Thomas Allen Harris has spent much of his filmmaking career employing his personal family photo archives in his documentaries as a means to look at larger themes such as identity and religion (That's My Face/é Minha Cara), gay and lesbian issues (Vintage--Families of Value) and apartheid (The Twelve Disciples Of Nelson Mandela). His latest project, the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR), aims to use the power of interactive media to create a movement to get African-Americans to reconsider and revalue their family photo collections.

The DDFR project centers around a multimedia portal with an interactive mapping interface that showcases African Diasporic photography across time, place and genre. Users will be able to upload photos, video, audio and text to document and share their family stories. Online tools such as blogs, webinars and social networks will drive users to the site, complemented by on-the-ground activities. The portal aims to be a comprehensive repository for images and media of people of African descent over the last 160 years.

The inspiration for DDFR came to Harris after he attended a "When Content Meets Intent" workshop run by Judith Helfand and Robert West's Working Films for the Media Arts Fellows at Renew Media  (now the Tribeca Film Institute), and participated in the National Black Programming Consortium's (NBPC) New Media Institute in 2008. "I began thinking about ways to create a multimedia project that would do for the everyday person what I do with my films," Harris explains. He continued to develop the concept at The Producers Institute for New Media Technologies at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).

According to Harris, very few institutions collected photos of African-Americans prior to 1960; therefore there is a serious lack of public images of people of African descent. The limited prints that have made it into the public eye tend to reinforce stereotypes, as opposed to providing a visual sampling of the diversity of the African-American experience. 

"Where do you find earlier images of and by African-American photographers?" asks Harris. "I imagined they were in people's archives. I thought, I have this treasure trove [of pictures] in my family, others must have a treasure trove in their families."

One of the ways that Harris plans to find his way to these photographic pots of gold is through an innovative outreach program that uses a touring Antiques Roadshow model. With Harris as a host, the DDFR team will go into communities and bring people together at events to publicly share their photographs, videos and stories. Their media will be digitized on-site and uploaded, and the "DDFR Roadshow" itself will be filmed, thus creating more content for the site.

Harris and his team tested out the DDFR Roadshow in Atlanta this past February at the Integrated Media Association's (IMA) Public Media Conference. Harris projected scans of the photographs that people had brought to the event, and audience members reacted with their own insights and observations. He also showed clips from his latest film, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People. The film explores how African-American communities have used the medium of photography to construct political, aesthetic and cultural representations of themselves and their world. 

IMA Executive Director Mark Fuerst asked Harris to try out the pilot program for the DDFR Roadshow at the IMA Conference because of Harris' solid plans for combining old and new media, and the potential that DDFR has for emotional impact. "There's so much talk about what Obama did with social media, but not as much careful analysis about how much emotion everyone felt about electing the first Black President," says Fuerst. "Obama's team was very skillful, but their success wasn't a matter of technique: the emotion supported the social media. Bringing that back to Thomas, he is tapping into a powerful vein of family and social history. That emotion may give him the fuel he needs to drive this process."

For Harris, the experience in Atlanta was both satisfying and surprising. One of the most gratifying moments in Atlanta occurred when a man came in with photos of his grandfather in military dress. The uniform had insignias on it, but the man wasn't sure what they stood for. There happened to be an audience member who had had a military career and knew that the symbols meant the grandfather was part of the African-American brigade.

"The audience had the information--not one of our experts," Harris notes. "I realized that this kind of event and project truly creates an extended family. I think that is what's going to happen on the Web."

Harris is currently seeking funding to continue development of the portal, and hopes to launch later this summer. DDFR Roadshow events are currently planned for HotDocs in May and SilverDocs in June.

For more on the Digital Diapospora Family Reunion, click here. For a February 23, 2011 New York Times article about the project, click here.

Tamara Krinsky is associate editor of Documentary.

