Dear Community, I had prepared a different column for you, but post election, everything is different. This nation is as divided as it can be. We've long talked about two Americas, but now half of us are waking up in that stark reality. It seems the others feel they have been living it for years. These Americas are made up of radically different experiences, media and Facebook feeds, each in a distortive echo chamber, with scant substantive dialogue or sense of shared truth. Disconnection and a steady stream of uncontested lies have brought us to this moment. So what now? To move forward, we
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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 The New York Times, Brooks Barnes reports that climate change is the main theme of Sundance 2017. As the pre-eminent showcase for American independent film, Sundance sets the pace for what art house audiences will be watching for the coming year. Mr. Cooper and Mr. Groth said that they decided over the summer
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 Filmmaker, AMPAS board of governors member Roger Ross Williams opens up about the documentary shortlist process. "Naturally, films that appear at top festivals get more attention and press. The doc branch consists of working filmmakers and industry professionals, so they see films at festivals or hear about
Editor's Note: Some of the greatest documentaries of all time would be inconceivable without their protagonists to drive the stories and keep us viewers enthralled. From the Beales to the Friedmans, from Bob Dylan to Bob Flanagan, these real-life people were transformed, through the dynamic collaborative processes with their respective filmmakers, into indelible and engaging characters of cinema. And it's thanks to the access and intimacy that these protagonists granted to the filmmakers that these films were made in the first place. So when writer Lauren Wissot proposed a column in which she
Right smack-dab in the middle of Awards Season - two months after the Toronto/Telluride/Venice triumvirate and two months before the Academy Awards nominees announcement - the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences stages its annual Governors Awards; call it "the lifetime achievement awards for those whose careers merited an Oscar or two, but who somehow fell through the cracks." While the Governors Awards may lack the global cachet and frenzy that define the Academy Awards, this ceremony, staged at The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood last November, more than
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 Indiewire, five tips from a filmmaking community ready to stand up to Trump. "This is not the time to compromise or shy away from the truths that we see, because there's going to be a lot of pressure to not tell those stories and to not get them on air," said filmmaker Dawn Porter, adding that in some southern
Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe's latest documentary, The Bad Kids, is an intimate portrait of at-risk students at Black Rock Continuation High School, located in Yucca Valley, California, within the Mojave Desert. The teachers at Black Rock High are trying to make a difference one student at a time. They accomplish this not by lecturing from the front of the classroom, but by moving among the student body, engaging each student individually, asking questions about both their school work and their personal lives. Black Rock is a safe haven for listening, sharing and understanding, and this is not
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 Business Insider, Jason Guerrasio reports the story of a filmmaker's Netflix deal gone bad. Atkinson said he wanted to go public with his experience because he wanted filmmakers and fans of Netflix to understand that for as much good as Netflix was providing mass audiences with exceptional content, he believed
December 14, 2016 Public Relations Department Corporate Communications Division Canon One Canon Park Melville, NY 11747 Dear Canon, We, the undersigned documentary filmmakers and photojournalists, are writing to urge your company to build encryption features into your still photo and video camera products. These features, which are currently missing from all commercial cameras on the market, are needed to protect our safety and security, as well as that of our sources and subjects worldwide. Without encryption capabilities, photographs and footage that we take can be examined and searched by
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 Columbia Journalism Review, Judith Matloff reports on the legal challenges that documentary filmmakers may face in the Trump era. Documentary filmmakers tend to gravitate towards topics like whistleblowers and corruption, which make them vulnerable to legal action. They are more exposed than reporters, because