Docs in the Big D

AFI Dallas International Film Festival, whose third edition bows March 26 and runs through April 2, just announced its full slate. Here are the documentaries:

Target Documentary Feature Competition
Americana (Dir.: Topaz Adizes)
The Eyes of Me (Dir.: Keith Maitland)
Houston We Have a Problem (Dir.: Nicole Torre)
Prom Night in Mississippi (Dir: Paul Saltzman)
Rough Aunties (Dir.: Kim Longinotto)
Whatever It Takes (Dir.: Christopher Wong)

Documentary Showcase
Art & Copy (Dir.: Doug Pray)
Dungeon Masters (Dir: Keven McAlester)
Food Inc. (Dir.: Robert Kenner)
The Garden (Dir: Scott Hamilton Kennedy)
Tyson (Dir: James Toback)

Deep Ellum Sounds
Rip: A Remix Manifesto (Dir.: Brett Gaylor)
Rock Prophecies (Dir.: John Chester)
Say My Name (Dir.: Nirit Peled)
Soul Power (Dir.: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte)

Dallas Premiere Series
Valentino: The Last Emperor (Dir.: Matt Tynauer)

Texas Competition
One Nation (Dir.: Justin Wilson)
St. Nick (Dir.: David Lowery)
Tattooed Under Fire (Dir: Nancy Schiesari)

Environmental Visions Competition
At The Edge of the World (Dir.: Dan Stone)
Crude (Dir.: Joe Berlinger)
Sundance Channel: Eco Trip: Cotton Shirt (Dir.: Remy Webber)/Addicted To Plastic (Dir.: Ian Connacher)
Upstream Battle (Dir.: Ben Kempas)

World Cinema
Kassim The Dream (Dir.: Kief Davidson)

Midnight Specials
Not Quite Hollywood (Dir: Mark Hartley)

San Francisco International Film Festival Announces Doc Competition Slate

The 52nd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 23 to May 7. Here are the documentaries in competition for the Golden Gate Awards:

The Age of Stupid (Dir.: Franny Armstrong)
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (Dir.:Anders Østergaard)
California Company Town (Dir.: Lee Anne Schmitt)
City of Borders (Dir.: Yun Suh)
Crude (Dir.: Joe Berlinger)
D tour (Dir.: Jim Granato)
Kimjongilia (Dir.: N.C. Heikin)
My Neighbor, My Killer (Dir.: Anne Aghion)
New Muslim Cool (Dir.: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor)
Nomad's Land (Dir.: Gaël Métroz)
The Reckoning (Dir.: Pamela Yates)
Speaking in Tongues (Dir.: Marcia Jarmel, Ken Schneider)
Z32 (Dir.: Avi Mograbi)

SXSW to Teams Up with SnagFilms, IndiePix and Cinema Guild on Doc Premiere

The upcoming South by Southwest Film Festival, which runs March 13 to 21 in Austin, Texas, is partnering with SnagFilms, IndiePix, and Cinema Guild on a unique distribution deal, simultaneously premiering Clark Lyda and Jesse Lyda's documentary The Least of These at the festival and online via SnagFilms, and then online and on DVD and in theaters through IndiePix and Cinema Guild.

The film, which premieres March 16, takes a penetrating look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison that re-opened in 2006 as a prototype family detention center. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility began to leak out, three activist attorneys sought to investigate and address the issues. In telling the story of their quest, the film explores the role (and limits) of community activism in bringing about change.

"This is a groundbreaking distribution effort to bring attention to an important question of human rights and public policy," said Rick Allen, CEO of SnagFilms, in a statement.  "We are building on relationships we have forged with the festival, with IndiePix and with the filmmakers to open up channels of distribution for this particular film."  SnagFilms and IndiePix collaborated with great success on simultaneous launch events with the Hamptons Festival last fall, he noted. "By combining the broad national reach of SnagFilms with the DVD distribution capability of IndiePix and the library and educational marketing of The Cinema Guild, we can ensure that this film and this topic have maximum visibility," he said.

Janet Pierson, producer of the SXSW Film Festival and Conference, said: "We are pleased to be part of the groundbreaking premiere and distribution launch of The Least of These. Our festival can provide a powerful launching platform for the film upon which SnagFilms and IndiePix can build their distribution strategies. We are committed to supporting new distribution models for SXSW premiere filmmakers."

