"...we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower With these foreboding and prescient words, President Eisenhower bade farewell to the White House. And it is that speech that opens Why We Fight, winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. "Why We Fight" is a difficult
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Doug Bruce, subject of Unknown White Male. Courtesy of Wellspring Media When filmmaker Rupert Murray heard about an old friend who had lost his memory overnight, he couldn't get the story out of his head: A 35-year-old stockbroker living in New York City finds himself riding the subway in Brooklyn with just a few random articles in his backpack. He has no idea who or where he is. He goes to the police department and is subsequently sent to the hospital in an ambulance. Since he has no identification with him, the nurses identify him as "Unknown White Male." But, thanks to a scrap of paper
Nonprofit media arts organization to collaborate with Web-based doc distributor.
It's been a year of epochal keynote addresses to the indie filmmaking community-bracketed by Mark Gill's gloomy "Yes, The Sky Is Falling" back in June at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Ted Hope's more sanguine "How the New Truly Free Filmmaking Community Will Rise from Indie's Ashes" at Film Independent's Filmmaker Forum two weeks ago. And somewhere in the stoical middle is the documentary community, facing a shrinking pool of opportunities among the traditional models of getting work out there, but entertaining a wealth of possibilities in the ever-mutating Web 2.0 world. In this spirit
They've been running for over a year, spending more time and more money than any Presidential candidates in history, each surviving grueling primary bouts with able opponents whom conventional wisdom thought had a better shot at earning a chair in the Oval office. Neither candidate is running as a party insider, and neither has been able to close the sale with the voters. If you don't already think you know all you need to know about John McCain and Barack Obama, then you've probably been in a coma for the last two years or sharing a cave with Osama bin Laden. For most, it's been impossible to
By Michael Galinsky We all need a beginning, a middle and an end....which is why filmmakers are drawn to elections and boxing matches. As it's election season, the political fights have started to pop up on screens large and small. FrontRunners, a high-stakes high school election drama, opens October 15 in New York City through Oscilloscope Pictures, and will roll out to cities across the country October 24. Filmmaker Caroline Suh was drawn to New York's Stuyvesant High School's student council presidential campaign after discovering that President Bill Clinton's political guru, Dick Morris, a
On Saturday, September 27, 2008, I attended “The Documentary Marketplace” panel at Film Independent’s Filmmaker Forum, which was held in Los Angeles at the DGA. The panel was gracefully led by the always articulate Cara Mertes, Director of the Documentary Film Program at the Sundance Institute. Panelists included Sasha Alpert (Vice President, BMP Films), Jackie Glover (Vice President, Documentary Programming, HBO), John Lightfoot (Program Manager, California Documentary Project), Richard Saiz (Sr. Programming Manager, ITVS) and Courtney Sexton (Director of Documentary Production, Participant
More than 60 election-themed films streaming for viewing.
Yoko Ono and EMI are dismissing their law suits against the filmmakers with prejudice.
DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival ( www.docpoint.info ) is full of surprises. Who would think to go to Finland for discovery of new Portuguese and Japanese films, or an intensive master class with Fred Wiseman? That is just what happened this January as the noncompetitive festival celebrated its fifth anniversary. Founded by filmmaker Arto Halonen, it is now ably run by Executive Director Kai Huotari and Artistic Director and noted filmmaker Kristina Schulgin. January in Finland is perfect for staging a documentary film festival. Long cold nights and short cold days make for a very