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For those of you who are unaware, our 2nd International Documentary Congress is scheduled in Los Angeles for this coming October: four weeks of screenings and special events, which will culminate in three days of seminars, panel discussions, and, finally, the IDA Awards celebration. Several years ago, the IDA, in conjunction with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, put on the first congress. It was a huge success. Credit must go to former IDA President Jon Wilkman and to Harrison Engle for their contributions to the event. Two years later the two organizations decided to stage an

It's 9:00 in the morning in the Miramar Palace in San Sebastian in the Basque country on the north coast of Spain. In each of the Miramar's three largest rooms are over 200 delegates from some 30 countries, and in each room they are about to screen a different TV program. In one there's March of the Living from Germany and the Ukraine. In another it's 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould from Canada. And in the session I'm attending, it's the unlikely sounding Portrait of a Serial Kisser. This entertaining documentary from Chaos Productions, Brazil, is about a man who claims to have kissed more

Despite hard times in the former Soviet Union, St. Petersburg in spring and summer is getting to be film festival city. This year, Russia's shimmering old capital hosted a week of Bulgarian, and Polish films; films of the European Union; an American Film Festival; and the 2nd Festival of Festivals (prize-winning feature films from everywhere). Scheduled for late September was, irreverently, a Funeral of the Cinema Festival—just how serious its sponsors were and who intended to show up with what I never did find out. The publicity flyer listed the following as qualifying: "dead film"; "death

Hundreds of documentarians from around the world are expected to convene in Los Angeles for the Second International Documentary Congress in October, a month that will also feature an intensive schedule of nonfiction screenings, and awards gala during which acclaimed filmmaker Marcel Ophuls will be presented by the IDA with a career achievement award, and an all-day marathon of new award-winning documentaries. "The International Documentary Congress will bring nonfiction filmmakers from at least 25 countries together to review documentaries and discuss how they helped shape beliefs and

During the past two years, one of my IDA responsibilities has been overseeing requests for fiscal sponsorship. I've been fascinated by the variety of subjects that a attract the concern of filmmakers. Among them you can find The Art of Making Horseshoes, The Story of Hemp, The History of the Flying Tigers in World War II, Today's American Expatriates in Hungary, and Recollections of Route 66. For a long time, I've had my own personal obsession to produce a documentary about eradicating graffiti. The sight of tags like VENT, JOKER, BF, ETB, DREX, or CBS ("Can't Be Stopped") on the walls of my

P.O.V. co-executive producer Ellen Schneider calls them "drama[s] that no screenwriter could fabricate." Critic and scholar Pat Aufderheide sees them as attempts to "reinvent mass media as a personal voice." Whatever you think of the current flurry of gut-spilling personal documentaries, the 1995 Sundance Film Festival proved that the craze is going strong. How else to explain the capacity crowd that, on an absolutely ski-perfect Janu­ary Saturday in Utah, filled a sunless hotel conference room to capacity to listen to filmmakers Ross McElwee, Deborah Hoffmann, Lourdes Portillo, Jim Lane, and

The first American women to make documentary films back in the 1910s and '20s, Osa Johnson and Frances Hubbard Flaherty, worked mainly as silent partners to their famous husbands, Mar­tin Johnson and Robert Flaherty.Their highly successful films set standards in two different direc­tions: commercial entertainment (as in the Johnsons' Baboona) and creative artistry (as in the Flaherty's' Man of Aran). In the late 1930s, the social and cultural documentary gave women the opportunity to function for the first time on their own (or nearly) in the non commercial arena that depended almost

We are told that 100 years ago, when our grandparents first saw the films of the Lumiere brothers, they were astounded and came in droves to see more. These brief films were mini- documentaries, casual observations of everyday life. Of course, since there was the necessity of setting up a hand-crank camera on a bulky tripod, what went on before it had to be somewhat organized: a reenactment. Nothing wrong with that; they worked, they were admired, and they still are. Today our cinemas show films that are designed to attract a maximum audience from every country in the world. The hub is

After forming its New Technologies Council in 1994, Women in Film held a series of seminars in Los Angeles to showcase some of the opportunities for creative professionals that are emerging as a result of the marriage between the entertainment and computer industries. Part 1 of this article appeared in ID, March 1995. Read more: " Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley: Women in Film's Interactive Seminars, Part 1" The second Women in Film Interactive Seminar, held June 15, 1994, and entitled "A Primer and Practical Guide to Interactive Multimedia," wrapped up by discussing games for women and girls

If you spent the past three months prowling about the ruins of the ancient city of Ubar in Oman, you might have missed the brouhaha about the documentary Hoop Dreams, but I doubt it. By one of those perplexing decisions that are becoming the hallmark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' documentary committee, Hoop Dreams, a documentary that won the Directors Guild of America Award and an IDA Distinguished Documentary Achievement Award and made the "10 Best Pictures of the Year" lists of many film critics, was passed by as a nominee for the documentary Oscar. Now, in the cosmic