means. The latest film from prolific British filmmaker Ben Rivers, following a few films that have taken him in new directions, marks a return to more familiar territory, and also
URGENT! The new chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a former Verizon lawyer named Ajit Pai, is trying to kill net neutrality. Chairman Pai has announced a plan that would undo the strong, enforceable rules put in place in 2015 that protect the open Internet. Without net neutrality, Verizon, Comcast, and the other monopoly Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be able to start interfering with our ability as Internet users to control where we go and what we do online. The first vote on Chairman Pai's disastrous plan will be on May 18th, so we need to speak out today. Sign the
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Streaming on HBO Now and HBO Go is Tracy Droz Tragos's Abortion: Stories Women Tell. The film looks at its subject through the stories of women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, abortion providers and clinic staff and activists on both sides of this contentious debate. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com wrote: "Some stories are among the most resonant I've heard in a documentary this year." Premiering Monday, May 8 on World Channel's Local, USA - and streaming through
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! Realscreen speaks to alumni of the Hot Docs Forum about making their projects stand out in the documentary market. When it came to the basics of pitching, Levison said a successful pitch should be broken down into three basic principles: What's the story you're telling, why does it need to be told, and why are you
"This exciting game is filled with betrayal, alliances, and surprise attacks. On the battlefield, anything goes! …. The player who completes his or her secret mission first—and reveals the Secret Mission card to prove it - wins. And remember... when it comes to taking over the world, it’s all about who is willing to take the biggest Risk." – from the description of Risk, the Game of Strategic Conquest, from toy manufacturer Hasbro's website. The above description of the board game Risk, coincidentally created by Oscar-winning French documentary filmmaker Albert Lamorisse ( Le Vent des amoureux
Since IDA’s DocuClub was relaunched in 2016 as a forum for sharing and soliciting feedback about works-in-progress, three DocuClub alums have premiered their works on the festival circuit this past month. In an effort to both monitor and celebrate the evolution of these films to premiere-ready status, we reached out to the filmmakers just prior to their festival premieres. To launch this series, we contacted Nathan Fitch, producer/director, and Fivel Rothberg, producer, of Island Soldier. They premiered the film at Full Frame Documentary Festival and subsequently screened it at Hot Docs this