Valentino: The Last Emperor, Matt Tyrnauer's doc about the world-renowned fashion designer, has topped the $1 million mark in box office grosses, making it the third 2009 documentary to achieve that status, following Waltz with Bashir and Earth. As Peter Knecht writes in indieWIRE, Valentino found its audience through a combination of word-of-mouth and a hands-on approach on Tyrnauer and distributor Truly Indie's part to reaching a cross-section of core audiences. Two and a half months after its March 18th release, Valentino is showing no signs of tapering off, with a nationwide expansion to dozens of markets planned for the coming weeks.

This success story recalls that of Rivers and Tides, Thomas Riedelsheimer's 2002 film about artist Andy Goldsworthy that opened at San Francisco's Roxie Cinema and played in theaters for over a year, earning over $2 million. And in 2007, Into Great Silence, Philip Groning's three-hour observational film about Carthusian monks at work and in prayer, played in theaters for over six months, earning longtime player Zeitgeist Films a solid $790,452. The right combination of strategy, patience, endurance, zeal and luck just might yield the kind of gratifying results that these films experienced.

Here's a rundown of the top ten grossing docs of the year, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com:

1) Earth:          $31,112,280
2) Waltz with Bashir:   $ 2,283,849
3) Valentino: The Last Emperor:       $ 1,193,635
4) Every Little Step:    $ 915,028
5) The Cross: The Arthur Blessit Story:  $ 741,557
6) Tyson:          $ 684,799
7) Enlighten Up!:         $ 175,782
8) Outrage:      $ 161,510
9) Brothers at War:     $ 152,798
10) Examined Life:      $ 114,481

American University's Center for Social Media, in collaboration with Washington College of Law's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and the Stanford University Law School Fair Use Project, recently launched a new video explaining how online video creators can make remixes, mashups, and other common online video genres with the knowledge that they are staying within copyright law.

The video, titled Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend, is a companion piece to the Center's Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video, released last summer under the leadership of American University professors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi­.

"This video lets people know about the code, an essential creative tool, in the natural language of online video." said Aufderheide, in a statement. "The code protects this emerging zone from censorship and self-censorship. Creators, online video providers and copyright holders will be able to know when copying is stealing and when it's legal."

Like the code, the video identifies six kinds of unlicensed uses of copyrighted material that may be considered fair, under certain limitations.  They are:

• Commenting or critiquing of copyrighted material
• Use for illustration or example
• Incidental or accidental capture of copyrighted material
• Memorializing or rescuing of an experience or event
• Use to launch a discussion
•  Recombining to make a new work, such as a mashup or a  remix, whose elements depend on relationships between existing works

For instance, a blogger's critique of mainstream news is commentary. The fat cat sitting on the couch watching television is an example of incidental capture of copyrighted material. Many variations on the popular online video "Dramatic Chipmunk" may be considered fair use, because they recombine existing work to create new meaning.

"The fair use doctrine is every bit as relevant in the digital domain as it has been for almost two centuries in the print environment," said Jaszi, founder of AU's Program for Information, Justice, and Intellectual Property and a Professor of Law in AU's Washington College of Law. "Here we see again the strong connection between the fair use principle in copyright and the guarantee of freedom of speech in the Constitution."

RiP: A Remix Manifesto, a film from Brett Gaylor, has been causing quite a stir about the limits of the fair use frontier since the doc's debut in Montreal last summer. An article in the Spring 09 Documentary looks at the Manifesto and includes insights from Aufderheide as to its premise.  

