When Chris Furbee picked up a camera to document his mother's struggle with Huntington's Disease, he used it as a tool to understand not only her struggle, but his own as well. Eighteen years later, with the help of his editor, Herbert Bennett, he's crafted Huntington's Dance, the kind of naked and honest film that gives all of us insight into coping with long-term illness. He was gracious enough to take some time out to talk with us about the film. Documentary: Your film feels very aware of and conversant with the history of documentary, yet it doesn't feel formal. At the beginning of the
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There's a whole genre of films about filmmaking, and a lot of them are documentaries. Elliot is a new addition to the canon. What happens when two no-budget documentarians team up to make a film about two no-budget martial arts filmmakers? Not what you might expect. We talked with Matthew Bauckman and Jaret Belliveau about the making of the film. Documentary: How did you come to make Elliot ? Matthew Bauckman & Jaret Belliveau: We first found out about Elliot after reading several newspaper articles about him and Linda Lum. Elliot was promoting himself as an accomplished martial artist and
Like many sports documentarians, Allan Luebke looked to Steve James' Hoop Dreams for inspiration when he set out to make Glena, a film about a women's mixed martial arts fighter. He then expanded the scope of his influences, and dug deep to pull together a character-driven vérité doc that brings the audience into the fighter's world. It's a story about staying balanced when one gets pummeled by life. Documentary: How did you come to tell this story? Allan Luebke: By total accident. I was producing a talk show for a small independent television channel in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge, and I
In viewing all of the documentaries that are in competition at Slamdance, I found a wealth of styles, tones and subjects. Glena and Sometimes I Dream I'm Flying were the most observational. However, while the title character, Glena, often talks to the filmmakers, the ballet dancer at the heart of Sometimes I Dream I'm Flying floats through the film with almost zero awareness of the camera, giving it perhaps the most "cinematic" feel of all of the films. I spoke briefly with the director/producer Aneta Popiel-Machnicka about her film and her process. Documentary: How did you come to be involved
Edward Landler of the Motion Picture Editors Guild composed an in-depth recap of our Editors on the Art of Storytelling panel.
In the winter of 2012 a community theatre in Birmingham, Alabama mounted an original drag musical, Skanks in a One Horse Town. Skanks follows the actors and creators from rehearsal through performance, at work, at their homes, and with their families. The cast of amateur performers bond to form a family of sorts while creating an unconventional show in religion- and football-obsessed Alabama. Documentary: How did this film come to be? David McMahon: I saw a production of an earlier Billy Ray Brewton original play called We Three Queens a few years before Skanks came to be, and I was struck by
'Vanishing Pearls' opens in theaters April 18 in New York and Los Angeles, through AFFRM.
'If You Build It' opens January 24 in Los Angeles.
Remember the time you were up until the wee hours of the morning the day before a grant deadline? The stress you endured, the pots of coffee you consumed trying to format an unwieldy proposal that just wouldn't behave. What about that time you discovered the perfect grant for your film but realized you'd missed the submission deadline...by a day? As we are probably all too aware, not staying abreast of what's happening in the fundraising landscape could result in missed opportunities or unnecessarily driving yourself and your team into a panicked frenzy trying to meet a cramped deadline. How
Tonight at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the International Documentary Association announced plans for the Documentary Film Conference 2014. Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the conference will take place October 2 through 4 in Los Angeles. Under this inaugural year’s banner "Getting Real", the Documentary Film Conference 2014 is a 3-day national conference that will serve as a major platform for critical discourse on the most pressing issues affecting the documentary film community. With major focus centered on the areas of art, impact, and