Brooklyn's in the House: BAMCinemaFEST Set for Summer Premiere

Elsewhere on the festival circuit, there's a new game in town-BAMCinemaFEST, which debuts this June at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York City. The new festival is an outgrowth of BAM's Cinematek, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year of providing dynamic programming to Brooklyn and beyond. As reported in indieWIRE, the festival will replace the Sundance at BAM series, which screened selections from the Sundance Film Festival for the past three years.

With the marketing muscle and storied cachet of BAM behind it, BAMcinemaFEST just might emerge as a third major film festival in New York City, alongside Tribeca in the spring and New York Film Festival in the fall. With Peter Scarlet having stepped down as artistic director of the Tribeca Film Festival last week., just ten days after the Twitter-tweaking announcement that Geoff Gilmore would leave his hallowed perch at Sundance to head up Tribeca Enterprises and ten days before Tribeca would announce its line-up, this sets the stage for an intriguing triumvirate.

What resonates for me most about what turned out to be Gilmore's valediction from the podium at the Sundance Awards Ceremony was the point in his address when he raised his voice and exclaimed, "The independent arena needs to change. There are too many good films that need to be seen by audiences everywhere." I thought Sundance at BAM was a good start in getting the Sundance brand out, given the fact that a fair number of films come out of Sundance festooned with awards and accolades and promise, only to fall short of expectations in finding a significant audience. So, in taking the helm as Chief Creative Officer at Tribeca Enterprises, the for-profit media company that runs the festival and Tribeca Cinemas, Gilmore may well be taking the lead in transforming what a festival ought to be. The aforementioned SnagFilms/SXSW initiative is one means of changing the role of a festival; the Tribeca model of a festival as a component of a multi-platform synergy is another.

As the new kid on the block, BAMcinemaFEST takes a bold step planting its pole in the New York cultural arena-and going head to head in the festival calendar with the Los Angeles Film Festival. BAM thinks big and acts globally; its 25-year-old Next Wave Festival is a testament to that (Full disclosure: I worked at BAM in the 1980s). With BAM having partnered with Sundance for three years, and with Tribeca having lured the Sundance impresario eastward, it'll be interesting to see just where the festival paradigm will go.

And what about the New York Film Festival? A smaller festival in terms of number of films, and a grizzled veteran at 40+ years, this showcase has the misfortune of following on the heels of Telluride, Toronto and Venice. And the dearth of docs-sometimes as few as two or three-is lamentable. But the festival ushers in the fall cultural season in New York; cineastes set their watches by it; and for those who couldn't get to Cannes, they can check out a lot of what screened there, here. And Cannes is a little snooty about docs too.

As a footnote, True/False, which just concluded, has, in just seven years, rocked the doc world with its innovation, audacity and sheer sense of fun. I wasn't able to go, but ace blogger Pamela Cohn was, and she offers this well-considered take on the Missouri-based festival and why the doc community reveres it.

Since its release two weeks ago, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics, a report from American University's Center for Social Media, has attracted positive feedback from the twitterati and blognizanti from academia and, yes, public media. Authored by Jessica Clark, director of the Center's Future of Public Media Project and Pat Aufderheide, director of the Center for Social Media, Public Media 2.0 is a thorough examination of the participatory media infrastructure-the platforms, the tools, the players, the stakeholders--and the role it will continue to play in shaping democracy and democratic life. A product of four years of research-a period during which Public Media 2.0 arguably made its most dynamic manifestation in the 2008 US Presidential Election--the report looks forward, exploring new ideas about engagement and participation, propelled by the ever-expansive Web 2.0 world.

"The people formerly known as the audience have reorganized themselves into networks," said Clark, in a statement. "That throws open the doors for what public media can be."

"Tomorrow's public media will be media made by, for, and with the public, but it won't happen by accident," added Aufderheide. "This report provides a map of opportunities and ways to make the most of them."

Public Media 2.0 is available for downloading here here. And here's a Cliff's Notes/slideshow presentation of the report on Slideshare.net. And here's a clip of Jessica Clark explaining the essence of the report:

Peter Fonda hosted a screening this weekend in Santa Monica, CA of the movie that examines America's troubled relationship with oil and how alternative and sustainable energies can reduce our the world's addictive dependence on fossil fuels. He even appeared with Tickell on the local news in February.You can see the interview here.

Tickell was solo when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but it was an inspiring appearance nonetheless.

Some of the film's accolades include Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and Best Documentary Jury Award at the 2008 Sedona Film Festival.