A Hollywood story is being turned into…a Hollywood story. The tale behind Cass Warner's book and documentary The Brothers Warner is being turned into a feature film, called The Brothers. The film was announced during Cannes. It's slated as a big-budget family drama based on the life story of Harry and Jack Warner, their youth, the creation of Warner Bros. and the brothers' struggle for power. The Brothers Warner DVD--and tons of other information--is available at http://www.warnersisters.com

Want to make an essay documentary like An Inconvenient Truth, Encounters at the End of the World or Religulous? It's easy! Ok, it's not, but SF360.org has laid out steps on how to do just that with a thorough and informative piece on their Indie Toolkit blog. Now grab a camera and go make something great. (via SF360.org)

Beginning in July 2009, The Sidney Hillman Foundation will inaugurate The Sidney, a new monthly award for an outstanding piece of socially-conscious journalism from a newspaper, magazine, web site, photojournalism essay, or any broadcast outlet. Nominations for the award can be submitted at http://hillmanfoundation.org/thesidneys and can be sent in by anyone, including the author of the work. Winners will receive $500 and a bottle of union-made wine. The deadline for submissions will be the last business day of the month. Past honorees of Hillman prizes include Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar for Made in L.A. (via The Sidney Hillman Foundation)

Tom Hanks has enlisted to exec produce a World War II documentary. Beyond All Boundaries will be screened daily in the National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning Nov. 9. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

Robert Greenwald, Brave New Studios and a former senior military interrogator have a little something to say about Dick Cheney's policies on torture. See the video below and read up here. (via Brave New Foundation)

by Peter Knegt

On March 18th, Matt Tyrnauer's doc Valentino: The Last Emperor--which follows the closing act of fashion icon Valentino's celebrated career--opened in New York's Film Forum to incredible numbers. By the end of it's first weekend the film has grossed $39,106, including $21,784 for the three-day weekend, making it one of the theater’s top-grossing premieres in over three decades. The film also broke Film Forum's single-screen midweek opening day record with $5,963.

Cut to 10 weeks later. Valentino--without ever going over 38 screens--has grossed more than $1 million and still is routinely finding weekend per-theater-averages above $2,000. What's more, it's opening today at the Angelika Film Center in New York, one of the city's premier destinations for specialty films. To have a film run for that long and then open at the Angelika is a rarity, and a testament to Valentino's remarkable staying power.

"We've been powered by word of mouth and community," Tyrnauer told indieWIRE yesterday, "and I’ve never seen that in a way as profound as at Film Forum. We would sell out matinees on a Tuesday. That [word of mouth and community] has been kept alive in New York City for more than 10 weeks. Especially downtown, which is a crossroads of sophistication, of fashion, of gay culture, of indie film culture… It's ground zero for us, so it’s really welcome and appropriate to go back on a major screen."

The unique way the film was released makes Valentino's success story all the more interesting. Back in February, after successful screenings at the fall festivals in Venice, Toronto and then the Hamptons, it was announced that the Tyrnauer and his producers would opt out of traditional distribution offers that had been put on the table, instead releasing the film independently through Truly Indie - a company that helps filmmakers act as their own distributors by providing access to all the services of a professional theatrical release.

"After deliberating and looking at the offers we had coming out of the festivals," Tyrnauer noted, "we decided that we would like to be very involved in the release and made an alliance with Truly Indie and did a platform release with them. That allowed us to have our hands on the levers, basically, rather that kicking the baby goodbye and crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. We were deeply involved in marketing strategies and patterns of release and press strategies."

After the film broke records at Film Forum, a collaborative partnership, orchestrated by Submarine's Josh Braun, was announced between Truly Indie, Vitagraph Films and the filmmakers--Tyrnauer, executive producers Carter Burden III and Adam Leff, producer Matt Kapp, and co-producer Frederic Tcheng. The film would expand to 14 additional markets. The partnership obviously proved successful. The film has opened virtually nationwide since, and, as noted, broke $1,000,000 and is still going strong.

Beyond the obvious though, there were many details within this elaborate do-it-yourself situation that helped Valentino find its audience. The films stars - Valentino and his business partner and lover of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti--helped the film considerably by doing a lot of press.

"The relationship I have with them is very unique," Tyrnauer said of Valentino and Giammetti. "And I'm not saying it was all smooth… They didn't like the movie at first. But, after a lot of sparks flying, they came around and embraced the film. And I know this wouldn’t have worked as well with a traditional distributor."

