The Toronto International Film Festival has become a mighty machine, comparable to Cannes in its power to focus publicity, lend legitimacy and attract business. Its popularity has led to an umbrella strategy, in which the festival is actually a set of well-run mini-festivals, each of them attracting more interest than there are theater seats or time, and featuring press conferences, sidebars and other events for its own demographic. Documentary has become one of those niche festivals. This year the festival showcased 32 doc features and 13 shorts, with 22 of them highlighted in the Real to
Latest Posts
Opening with a visit to a shocking crime scene, then following three murder trials, Two Towns of Jasper examines American race relations from two lenses: one black and one white. Late one night in June 1998 in east Texas, James Byrd, a black man, was beaten and dragged to his death behind a pick-up truck. The accused: three white ex-cons, all affiliated with the white supremacist group the Aryan Circle. Two New York-based filmmakers, Whitney Dow and Marco Williams, were drawn to the story, initially as a conversation among friends, then committed to the subject via a three-year odyssey of
When Renée Tajima-Pena showed up in Detroit in 1983, looking to make Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988), the award-winning documentary about racial hate crime, she and associate producer Nancy Tong met with a number of indignities, such as being robbed of all of their research notes and equipment at gunpoint. Luckily, Tajima-Pena encountered some supportive friends at the Detroit public TV station, WTVS. "They had a terrific executive producer, Juanita Anderson, and head of the station, Bob Larson," Tajima-Pena recalls. "They thought that this was a Detroit story and they understood how to work
IDA Career Achievement Award: Ken Burns
When Lance Loud asked veteran filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond to make a "final episode" of An American Family, they paused to take in the significance of the request. Loud, the star and cultural icon from the 1973 PBS series An American Family, had been living with HIV for many years and was now diagnosed with a terminal HIV/Hepatitis C co-infection. To make one last episode was Lance's dying wish; he passed away on December 22, 2001. In 1971, the Raymonds spent seven months filming the Loud family in Santa Barbara, California. Shot in cinéma vérité style, An American Family became a
Dear IDA Members: The holiday season and the IDA Awards Gala Benefit, on December 13, seem to have a synonymous ring. Wrapping up the year and kicking off the awards season by saluting the best of 2002 makes the best sense. Our 20th anniversary year has been cause to celebrate, with a promising new partnership with the Sundance Channel; new trustees from ITN Archive and American Masters; two new staff members—Sarah Jo Marks and Megan Moroney—who have contributed immeasurably to the growth of the organization; an overhauled set of by-laws; successful gatherings in New York, Cannes and Singapore
Dear Readers, We close out our 20th anniversary year by celebrating the contributions of three giants in the documentary field. Ken Burns, the 2002 Career Achievement Award honoree, has helped to transform how we engage history. Along the way, Burns has expanded the audience for documentary, attracting not only millions of viewers, but, through ancillary sales of books and soundtracks, millions of readers and listeners. Agnès Varda, the 2002 Pioneer Award recipient, ushered in a new way of using the camera as a means to more intimate human interaction. Her first film, La Pointe Courte (1956)
Feature Documentaries A Child's Century of War Shelley Saywell, Deborah Parks Films Transit International Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony Sherry Simpson, Lee Hirsch, Artisan Entertainment, HBO/Cinemax, The South African Broadcast Corporation Blue Vinyl Daniel B. Gold , Judith Helfand HBO, Next Wave Films, Working Films Mai's America Marlo Poras P.O.V., ITVS, Women Make Movies Seniorita Extraviada Lourdes Portillo Women Make Movies Sister Helen Rebecca Cammisa, Rob Fruchtman Small Town Ecstasy Arnold Shapiro, Jay Blumenfield HBO Spellbound Jeff Blitz, Sean Welch Thinkfilm Stealing
A review of Jeffrey Ruoff's 'An American Family: A Televised Life'
I read a front-page article in The New York Times recently that stated that the US is currently buying millions of barrels of oil a year from Iraq. Iraq?!! A trading partner? And I actually thought we were going to war. Isn’t it crazy that it’s okay for the government to help the Iraqi economy, yet I’m not allowed to buy a Cuban cigar? Aren’t the Iraqis the ones who are acquiring weapons of mass destruction and threatening to destroy us because they’re jealous of our freedoms? There’s only one film that could possibly help put this absurd story into perspective, one I first saw as a teenager