What gives a documentary film its power? Is it the inherent fascination of a particular subject (such as a group of Palestinians touring Israel), or the urgency of an issue (like the India-Pakistan nuclear faceoff), or the filmmakers’ degree of access (to a presidential candidate, to Texas Pentecostals, to the elusive French philosopher Jacques Derrida)? All these qualities could be found among the 29 feature documentaries presented at last spring’s 45th San Francisco International Film Festival. But one film went further. In presenting the festival’s Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary to
Latest Posts
Guilt. It’s strange to talk to so many filmmakers who whisper, under their breath, that they’re working on a project related to the events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It’s almost as if telling the story somehow prolongs the pain—and a shocking reaction, given how we, in the documentary community, collectively spend so much time chronicling and documenting difficult and painful subjects. At festivals, industry screenings and summer gatherings, people talk about 9/11 production more like therapy than public work. I often hear, “I’m doing this for myself” or “I’m not even sure I want to show
To launch its fifth year, Doubletake Documentary Film Festival announced a name change, to the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Executive director Nancy Buirski assured the opening night crowd—primed to watch Alexandra Pelosi’s tell-all political road movie Journeys with George—that the name change would only give the festival more freedom to expand its service to the documentary form. The change also divorces the festival formally from its academic counterpart, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, which will also now sponsor an annual film event using the Doubletake
In the summer of 2001, I sat in on an acting class guided by director and teacher Milton Katselas. A group of experienced actors performed a short scene, then participated in a revealing give-and-take critique of their work. The analysis was very personal, but always related to the art and craft of acting. I attended as a director of dramatic films, but I couldn’t help seeing a documentary there—one camera on Milton and the class during the critique, another on the actors, the same two cameras on the performance. This documentary could be a look at process--the actor’s process. What do they do
At this year's IDA Academy Awards reception, several producers introduced their editors and thanked them for their work. No longer considered just "cutters," documentary editors are starting to be recognized for their creative contributions. Kate Amend has been editing documentaries for 15 years, working with such directors such as Joan Churchill, Johanna Demetrakas and Mark Jonathan Harris. Her body of work includes the Academy Award-winning documentaries The Long Way Home and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. She is currently editing Rory Kennedy's new film Pandemic
Since filmmakers' responses to last September 11 were as immediate and urgent as the event itself, broadcast television had an abundance of timely programming from which to choose. Several relevant documentaries were in production before that fateful date. Already in the works was National Geographic's Frontline Diaries: Into the Forbidden Zone (Charle Poe, Michael Davie, producers)—most notable for journalist Sebastian lunger's exclusive, in-depth interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the anti-Taliban rebel force assassinated before the show's broadcast. For two years prior to
Documentaries can be as visually inventive as an Errol Morris film or as evocative as the slow zooms and pans across Ken Burn’s daguerreotype tin plates and pin-hole battle photographs. Nevertheless, the sound of the documentary—particularly the spoken word—is essential to convey and communicate the story. Location sound recording for documentaries can present quite a few challenges. As a production sound mixer I troubleshoot sound problems everyday. Typically, documentary audio problems are the result of insufficient planning and selection of audio equipment. Just as you schedule your shoot
Dear IDA Members: Thanks very much to all the members who have heaped such praise for the work done by the Documentary Credits Coalition. The details of the entire story are set forth elsewhere in this issue. Let me use this space to put the accomplishments in their proper perspective. The Discovery Networks and IDA have enjoyed a long and close relationship. Discovery is, after all, one of the largest buyers of documentary programming in the world. Given its 11 different channels—plus a radio channel—Discovery is unsurpassed in variety and quality of documentaries. One part of IDA’s mission
Dear Readers: Looking back connotes reflection, contemplation, remembrance. In this issue, we don’t so much look back on September 11—it’s all around us, every day—as look forward, while looking back, on that indelible tragedy. Over the past year, the documentary community has responded as it always responds: with the right mix of moxie, ingenuity, circumspection, and responsibility. We’ve delved beneath the collective shroud of uber-patriotism and uncovered hundreds of stories from hundreds of communities. We’ve learned a lot—about faith and religion, about power, about terror, about war
One night, when I was about 16, living in suburban Long Island, The Weavers: Wasn't That A Time, a 1982 documentary film about the radical folk singing quartet, beamed out of my family’s black-and-white TV set, and wrapped itself around my heart. Pete Seeger, banjo in hand, was talking about what it meant to be part of a group of young, up-and-coming “blacklisted” troubadours whose self-appointed job was to protest injustice in Cold War America. “We sang for unions and left-wing groups,” he related. “We sang songs of hope. We thought if we sang long enough and loud and hopeful enough we could