Tyrnauer and his team partnered with publicity firm 42 West to leverage the availability of Valentino and Giammetti, and the strategy really paid off. Oprah Winfrey got a hold of the film, and without being pitched anything, decided to do a show on the film and its "stars."

"We used that as a big game changer," Tyrnauer said. "We had great hopes but we thought, 'this just doesn’t happen to most movies.' That made me even more glad we kept everything in house. We realized we were about to climb aboard a wave."

They carefully plotted the next cities while Valentino toured promoting the film, on Oprah, on Charlie Rose, on the View even on Ryan Seacrest.

"That really put up us in the zeitgeist," Tyrnauer recalled. "People really connected to the film, and we've been being really careful to select markets that would respond. What I've noticed is there are what we call "the first responders"--usually educated woman of a certain age who have some relationship with fashion, as a fan or participant. And from there, if we get those "first responders," they multiply in enormous numbers. People go see it two or three times. It's a word of mouth movie, which was really the key to everything after we got that launch."

Another key for Tyrnauer was Q&As, which he participated in aggressively across the film's expansion. Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki (Capturing The Friedmans) told Tyrnauer this was "a must."

"He said, 'you go, and you keep going, and when you get sick of doing it, do it more,'" Tyrnauer laughed. "It's viral marketing at its most basic. If they can connect with the filmmaker in 2nd or 3rd tier cities it means a lot and word spreads… And seeing the audiences and seeing who shows up is the most invaluable market research you can do."

The experience has given Tyrnauer--and, I'm sure, many aspiring filmmakers who have watched the film's success - hope that "there still is community and word of mouth and a desire for quality." "To see a movie that is in two foreign languages and English with wall to wall subtitles take off in communities where most distributors would probably accept that this movie would not work is so gratifying," he said.

Tyrnauer's gratification isn't likely to end anytime soon. In addition to opening at the Angelika today, Tyrnauer and company have dozens of markets planned in the coming weeks--including many that most truly independent documentaries rarely set foot in--Fort Collins, Colorado; Norfolk, Virginia; Shreveport, Louisiana; Wilmington, Delaware; Concord, New Hampshire… It's likely this do-it-yourself success story has yet to see it's final chapter.

This news item is brought to you by a special partnership between the IDA and indieWIRE and Snagfilms.

Here are the docs that are coming to theaters starting June 3.

Opening:         June 3
Venue:            Film Forum/New York City
Film: Unmistaken Child                               
Dir./Prod.: Nati Baratz; Prods.: Ilil Alexander, Arik Bernstein
Distributor:     Oscilloscope Laboratories
http://www.oscilloscope.net/unmistakenchild/
The Buddhist concept of reincarnation, while both mysterious and enchanting, is hard for most westerners to grasp. Unmistaken Child follows the four-year search for the reincarnation of Lama Konchog, a world-renowned Tibetan master who passed away in 2001 at age 84. The Dalai Lama charges the deceased monk's devoted disciple, Tenzin Zopa (who had been in his service since the age of seven), to search for his master's reincarnation.
Tenzin sets off on this unforgettable quest on foot, mule and even helicopter, through breathtaking landscapes and remote traditional Tibetan villages. Along the way Tenzin listens to stories about young children with special characteristics, and performs rarely seen ritualistic tests designed to determine the likelihood of reincarnation. He eventually presents the child he believes to be his reincarnated master to the Dalai Lama so that he can make the final decision.
Stunningly shot, Unmistaken Child is a beguiling, surprising, touching, even humorous experience.

Opening:         June 5
Venue:            IFC Center/New York City
Film: 24 City                                                                                      
Dir.: Jia Zhang-Ke
Distributor:     The Cinema Guild
http://www.cinemaguild.com/24city /
Blending fiction and documentary, Jia Zhang-ke puts a human face on the consequences of rapid industrial and economic growth in China. Shot in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province, the film documents the development of state-owned Factory 420 from the 1950s to the present. Once booming, it was demolished in 2007 to make room for an upscale apartment complex. Grounded by interviews from former factory workers and three of the country's most important actors (Joan Chen, Lu Liping, Zhao Tao), the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, just four days after a massive earthquake devastated parts of Chengdu.

