In 1993, Chuck Schultz received a call from an actress named Sharon Washington, who had been told by a friend that he could help her tell the story of how she grew up in a New York City library. He didn’t make a film at this time, but three years later they started dating. A few years after that, they got married. Then, in 2017, as Sharon began writing a one-woman show based on her life, Chuck thought this was finally the perfect opportunity to make a film. A mix of interviews, animation, and verité, When My Sleeping Dragon Woke follows Sharon as she faces the difficulties of creating a play
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First Look, the Museum of the Moving Image’s (MoMI) film festival, annually introduces New York audiences to new cinematic talent and audacious experiments with form. Faithful to this mandate, this year’s 12th First Look, which ran from March 15 to March 19, showcased more than two dozen adventurous works spanning across geographies and genres. Two well-known fiction titles were the 2022 Belgian-French drama by the Dardenne brothers, Tori and Lokita, which also had its theatrical release in the United States in March, and Lola Quivoron’s Rodeo (2022) . The selection of short films also
Dear Documentary Magazine Readers, I’m Abby, the Director of Artist Programs at IDA, and I’m writing to introduce myself as the interim editor of Documentary magazine. First up: in this newsletter, you will find links to pieces from Documentary magazine’s winter 2023 issue, which focuses on reverberations from Getting Real '22. They include new provocations building off of conversations started at our biennial conference, attendee reports, and the publication of all three inspiring keynote talks from documentary stalwarts Nanfu Wang, Anand Patwardhan, and Erika Dilday.
A caption in Alison O’Daniel’s film The Tuba Thieves (2023) refers to “quiet air”—a description of sound but also of sensation and (shared) substance, reattuning what it means to listen away from hearing and toward the material means by which listening occurs. When I experienced the film at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight 2023, fresh from its premiere at Sundance, the way I listened to this quiet air was not just through my ears. Balloons were distributed to each audience member, conducting vibrations into our hands. Held together with a room full of other people holding balloons, literally holding their
During the height of the pandemic, I participated in SXSW virtually, which meant watching films online from my living room couch, which didn’t invite the same emotions I felt at festivals in person. Thankfully, I was able to go to Austin for the first time this March, and I hit the ground running. It was an experience full of remarkable films, brilliant filmmakers, delicious barbeque, and confident networking.
Bitchitra Collective: Indian Women in Documentary announces their inaugural cohort for the Bitchitra Collective Film & Media Fellowship. The seven selected filmmakers are based in India and the US and of Indian heritage. Each will receive a grant of $2,000 for an ongoing short or feature-length documentary project, in addition to a year-long mentorship with an established filmmaker. Bitchitra Collective was started at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to raise emergency funding to support audiovisual artists in India. Members of the collective include established filmmakers Nishtha Jain (
Responding to the “permacrisis”—a 2022 “word of the year” meaning “an extended period of instability and insecurity” and the title for one of the talks at this year’s CPH:DOX film festival and conference in Copenhagen—was a prevailing theme at this season’s March event.
Mexican director Rodrigo Reyes (Mexico City, 1983), makes films deeply grounded in his identity as an immigrant artist, crafting a poetic gaze from the margins, using striking imagery to portray the contradictory nature of our shared world, while revealing the potential for transformative change. He has received the support of The Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), Sundance, and Tribeca Institutes, while his films have screened on PBS and Netflix. His film “499,” won Best Cinematography at Tribeca and the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs. Rodrigo is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim and
Wesleyan University is a liberal arts college located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831, Wesleyan is a school “where critical thinking and practical idealism” are encouraged to intermingle. With a student body of approximately 3,000 undergraduates and 200 graduate students, it boasts alumni as varied as composer/writer/director/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, filmmaker Michael Bay and writer/director Joss Whedon. However, we would be remiss if we did not mention that other Wesleyan alums include Fulbright Scholars, MacArthur “Genius” Grant Fellows, Academy Award winners, and Nobel Prize
Over the past week, IDA collected tributes to Judith "Judy" Heumann from those who knew her and were influenced, advised, or galvanized by her disability rights activism, mentorship, and relational world-building. These written memorials are introduced by Jim LeBrecht, who wrote a piece that places Judy's interest in documentary film and the representation of people with disabilities in context within our nonfiction film ecosystem. Judy Heumann was a mentor and friend for over 50 years. Called “the mother of the disability rights movement,” Judy was that and so much more. Her connection to our