When I first saw Ellen Bruno's film, Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy, at the National Educational Media Network's 1994 screenings (it was called the National Educational Film & Video Festival back then), that was it for me. At that moment, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. And not just any filmmaker, but an independent documentary filmmaker. I know, I know, my career choice didn't exactly spell $$$. But it was something about the films that found their way to this festival that grabbed me—films such as Something Within Me, a documentary about the artistic and personal triumphs of young
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The Krakow 35th International Short Film Festival ran from May 29 to June 2, 1998; in the same theatre, at the same time, ran the 31st National Short Film Festival. Confusing? Not really: one is International; the other National. The site for the five days of screening was the Kijow Cinema, a technically sophisticated house equipped for several video formats and projection in all standard film formats. Excellent simultaneous translation was provided for the non-subtitled films, into English, French and Polish. Next to the theatre was The Hotel Cracovia, where a majority of the Festivals'
The opening night gala for this year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival looked more like a Hollywood premiere than any prior festival. Limousines and photographers lined up at Lincoln Center to record the attendance of Isabella Rosellini and Alan Pakula, as well as an internationally-flavored audience benefiting the only film festival in the world devoted exclusively to threats against political and individual freedom. This ninth year of the festival marked the fourth year since joining forces with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and moving uptown, both in spirit and in fact
This column has been used for the last few issues to brief IDA members and other readers of the magazine about IDC3, the Third International Documentary Congress, co-sponsored by IDA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The gala confab will be held October 28 through 30, at the Beverly Hills headquarters of AMPAS. Why so much hype? Clearly, documentarians take a back seat to the groupiness of the theatrical types, whose festive premieres and PR puffiness splash o'er the pages of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter on a daily basis. Rarely do documentarians have the chance to mix
Even though San Francisco makes no claim to hosting a documentary festival, I managed to take in about 30 of them during the recent two-week San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23-May 7), merely half of what was being offered. The SFIFF's 1998 line-up—174 films from 45 countries—contained anywhere from 50 to 60 documentaries, depending on your definition of the genre. The truth is that defining something as a "documentary" is a double-edged sword-so, many of the filmmakers and program notes refer to a "nonfiction film" or "reality based narrative" or "concert film" or "personal
Fanlight Productions has produced and distributed independent film and video since 1980, specializing in health, mental health, disability and family issues, which it traditionally sold to universities and health and medical institutions. The Home Video Experiment—Introduction Case Study #1: Fanlight Productions Case Study #2: California Newsreel Case Study #3: Direct Cinema Limited Case Study #4: Women Make Movies Case Study #5: Northeast Historic Film In 1995, Fanlight acquired When Billy Broke His Head... and Other Tales of Wonder, a 56-min. ITVS-funded documentary produced by Billy Golfus
California Newsreel, a media arts center and nonprofit distributor of films on African-American themes, created the Library of African Cinema in 1991 to bring feature films by Africans to American audiences. Beginning with 8 titles, Newsreel expanded the collection over several years to 40 titles, which they market to public and academic libraries. Although the films are not well known in this country, and often require contextualization for audiences. Newsreel has been able to sell an average of 400 to 500 copies of each title to the educational market. The Home Video Experiment—Introduction
Direct Cinema Limited, founded in 1974 as an educational media distributor, has been selling home videos since the mid-1980s. In the past five years, they have expanded their home video collection to more than 200 titles; and the company's sales ratio is now 55% to the educational market and 45% to the consumer market. The Home Video Experiment—Introduction Case Study #1: Fanlight Productions Case Study #2: California Newsreel Case Study #3: Direct Cinema Limited Case Study #4: Women Make Movies Case Study #5: Northeast Historic Film In the past, Direct Cinema would look for titles that could
Women Make Movies (WMM) is a nonprofit media arts organization that facilitates the production, dissemination and exhibition of independent films by and about women. Founded in 1972, it established a solid nontheatrical distribution niche by the mid-1990s for many of its documentaries and shorts at colleges and universities, as well as with women's and health organizations. WMM also handles the theatrical distribution of a number of American and European independent features directed by women. The Home Video Experiment—Introduction Case Study #1: Fanlight Productions Case Study #2: California
The aftermath of the American Civil War was the backdrop for a mythic American movie character, Scarlett O'Hara, who found herself adrift amidst sweeping changes in her world too recent to comprehend fully. Her struggle to survive in a suddenly altered society has affected generations of moviegoers. Though the political issues are not the same, the recent drastic political and economic upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe have likewise made for remarkable human drama. Documentaries from Russia, Poland, Germany and elsewhere have been on the scene capturing the transition from communist to