I was recently with a group of friends when my husband introduced a seemingly simple question: Can you create your list of top ten films of all time? That night, I searched our DVD library of favorites, and I spotted an old friend that was always a source of inspiration during the long days and nights of editing my own documentary, AMANDLA! It was When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, dir./prod.; David Sonenberg and Taylor Hackford, prods.). The film defines itself early on, with its bold blend of sound, music, wit and visual majesty in keeping with the protagonist, Muhammed Ali. The film tells the
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" It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every 12 minutes one is interrupted by 12 dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." -- Rod Serling The only thing harder than making your documentary film is funding it. What do you do after you've tapped out your credit cards, borrowed from family and friends, mortgaged your house and, in some cases, sold your own blood and are still in need of money for your film? Before you take a trip to the blood bank, there are several options available that don't involve selling vital organs or your firstborn
Film critic and author Chris Gore named Cinequest as one of the Top 10 Film Festivals in the world in his The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide (2001). "Cinequest represents a trend of great regional film festivals that have garnered acclaim for their bold programming choices," Gore explains. Based in San Jose, California, the film festival had a 17 percent increase in box office receipts over its 2002 earnings. "This is really significant," says Jens Hussey, Cinequest's public relations director. "We were operating in a weak economy where many other arts organizations have had a very
It is one of the largest film festivals in Africa. It requires a visa to travel there, as well as a vaccination for yellow fever. You will also need to take extra precautions against travelers' diarrhea, dengue fever, filariasis, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis and trypanosomiasis. Once you get there, you will have to take tablets for malaria, drink bottled water and enjoy the cool temperatures of 110 degrees Farenheit in the shade. And you will have one of the best times of your life. The Pan African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO; www.fespaco.bf) wrapped up its 18th
On Rory Kennedy's 'Pandemic: Facing AIDS'
Editor's Note: Ray Zone has reviewed books for International Documentary on and off for about two years. He also writes reviews for American Cinematographer , among other publications. As literature on documentary has proliferated at a more rapid rate, we want to give this field a more consistent profile in these pages. We are pleased to have Ray Zone on board as our regular book reviewer. He can be reached at r3dzone@earthlink.net. In recent years, the number of books published about documentary films and filmmakers has greatly increased. The proliferation of books about documentaries bodes
You've done it. You've run the funding gauntlet, overcome colossal obstacles in pre-production and tackled the challenges of production. As you rest comfortably in the black leather chair in the editor's suite, trying to enjoy the full measure of your accomplishments, you become dimly aware that you might have forgotten something. Something important. Clearances? All done and filed away. You have the footage you need. Music and narration, check, check. Thinking hard, you close your eyes. The nagging fear swells to a throbbing panic behind your eyes, completely eclipsing your hard-won bliss
Producer, A Memoir By David L. Wolper With David Fisher Introductions by Art Buchwald and Mike Wallace A Lisa Drew/Scribner Book 368 pages, hardbound, $30.00 ISBN 0-7432-3687-4 It seems no accident that David L. Wolper and television were both born in 1928. Wolper matured to become one of the most prolific television producers; he began his career in 1949 by selling motion pictures to start-up TV stations across America. In 1958 Wolper produced his first award-winning television documentary, The Race for Space, and left the distribution business. He subsequently produced thousands of hours of
Offering a full ten-day program of high-quality documentaries, the fifth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival—"Images of the 21st Century," held in March in Thessaloniki, Greece—has established itself as a major documentary event, in spite of its relatively short existence. In the spirit of this year's festival poster depicting a film reel designed as a razor blade, many of the films had a cutting-edge aspect to them. Though many of the titles were repeats from earlier festivals, there were plenty of new events to experience, including a new Greek competition section. Alongside the five main