Brazil evokes a wealth of associations, from soccer to samba, but recent films such as City of God, Bus 174 and Favela Rising have pointed up the gross class disparities that the post-Cold War global economy has wrought in South America's wealthiest country. When the very rich and the very poor cohabit such huge cities as São Paolo, corruption and violent crime rule the day. Kidnappers and kidnap victims, corrupt politicians, bullet-proof car manufacturers, plastic surgeons, cops, prosecutors, money launderers...and frog farmers: these are the players in Jason Kohn's Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
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Over the next week, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work will be represented in the DocuWeek TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, August 17-23. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films-the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far. So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Bruce Broder, director/executive producer of Chops. Synopsis: Chops tells the story of a group of kids, born with extraordinary musical ability, who learn to make the most of their gifts in an
Twenty years after launching The Real World, MTV hopes to reinvent Reality TV all over again with The Buried Life, a new nonfiction series that captures four young men traveling the country performing community service. " The Buried Life feels more like a documentary than anything we've ever done," Brent Haynes, MTV's senior vice president for series development, declared at the "Future of Reality TV" panel the WestDoc Conference in Santa Monica, California, this past September. And that's no accident. According to Haynes, MTV's core demographic (12 to 24-year-olds) is, like, totally over self
In the nearly two years since IDA with other film organizations launched the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, the rapidity of its adoption has been almost startling. "I never anticipated, frankly, that the Statement would have such an immediate effect," says Professor Peter Jaszi, one of the facilitators of the creation of the statement and the lead legal counsel behind it. The Statement clarifies when it is safe for a filmmaker to assert fair use, which is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material under certain circumstances. The clarification makes it
The adventure behind 'The Cove,' Hot Docs new Doc Library, a possible Comic-Con doc, more.
Suindance Channel's THE GREEN; Discovery Communications' Planet Green; National Geographic's Preserve Our Planet
Heddy Honigmann is a name woefully under-recognized in our American doc culture. We might find a reason for this exclusion in her relatively un-American themes--chiefly, memory and exile. While memory may seem relatively neutral, exile is a theme commonly oppositional to a national philosophy espoused by The Melting Pot. America has a reputation that relies on diversity as much as it does assimilation, and to this end, exile is only a transitional state. For Honigmann, exile is far from transitional; rather, it connotes cultural communion and fiercely maintained traditions. Honigmann's
Acquisitions roundup: 'Teenage Paparazzo,' 'Countdown to Zero'; '8: The Mormon Proposition' and more!
Covers of Wholphin, the magazine/short film distributor hybrid A wholphin--by definition, "a hybrid cross between a 400-pound bottlenose dolphin and a 4,000-pound false killer whale"--may sound like some schoolyard myth, but is, in fact, real. Also real are the countless filmmakers toiling away to make their visionary labors of love, only to have them be seen by a handful of loyal loved ones. That is, until recently, when the convergence of new technology, the Internet and cinephiliac visionaries has allowed for new hybrids of mediated content to reach viewers like never before. Fans of