Opening:         June 5
Venue:            Cinema Village/New York City
Film: Herb and Dorothy                                                                   
Dir./Prod.: Megumi Sasaki
Distributor:     Arthouse Films
http://www.herbanddorothy.com/
Herb & Dorothy tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means. In the early 1960s, when very little attention was paid to Minimalist and Conceptual Art, the Vogels quietly began purchasing the works of unknown artists. Devoting all of Herb's salary to purchasing art they liked, and living on Dorothy's paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries; most of those they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned artists. Their circle includes Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, and Lawrence Weiner.

Opening: June 5
Film: Kassim the Dream
Dir.: Kief Davidson
Distributor: IFC Films
http://www.kassimthedream.com/
This is the story of world champion boxer Kassim "The Dream" Ouma--born in Uganda, kidnapped by the rebel army and trained to be a child soldier at the age of 6. When the rebels took over the government, Kassim became an army soldier who was forced to commit many horrific atrocities, making him both a victim and perpetrator. He soon discovered the army's boxing team and realized the sport was his ticket to freedom. After 12 years of warfare, Kassim defected from Africa and arrived in the United States. Homeless and culture-shocked, he quickly rose through the boxing ranks and became World Junior Middleweight Champion.
Kassim, now age 29, seems to have obtained the American Dream with his jovial nature, fame and hip-hop lifestyle. As Kassim trains for his next world title fight against Jermain Taylor in Little Rock Arkansas, keeping his demons out of the ring becomes increasingly difficult. His desires to reunite with family in Uganda intensify when Kassim's only hope for a safe return is a military pardon from the president and government responsible for his abduction.
Director Kief Davidson received unprecedented access to Kassim Ouma during a pivotal time in the boxer's career. Filmed in cinema vérité style, the documentary blends current events with brutal revelations of a stolen childhood. The parallels reveal a complex and haunted fighter surviving against incredible odds.

Opening:         June 11
Venue:            IFC Center/New York City
Film: Blast!
Dir./Prod.: Paul Devlin; Prod.: Claire Missanelli
http://blastthemovie.com/
Filmmaker Paul Devlin follows the story of his brother, Mark Devlin PhD, as he leads a tenacious team of scientists hoping to figure out how all the galaxies formed by launching a revolutionary new telescope under a NASA high-altitude balloon.
Their adventure takes them from Arctic Sweden to Inuit polar bear country in Canada, where catastrophic failure forces the team to try all over again on the desolate ice in Antarctica. No less than the understanding of the evolution and origins of our Universe is at stake on this exciting escapade that seeks to answer humankind's most basic question, How did we get here?
BLAST! is about the crazy life of scientists. Their professional obsessions, personal and family sacrifices, and philosophical and religious questioning all give emotional resonance to a spectacular and suspenseful story of space exploration.

Opening:         June 12
Film:    Food Inc.                                                                   
Dir./Prod.: Robert Kenner
Distributor:     Participant Media/Magnolia Pictures
http://www.foodincmovie.com/
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli-the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma; In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward-thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising-and often shocking truths-about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Opening:         June 12
Venue:                        Quad Cinema/New York City
Film:                Sex Positive                                       
Distributor:     Regent Releasing                                                     
Dir.: Daryl Wein
http://www.sexpositive-themovie.com/
Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M- hustler-turned-AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic as a community leader, demanding a solution to the problem before anyone else would pay attention. However, it was not Berkowitz' voice alone that sparked contention.
Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, a controversial virologist and AIDS doctor, postulated that AIDS was more complicated than just a new virus. With Sonnabend's theory in tow, Berkowitz fought, alongside beloved activist and musician Michael Callen, for safer sex practices without giving up on sex altogether.
Sex Positive explores the explicit bravery of this unrecognized triumvirate, and their dire quest to save lives in the midst of unwavering dissent. Now destitute and alone, Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.
Through the eyes of Berkowitz, the audience is made witness to a graphic testimony of sex, death and betrayal, while placing the invention of "safe sex" in a fresh and compelling context.

