There are certain names that always come to mind when you think of documentary film: John Greerson, Robert Flaherty, Alberto Calvalcante, the Maylses Brothers, Frederick Weitzman and David Wolper, among others. What makes these documentarians special is that they’re more than filmmakers, more than teachers and artists, more than preservationists, scholars and mentors—although they are certainly all of these things. But they’re more than the sum of their accomplishments; they are, in the truest sense of the word, “pioneers,” whose work is marked by firsts: first documentary feature, first
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In many ways, the making of my documentary My Khmer Heart appears to be the classic “success against all odds” story. One can suffer “survivor guilt” after the sale of a self-funded, non-commissioned documentary to HBO. Instead of the “let’s enter you in the Emmys and four-wall you for the Oscars,” we could have been in the “thanks, but no thanks” pile, with only a second window screening in Estonia on the horizon. So how did an unknown Australian documentary team make it to Cinemax? If your reading this story because you want handy inside tips on how to pitch, get funding or get your
Driving down Melrose Ave. on a warm August day, one couldn’t miss the distinctive bright banners of the Hollywood Film Festival flanking either side of the historic gate at Paramount Studios. In the festival’s fifth year, Founders Carlos de Abreu and Janice Pennington have worked tirelessly to counter the myth that Hollywood could not host another film festival. “Our mandate since day one has been really clear: to bridge the gap between established mainstream Hollywood and emerging filmmakers from the global creative community,” says de Abreu. This year, de Abreu added a documentary sidebar.
FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES Alison’s BabyBente MiltonTV2/Denmark Programme AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Return with HonorFrieda Lee Mock, Terry SandersPBS Children UndergroundEdet Belzberg, Sheilah Kitt McKinnon, Michel Negroponte, Sheila NevinsHBO Choka!Tanvir Naomi Bush, Kasper Bisgaard The Endurance: Shackelton’s Legendary Antarctic ExpeditionGeorge Butler, Caroline Alexander, Paula Apsell, Mike Ryan, Phyllis Ryan, Edward R. Pressman, Terence MalickNOVA Theatrical Productions, Cowboy Booking International Flying DevilsDavid Allen, Jane Watson, Mark SmithNational Geographic Television HybridMontieth
To grasp the importance of private foundation support for documentary film, one has only to read the long lists of funders in the final credits of many docs. With thousands of foundations in existence, seeking grants from these organizations can be a daunting task. According to The Foundation Center Online—a gateway for philanthropy information on the Web—there are over 63,000 private and community foundations in the United States alone. Getting to know which foundations are relevant to your project is the first step toward narrowing your search. A good place to start looking for information
Virtually every documentary filmmaker hopes that the meaningful slices of history they have captured will be saved for posterity. For Steven Lighthill, ASC (American Society of Cinematographers), some of those slices were captured during the turbulent 1960s, when he belonged to a filmmaking cooperative in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of his projects was Sons and Daughters, an insightful documentary that focused on the anti-Vietnam War movement. Lighthill stowed the film in a basement closet, which luckily was a cool, dark place. About 20 years later, Lighthill decided to entrust his
Dear IDA Members: As we head into the holiday season, we find reason to rejoice at the simplest of life's pleasures: just the freedom to read this magazine, pursue the films we want to make or watch, and be with family. Our constant prayer is for a world that works for everyone. The documentary form has a unique role to play in that process by shedding light, revealing truth and helping to bind people together through better understanding of each other's ways and thinking. Bob Guenette, the first recipient of IDA's Pioneer Award, is an example of a documentary maker who has made films that
Dear Readers, The end of a year inspires us to reflect on events that have impacted the course of our daily lives and etched themselves indelibly into history. We reflect also on culture, on the artistic achievements that have defined the moment and that very well may stand the test of time IDA moved its annual awards program from October to December this year to alleviate the burden of mounting two major events—DOCtober and the IDA Awards Gala/DocuFest—in the span of a couple of weeks, and allow each event its own space and identity. But it's probably more fitting for us to kick off the
On September 11 and the days that followed, New York-based documentary filmmakers responded in different ways—some recorded what they saw on video, some on film, some on still cameras. For others, the enormity of the tragedies was too overwhelming to record. This is a story about how one production company responded. BNNtv.com (Broadcast News Network) is a leading New York City-based interactive media company. Its television division produces up to 40 hours of nonfiction programming annually for most of the US-based cable and network broadcasters, while its website division, CameraPlanet.com
About seven years ago, I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about a “forgotten colony” of American Civil War-era Confederates in the town of Santa Barbara d'Oeste, São Paulo, Brazil. As a Brazilian filmmaker living in Southern California at that time, I had never heard of such a phenomenon as the “Brazilian Dixieland” in my own country! I had just moved back to the US, having lived here in the 1980s, and I couldn't return to Brazil because of my visa situation. So, I had to wait three years to be able to travel there and shoot a documentary about the thousands of Confederate families and