Dear IDA Members: Most of us involved in the nonfiction world must travel to accomplish our goals of production, research or sales. Travel today is easier in some ways than ever before. Yes, we all groan at the thought of long security lines and crowded airports, but being away from home is a lot easier than it used to be. Now when I check into a hotel room in France or Washington, I am provided with wireless Internet service; no more odd modem connections. E-mails are a snap—no more trudging down into the dungeon "business-office." Telephone service also has surprisingly improved for long
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Dear Readers, A few weeks from now, the furious spate of political documentaries that has dominated the big and small screens will come to a crescendo with the latest "most important election of our lifetime." Or will it? The D-Word Community recently devoted a week to the subject of political documentaries, with Jehane Noujaim ( The Control Room; Startup.com) and Pamela Yates ( When the Mountains Tremble; Witness to War) leading the discussion, under the always capable stewardship of D-Word founder Doug Block. The panel inspired debates about the difference between social issue docs and
Liberia: An Uncivil War . Photo: Michael Kamber. Courtesy of Discovery Times Channel" src="http://www.documentary.org/images/magazine/2005/LiberiaUncivilWar_Jan2005.jpg" style="width: 647px; height: 411px;"> "In this nation of ours, the final political decisions rest with the people. And the people,so that they may make up their minds, must be given the facts, even in time of war, or perhaps especially in time of war." -Paul Scott Mowrer, Editor, Chicago Daily News Their dispatches have whipped up patriotic fervor, brought down governments, stopped wars and soothed worried mothers. Their
Tarnation arrived in 2004 without much initial fanfare, premiering in the Frontiers section of the Sundance Film Festival. But after the first screening, the buzz was on about a mind-blowing, genre-defying work of art that was made for $218.32 on Apple's iMovie. The next two screenings were packed, and by the end of the festival, Jonathan Caouette was anointed The Next Big Thing of 2004. Then there was the 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes, the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the packed audiences at the Toronto, New York and Chicago Festivals, the feature
Jehane Noujaim, the co-honoree of the Jacqueleine Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award, entered Harvard in the early 1990s with the intention of becoming a doctor. But the rigors of the pre-med program, combined with the lure of the photography and filmmaking courses that were offered there, compelled her to shift academic majorsand career paths. But not entirely. "The part about being a doctor that appealed to me was being able to have a job where you're needed in all parts of the world in some way," she reflects. "To be working with people and helping people. I guess the connection I found is
William Greaves is one of the most respected independents in the film and television production field. In addition, he is considered the dean of independent African-American filmmakers and through the years has helped to launch the careers of many young Black filmmakers. He has produced more than 200 documentary films, eight of which have won more than 70 international film festival awards, an Emmy Award and four Emmy nominations. Greaves was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1980; he won an Emmy for his work as executive producer of the classic public affairs TV series Black
The quest for freedom and the restraints of race are opposing themes that resonate in almost all of Ken Burns' films, from The Civil War to Baseball to Jazz. But in his newest work, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a two-part documentary about the first African-American Heavyweight Champion of the World, these forces define a man who not only challenged the status quo, but was ahead of his time in demanding to live his life without any limitations, racial or otherwise. "Jack Johnson wished to live his life nothing short of a free man," says Burns. "And that was a
Henry Darger's life was made for the movies, which is why it is important that esteemed documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu is the first to explore it in her documentary In the Realms of the Unreal (Susan West, prod.); the film is being released theatrically in December through Wellspring Media. Darger, who was considered to be a mentally ill man throughout his 80 odd years, was at once Dickensian, Zolaesque and Proustian. After his death in 1973, and his burial by the Little Sisters of the Poor in a pauper's grave, it was discovered that he had his James M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll aspects as
Dear IDA Members, What will 2005 bring for the documentary world? I make no predictions, but it does look good. The year 2004 was impressive, no question. With a volatile election campaign and an increasingly partisan mainstream media, documentaries, as the new news, enjoyed an unprecedented success at the box office. Clearly, nonfiction films have provided something provocative and challenging for an eager public. Here in the United States we have many network and cable news channels. But a unique television program on CNN called Crossfire is known as one of the better "screaming heads" news