Opening:         June 12
Venue:                        IFC Center/New York City
Film:    Youssou NDour: I Bring What I Love                                
Dir./Prod.:       Elizabeth Chai Vasahelyi
Distributor:     Shadow Distribution              
http://www.ibringwhatilove.com/
The bestselling African pop musician of all time, Youssou N'Dour was named one of Time's 100 most influential people and called "the rare rock star whose music matters." In 2005, he produced his most personal album, Egypt, which presented his Islamic faith as peaceable and tolerant. But while the record won international acclaim, it was also denounced as blasphemous. Filmed over three years and featuring original music by N'Dour, this intimate portrait follows the artist on tour abroad and at home in Senegal as he wins back his public.

Opening:         June 19
Venue:                        Cinema Village/New York City
Film:    The End of the Line                         
Dir.:    Rupert Murray
Prods.: Claire Lewis, George Duffield
Distributor:     Shadow Distribution  
http://endoftheline.com/
Fresh from its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The End of the Line is the first major documentary about the imminent peril facing the world's oceans.
Narrated by Ted Danson and based on the book by Charles Clover, The End Of The Line explores the devastating effect that overfishing is having on fish stocks and the health of our oceans. Scientists predict that if we continue fishing at the current rate, the planet will completely run out of fish by 2048.
Endorsed by and with major marketing support from National Geographic, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Fund (NRDC), The End Of The Line is the definitive film of 2009 for those who care about the environment, the safety of our food supply, and the preservation of endangered species.
More than just a doomsday warning, The End Of The Line offers real, practical solutions that are simple and doable, including advocating for controlled fishing of engendered species, protecting networks of marine reserves off-limits to fishing, and educating consumers that they have a choice by purchasing fish from sustainable fisheries.

Opening:         June 19
Venue:                        IFC Center/New York City
Film:                            Under Our Skin
Dir./Prod.:                               Andy Abraham Wilson
Distributor:                 Shadow Distribution                          
http://www.underourskin.com/
Under Our Skin investigates the untold story of Lyme disease, an emerging epidemic with staggering ramifications. Each year thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, told that their symptoms are "all in their head." Following the stories of patients and physicians fighting the disease, the film brings into focus a haunting picture of our health care system and its inability to cope with a silent and growing terror, and of a medical establishment all too willing to put profits ahead of patients.

Opening:         June 26
Venue:                        Cinema Village/New York City
Film: Afghan Star                                                                             
Dir.: Havana Marking
Distributor:     Zeitgeist Films
http://www.afghanstardocumentary.com/
After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, pop Idol has come to Afghanistan. Millions are watching the TV series ‘Afghan Star' and voting for their favorite singers by mobile phone. For many this is their first encounter with democracy. This timely film follows the dramatic stories of four contestants as they risk all to become the nation's favorite singer. But will they attain the freedom they hope for in this vulnerable and traditional nation?

After offering a live stream of President Barack Obama's inauguration last January, Hulu is taking the next logical step and streaming a...Dave Mathews Band concert. The site will showcase a live-on-the-Web concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York from 9:00 p.m. To 11:30 p.m. EST on June 1. The concert is a benefit concert for DMB's own Bama Works Fund. Ramping up to the event, the site will offering various Dave Matthews Band videos on May 28, as well as the documentary Scenes from Big Whiskey which chronicles the making of the band's new album. (via the DMB website)