See the trailer for Fuel in our video gallery, here.

Fuel is wrapping up in L.A. this week before heading off to Colorado and Washington for screenings. Get updated screening information and more at http://thefuelfilm.com.

Adobe is delighted to extend the timing of its offer to IDA members for special pricing on Adobe software. Place your order before May 31, 2009, and save 20% on all Adobe products in the North American online Adobe Store.

Here are the simple steps required to get your discount:

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Not an IDA member yet? Join now! You're missing out on these great benefits!

For 26 years, IDA has been screening the Academy Award-nominated documentaries on the Saturday before the Oscar-Cast, and this year at the Writers Guild of America Theater, the multitudes came out once again, from 9:30 a.m., for Man on Wire, all the way to midnight, when the credits rolled for Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World. "I think it's wonderful to be able to see the movies that I can't see any place else," exclaimed a theatergoer from Pasadena, who identified herself as Sally. "I never have a chance to see most of the documentaries, and it's really great to have the people who produced them and directed them here to answer questions, and sometimes have people who are involved in the film."

The audience was treated to Q&A appearances from the likes of Pinki and her dad, and the magnanimous Dr. Subodh, from Megan Mylan's Oscar-winning Smile Pinki. "I love to do this," said Dr. Subodh, of his work with children with cleft lips. "It gives me a lot of pleasure and meaning in my life." As for Smile Pinki, Mylan enthused, "Character-driven films are the films I love, and the films I love to make."

Also on hand at DocuDay were students from a video production class at Monrovia High School, who taped every Q&A discussion. "This is a wonderful opportunity because they get to see what a documentary is and the many styles of documentaries," teacher Roxanne Rogers noted. "And to see a day of documentaries? It's very unusual. They're learning tons. At the Oscars Reception the other night they got a taste of it, and they all came back to see all the films. Because we're in a poor community with little access, people haven't seen that many documentaries; I've also assigned them to see Waltz with Bashir in Pasadena. A lot of the students have no cinematic or visual background at all, so I'm trying to build up that repertoire a bit so they have an idea of what they're looking at and why it's significant. It's like a big field trip all week!"

One of the more stirring post-screening conversations was with Steven Okazaki, director/producer of The Conscience of Nhem En, the short doc about a 16-year-old Khmer Rouge soldier during Pol Pot's reign of terror who photographed tens of thousands of Cambodian citizens just before they were executed. "The stories I heard were beyond my comprehension," Okazaki admitted. "It was 30 years ago, but the wounds are so fresh, the fear is so strong. It was like going to Auschwitz just a few years later. The five Khmer Rouge veterans in prison actually live better than the average Cambodian."

Sharing the stage with Okazaki were Margaret Hyde and Adam Pertofsky from The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, in which Reverend Billy Kyles, a witness to Martin Luther King's assassination, reflects on King's life and legacy-and the events surrounding his murder. "I'm 39, the same age as Martin Luther King was when he was killed," Pertofsky noted. "I was just awed at the discipline it took at that age to lead a movement in the face of such hatred."

Scott Hamilton Kennedy took the stage following The Garden, about a movement of farmers in South Central Los Angeles trying to save their community garden from developers. "One of the reasons I'm so happy we got to make the film is there was a lot of press coverage, but it wasn't a story to be told in a sound byte or a three-minute press piece or a news clip," Kennedy noted. "So we needed the 80 minutes of the film to try and get into what really happened." Responding to a question from the audience about what we can do as a people, Kennedy mused, "There's room for cynicism and room for heartbreak, but I still see there's hope that this system of democracy can work. It doesn't end at the voting booths. We can't say, Obama's the one, and it's just going to be some magic carpet ride. We've got to carry some water too, and we've got to check in with him, and this little engine that could called democracy needs to be fine-tuned."

And while DocuDay competed with the likes of the Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica and the HBO party just a mile away, nominees Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath from The Betrayal and Carl Deal and Tia Lessin from Trouble The Water managed to carve out the time to engage the audience at DocuDay.

In a year that began with the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance and surged like a juggernaut through the festival circuit and awards season, James Marsh and Simon Chinn's Man on Wire brought home the grandest prize of all, the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Philippe Pettit, the star and narrator of the film, bounded up on stage, took out a coin given to him by fellow nominee Werner Herzog, declared, "So now it's time to thank the academy for believing in magic," made the coin disappear, and balanced the Oscar on his chin. No tightrope act this time, but we sure could have used a spritely antedote to that turgid, overwrought, underfocussed tribute to movie musicals...Now, who was it who said documentaries are boring?

