Major figure in Arab cinema challenged Syrian rule in his work.
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Assignment: Write an article on whether or not documentary filmmakers should pay their subjects. Dilemma: What's to discuss? Conventional wisdom in journalism says don't pay. Never. Ever. Veteran docmaker Jon Else, also the director of the documentary program at University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, maintains, "Paying people to talk to you poisons what they tell you. Would you trust a New York Times article if you knew the reporter had paid the subject to talk?" Paying compromises the subjects, and colors their intentions-so the thinking goes. Subjects may end
I have attended the Sundance Film Festival since the late 1990s, but this year marked my first time as a first halfer. The salient differences between the first and second halfs? More people, more parties, splashier premieres, fewer doc-specific panels, longer waits, more e-mails. And the thrill of discovery may have been more palpable with the launch of the 2011 edition. First, The Parties, and the highest wattage one was the OWN party, which IDA and Sundance Institute co-presented. Bold names abounded at the Sundance House/Kimball Art Center: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato were there with
US State Department program takes nonfiction media around the world.
Perhaps it was from celebrating the festival's 10th anniversary through the rousing rituals of a sauna, ice swim and night of Finno-Balkan beats, but the DocPoint Festival, which ran from January 25 through 30, in both Helsinki, Finland, and Tallinn, Estonia, made a wry virtue of Finnishness. Witness the welcome letter from Executive Director Leena Närekangas and Artistic Director Erkko Lyytinen to festival guests: "The Finno-Urgic bloodline obliges us to behave in a peculiar way. Our way of expression is stiff and brief...[In the Q&As] don't get depressed if there is not exactly a rain of
Nonfiction Summit Explores What's Next in programming.
With sold-out screenings, lively Q&As and impassioned audiences, the 22nd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) drew a record 132,000 attendees out of the sunshine and into theaters in January. Of the 205 films screened, 43 were feature documentaries, including four world premieres. A combination of submissions and films sought out by PSIFF programmers from other festivals and industry contacts, the documentary line-up featured a wide range of current international and US-made nonfiction films. "It's an eclectic round-up in content and style," says Ken Jacobson, the festival