SnagFilms is making the information-heavy IMDb (that's the Internet Movie Database) a whole lot more fun by integrating its docs into the site. The deal means that IMDb's 57 million monthly visitors will be able to access a significant part of SnagFilms' library from IMDb for free. It's all about working to increase the viewership of documentary films--something we couldn't be more into. (via SnagFilms)

Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel discuss their doc New World Order, a behind the scenes look at the underground anti-globalist movement. Oh, and the film opens today on at the Cinema Village in New York City (via indieWIRE)

by Peter Knegt

Overture Films and Paramount Vantage have announced that Michael Moore's new documentary feature will be released domestically on October 2, 2009. The as-yet-untitled film will explore the root causes of the global economic meltdown and take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as "the biggest robbery in the history of this country"--the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

"The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth," Moore said in a statement. "They wanted more--a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie."

Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett, Overture's CEO and COO respectively, previously worked with Moore when they oversaw the release of Bowling for Columbine at MGM/United Artists.

"Everyone can relate to this subject matter and all have been affected," said McGurk and Rosett in a statement. "We think there should be plenty of people interested in hearing Michael's take on how exactly we got here and what we can do to move forward."

Moore's new documentary, his first since 2007's Sicko, was first announced by Overture and Paramount Vantage International in May 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival and production began shortly afterward.

John Lesher, President of Paramount Film Group, added: "Michael is a master at capturing the most timely and critical issues shaping our world today. His unique, thought-provoking method of filmmaking is sure to bring dynamic insights into the state of the global economy that will have mass appeal to audiences worldwide." The release date is a year and a day after the United States Senate voted to hand Wall Street a $700 billion bailout.

This news item is brought to you by a special partnership between the IDA and indieWIRE and Snagfilms. 

Keep up with Michael Moore at his website www.michaelmoore.com

Related Links:
See filmmaker Michael Moore talk about a plan to get more documentaries into movie theaters at the IDA's DocuDay 2008 event.

See filmmaker Michael Moore and producer Meghan O'Hara talk about their Oscar-nominated film Sicko at the IDA's DocuDay 2008 event.

SnagFilms Founding CEO Rick Allen wrote about the project on The Huffington Post.

Sadly, just as Christmas and Hanukkah for far too many have become associated with nothing so much as shopping and parties, Memorial Day for some has been bleached of meaning, merely the first of summer's three long weekends, kicked off by the Indy 500. When that checkered flag drops at the Brickyard, the season of Hollywood blockbusters will have already commenced, with Avatars battling Monsters vs. Aliens for box office supremacy. But it is up to each of us to engage in the bigger battle, for mindshare and individual action -- and Memorial Day is a great first beachhead...

...That's why SnagFilms is presenting a slate of films this Memorial Day weekend that enable us all to honor the fallen, and to reflect on our own duties of remembrance and conduct. As always, the non-fiction films we offer are free to view online, and you can easily "snag" any widget from the SnagFilms site to create a "virtual movie theater" on your own website, blog, or page on Facebook, MySpace or other social network...

You can see all of the Memorial Day-focused films, grab the widget for your own site and more on SnagFilms.

Also, read about our special alliance with SnagFilms here.

In honor of the release, indieWIRE re-posted a first person account by Ostergaard (originally from the UK newspaper The Guardian) about his journey creating the movie.

He writes:

Burma VJ was supposed to be a modest little film: a half-hour, low-key yet intimate portrait of Joshua, a 26-year-old Burmese video journalist, or VJ. Joshua had decided to do his bit for a better Burma by taking his video camera, usually concealed, on to the streets of Rangoon to document what he could of everyday life. When we started work on the project, in early 2007, the footage Joshua was able to show us was, frankly, totally uneventful: little reports on street kids, life in his village, the miserable state of the railways...

...I felt his charismatic commentary, coupled with this footage, would open a tiny peephole on to this isolated, almost forgotten country...Instead, we ended up crashing right through the main gate.

Read the full account on INDIEwire here.

Check out the trailer on our site and get more information about the movie on the official Burma VJ website.