Call it "Docuwood," or Hollywood on the Potomac. The nation's capital is booming when it comes to documentaries. Take Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, Maryland, home to 14 channels. Close to the White House is the National Geographic Channel, the fastest growing network in the country. RealScreen Summit and Silverdocs have taken root here, too. PBS is a huge player, and the major fundersthe National Science Foundation (NSF), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)list the DC area as
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Some know Rosie Perez best for her distinctive, award-nominated performances in such films as Fearless and The 24-Hour Woman ; others will forever associate her with the "Fly Girls" from the 1990s TV series In Living Color . With the film Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas! (I'm Boricua, Just So You Know!) the multi-talented actress/producer/choreographer takes on a new role: feature documentary director. With a mix of personal storytelling and historical research, the film delves into the roots of Puerto Rican identity. Despite her celebrity status, Perez faced the challenges familiar to most
While the biopic has always been part of Hollywood filmmaking, with the recent successes of Capote , Good Night and Good Luck and Walk the Line , the genre is more popular than ever. That's great news to Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of PBS' American Masters , the award-winning and critically acclaimed biography series celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. "Those films provide an opportunity for new and future generations to find out about these amazing people and their contributions," says Lacy. "That's what we've been doing at American Masters, too, but we're way beyond
From Lauren Greenfield's Thin. Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival There was more complaining than I could remember at the 2006 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Along with a general malaise, audiences had a pretty bad attitude about the films this year. And to be honest, there wasn't that much stuff that rocked this writer's world. But here are a few things that did. Waking up at 7:00 in the morning to get to an 8:30 screening on the first day of the festival is becoming a tradition for me. This year it was for the Documentary Shorts program, the highlight of the bunch being the shortest
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