Smile Pinki, which qualified for Academy Award consideration through IDA's DocuWeek Theatrical Documentary Showcase, earned the Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar. Filmmaker Megan Mylan graciously extolled the privilege of making a living telling stories, and gave a shout-out to The Smile Train, and to the hero and heroine of the film, Dr. Pankaj and Pinki helself. For those of you keeping score, Smile Pinki is the seventh Oscar winner to have qualified through DocuWeek--and the third winner in a row.

Overall, a tasteful and classy showcase for docs at the Oscars, with the eminence grise, Al Maysles, having made the short that served to introduce both the films and the filmmakers sharing their thoughts on their chosen art form. And having Bill Maher, the producer and start of the top grossing doc of 2008, Religulous, announce the winners, was a nice bonus.

Margaret Brown, whose The Order of Myths earned an award at Silverdocs and a number of other honors in 2008, won the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica yesterday. The award goes to "an emerging director of nonfiction features who has not yet received significant attention." Brown's previous film, Be Here to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt, received major acclaim during its 2005 release.

But if you want to see the whole thing, this weekend only, Daily Motion and Cinetic Media are streaming it for free:

And Man on Wire scooped up another honor to add to its staggering collection, earning the Best Documentary award. For Tamara Krinsky's on-camera interview with high-wire star Phillippe Petit, click here. For Tom White's off-camera interview with director James Marsh, click here.

Finally, for the Man on Wire trailer, click here.

Directors, producers the subjects of nominated films such at Man on Wire, The Garden, The Final Inch, The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 and The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) mixed and mingled before and after the night's main program at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

(L-R): Thavisouk Phrasavath (co-director, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)), Ellen Kuras (director, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)), James Marsh (director, Man on Wire), Simon Chinn (producer, Man on Wire), Scott Hamilton Kennedy (director/producer, The Garden), Tia Lessin (director/producer, Trouble the Water), Carl Deal (director/producer, Trouble the Water). Copyright AP Images for IDA 2009.

(L-R): Irene Taylor Brodsky (director, The Final Inch), Singeli Agnew (associate producer, The Conscience of Nhen En), Adam Pertofsky (director, The Witness), Margaret Hyde (producer, The Witness). Copyright AP Images for IDA 2009.

"I love focusing it in on just the documentaries. Sometimes it's difficult for us to get the love," said The Garden director Scott Hamilton Kennedy. "Thanks for the IDA to continuing to support short form, long form, American, international documentaries and giving us all a chance to come up here and maybe give a taste of our speech that only a couple of us will get to give on Sunday."

Most filmmakers talked about the exciting times since getting the nomination last month.

"This event is a great way to kick off the weekend. Ever since the nominations were announced, it's been a great blur," said Carl Deal, director/producer of Trouble the Water.

"Sure, it's exhausting, but if you hear me complaining about that feel free to give me a slap in the face," added Kennedy, whose film focuses on a group of South Central Los Angeles farmers who struggle to save their community garden.

Inside the event, each film was spotlighted with a clip viewing and speech from the movie's filmmakers. Host Lily Tomlin started the night off by calling documentaries her "favorite form of truth." Between the jokes she even teared up after watching a funny, yet sad clip from Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World.

If there were an award for best speech of the night, it would have gone to Philippe Petit, the subject and star of Man on Wire about his unauthorized high-wire walk across the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center in 1974.

"All that I had to say, I said on the wire," he said. "I come from a distant planet and I will soon go back. But I was thinking about walking and when you came on stage," he added in reference to Tomlin's entrance. "I thought, 'How humble, because you took the three-feet walk, you could have taken the 80-feet walk.' So all evening I'm thinking about balance, so I would like to try." He then adjusted a slightly askew IDA sign hanging form the podium before complimenting his collaborators. "Also, the power of cinema, because I was in the front row and my palms were wet. So good work, the two of you."

See all of the nominated films at DocuDay New York and DocuDay Los Angeles (followed by filmmaker Q&As when available) this weekend. Get more info about both days here.

Read about all of the nominated docs, see trailers and more on our 27th Annual Nominees Reception page.

See our video interviews with the filmmakers and attendees:
Philippe Petit
Lily Tomlin
Plus, what would nominees do with an Oscar?

Read other coverage of the night's event on these great sites: indieWIRE, Matt Dentler's Blog, Spout, AJ Schnack.

All photos Copyright AP Images for IDA 2009.

Geoff Gilmore, the longtime impresario of the Sundance Film Festival, will exit his directorship post of 19 years to assume the position of Chief Creative Officer at Tribeca Enterprises, it was announced today. He will be responsible for Tribeca's global content strategy and lead creative development initiatives and expansion of the brand. Gilmore will also join the Board of Directors of Tribeca Enterprises. Tribeca Enterprises is the New York-based media company founded by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff that owns and operates the Tribeca Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival International, Tribeca Cinemas and other branded-entertainment businesses and initiatives.

"As one of the most accomplished creative forces in our industry, Geoff is the ideal person to guide content development for Tribeca Enterprises," said Rosenthal in a statement. "His talent and experience will benefit Tribeca immeasurably, particularly in creating new strategic alliances and opportunities such as our recently announced Tribeca Film Festival Doha. We are delighted that Geoff is moving to New York to join Tribeca at a time of unprecedented change in the world of film and media."

"I believe that Tribeca Enterprises is well positioned to develop a film organization that can create a new paradigm for the future," Gilmore commented in the statement.  "The vision of its leadership, its structure and resources, and the track record of its brief history give me great excitement at the opportunity to join their enterprise.  I've had a wonderful 19 years at Sundance and will always be grateful to Bob Redford.  For me this is a big decision, a huge change and an enormous opportunity."

One of the film industry's most widely-trusted and influential figures, Gilmore was responsible at Sundance for film selection, artistic direction and general festival management. He was a programming consultant for Robert Redford and the Sundance Channel since its inception in 1996, consulted for and helped build the Sundance Group and the Sundance Film Series. Additionally, he created and directed the annual Sundance Independent Producers Conference and other major events and initiatives related to independent filmmaking and distribution.

Gilmore has been a universally recognized and acknowledged leader of the development of independent film in the U.S. and abroad. He shaped the landscape for Sundance that emerged as a platform for independent filmmakers and buyers since the early 1980s. He is credited with attracting break-out film sensations to Sundance such as Reservoir Dogs, Hoop Dreams, Little Miss Sunshine and An Inconvenient Truth -and discovering and launching the careers of emerging filmmakers.

In addition to his accomplishment at Sudnance, Gilmore has served on numerous international film juries, teaches a master class for the Ludwigsburg Film Academy and is a featured guest lecturer at many film schools and cultural institutions. He has also written extensively on the American independent film scene.

Prior to Sundance, Gilmore served as head of the UCLA Film and Television Archive's Programming Department for 15 years.

The song says it's not easy bein' green, but a new code released on February 3rd, 2009, aims to make it a little more straightforward. Filmmakers for Conservation (FFC), American University's Center for Social Media and the Center for Environmental Filmmaking have teamed up to create the Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking, a new guide to help filmmakers assess their carbon footprint and make their shoots more eco-friendly.  IDA's Board endorsed the Code last month.

AU School of Communication professor and documentary filmmaker Larry Engel, coauthor of the code, said in a statement, "Filmmakers want to be sustainable, but few tools exist to help them do this. This code is the first clear, comprehensive guide in sustainability supported by scientific review and specifically designed to account for the challenges filmmakers face on a daily basis." 

The code is based on the results of a global survey of best practices in sustainable filmmaking, conducted by American University, involving more than 175 filmmakers and companies. It includes trackers and checklists to aide filmmakers in figuring out the carbon emissions and waste produced by their projects after all possible steps toward reduction have been made. Ideally, these would then be offset at the conclusion of production.

The Code focuses on four key areas:

1. Calculation: Know how much energy we are actually using.
2. Consumption: Lower overall carbon debt and environmental impact by using less.
3. Travel: Reduce the carbon debt created through travel.
4. Compensation: Since we cannot completely eliminate our footprint, we should compensate for it through organizations that offer a carbon reduction equal to our carbon production.

Chris Palmer, director of AU's Center for Environmental Filmaking commented that environmental and wildlife filmmakers have a special responsibility to reflect best practices in sustainable filmmaking, as they are the ones often in the most fragile places on earth.

The code is meant to be an evolving document and AU and FFC want feedback from filmmakers, producers and broadcasters to help improve it. You can find the code at www.sustainablefilmmaking.org.