John Waters once wrote that he wished he could make a film in which the crowd scenes contained only famous people.

The documentary version of that occurred on January 19 with Thom Powers and AJ Schnack's announcement of the nominees for this year's Cinema Eye Awards, in the Absolut section of the Queer Lounge simply wall to wall with some of the most notable nonfic filmmakers and tastemakers in the world. Powers and Schnack, with help co-presenters/advisors Joe Berlinger and Laura Poitras, revealed an impressive slate of films spanning the last year, recognizing overall achievement as well as artistry in music, animation, and production (that's right - producers! In documentaries, there's more than meets the Cinema Eye). Joe Berlinger, here with his new film Crude, acknowledged his support of the CE's recognition of the craft of filmmaking, and not simply the merit of the subject matter.

A full list of nominees appears here on AJ's All These Wonderful Things blog.

And here's a pic snapped by yours truly of Schnack In Action (Schnack-tion?):

Plus, here is a video of the announcement:

 

 

Above is a cell-phone glimpse of IDA's Park City house party, held Sunday, January 18 in a beautiful private residence in Deer Valley.

The event, thanks to the incredible generosity of the Truman Group of Chicago, seemed like a terrific success -- good food, wine, music, conversation and company -- and I think everyone there enjoyed themselves. (And hopefully no one got lost trying to get there.) A past IDA President was heard to remark, "How is it that the documentary organizations are throwing the nicest parties?"  

Party coverage made it into The New York Times' Carpetbagger blog. Check it out here. So if you're reading this and weren't able to make the trek…maybe next year? Can I entice you with the words, "prosciutto-wrapped asparagus"?

All photos by Cassie Wright.

First, a thought of the day: "Sometimes, pithy Sundance wisdom comes not from moguls, but from 'the little guy' fighting against life's petty cruelties."

Now on to the day's post: Yes, that's right, I actually managed to see a real live documentary today (for those of you who wondered why the hell you were reading yesterday's column).  It was Davis Guggenheim's It Might Get Loud and it was pure, unmitigated pleasure.  The film's premise almost sounds like a setup for an old joke:  "So, Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White walk into a soundstage filled with guitars..."  But it's anything but a joke; for anyone musically inclined, it's pure bliss.

Many music documentaries are empty shells; they don't inspire you to pick up an instrument or even listen to the tracks.  This one goes deep, in terms of how the musical sausage is actually made.  Hear the Edge's four-track demos recorded on a cassette tape that looks like it came from Radio Shack!  See the foyer in Jimmy Page's house where the drum track to "When The Levee Breaks" was recorded!  And understand where Jack White found his musical soul.  I can only guess that the music budget for this film was probably more than entire films I've made and yet lower than the bailout funds going to banks.  But it was truly impressive, not because of the expense, but because they could actually afford all the necessary tracks they had to have (and live performance footage).  You didn't leave thinking, "How could they make that film and not have ______ (fill in the song here)?"  They had 'em all.

The high point of the film, watching these three guys jam, unexpectedly and truly brought tears to my eyes, because they related to each other exactly the way any three garage-band musicians who sit down to jam try to figure out what the lead guy is playing to riff off of it.  And I could relate to that experience.

Extra special bonus was Jack White himself taking the stage for the Q&A.

I had offered Davis (who debuted An Inconvenient Truth in that very theater -- the Library -- at Sundance three years prior) a tagline for his trailer back when he was on a panel we did Film Independent last fall.  And I still stand by it:  "The director who saved the world...is about to rock your world."  (You have to say it with the right, "trailer-guy" voice for it to work).  Come on Sony Classics, it's there for the taking.

Below is some video of me outside the theater in the cold waiting for delightful fellow Board Member Laurie Ann Schag to show up with my ticket.  Without her, I'd have missed it all!

Started the day off with an early morning screening of Passing Strange, Spike Lee’s filmed version of the Tony-winning rock musical. Early in the afternoon, I headed to the Vitamin Water house to interview both Mr. Lee and Passing Strange creator and star Stew.

During my time there, I experienced in full force the bizarro world that is now Sundance. Members of the cast and crew of the film feasted on a ritzy catered lunch (the ahi tuna app looked damn good, but no foodie love for the journos waiting to talk to Spike), and the fully stocked bar doled out schmancy Vitamin Water cocktails. The house was branded the hilt with Vitamin Water bottles in all colors and flavors adorning the walls. Meanwhile, I was waiting to interview the creators of a film that has no distribution, and has its story development roots in the Sundance Lab...about as indie as you can get. 

After talking with both Stew and Spike (more on that later), I headed over to the PBS/ITVS party at the Riverhorse. I was greeted at the door by the lovely Cara white, and there were lots o’ non-fiction folk in attendance. ITVS’ Jim Sommers, Sr. VP of Content Management, welcomed the crowd by mentioning that 64 ITVS films have premiered throughout the years at Sundance, with 16 of them receiving awards. John Wilson, PBS’s SVP & Chief TV Programming Exec, spoke about this being a time of monumental transition that  can be challenging but can also lead to new opportunities. He bragged about the fact that pbs.org receives more visits than the online outposts of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.

 

New Frontiers panelist Thomas Allen Harris, Sundance's Shari Frilot
and Mark Samels (executive producer, EARTH DAYS)

 

THE GLASS HOUSE director/DP/Editor Hamid Rahmanian and producer/screenwriter Melissa Hibbard 

Filmmaker Adrian Belic and ITVS's Lois Vossen

 

A contemplative Stanley Nelson (WOUNDED KNEE)

Ran into Dirt! The Movie co-director Gene Rosow on the festival shuttle Thursday afternoon. He was supposed to have arrived at the festival with his film in hand, but some post-production issues had waylaid him and he was eagerly waiting for his print to make it to Park City. Considering he’d been in a sound mix until 4:30am that morning, he was in remarkably good spirits.

Last year, one of my favorite docs of the festival was F.L.O.W., which looked at the state of water on the planet. Dirt! The Movie, inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, is described as "a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to." I'm looking forward to seeing it later in the festival. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Sundance experience began with the random travel pairing of Guillermo De Toro and Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, who shared my flight out of LAX into Salt Lake City. This talent grouping was so inspired, I thought, that perhaps Sundance films should be made only from casts accidentally assembled on airplanes. This notion was confirmed ten minutes later when Pierce Brosnan walked up to retrieve his luggage while paparazzi shuttered away.

Really, "paparazzi" is too fancy a term -- how about "a dubious collection of grizzled stringers and fans with camcorders and cellphones." All of whom were recording footage which probably ended up on TMZ's TV show. It's truly amazing to me that horribly shot footage containing any famous person in any situation is now considered worthwhile viewing. In the future, I think we will all be able to order up security camera feeds from anywhere in the world with the click of a keypad. "Rob Schneider - McDonalds bathroom, Columbus, Ohio!" "Lenny Kravitz - Fountain, Caesar's Palace, Spring 1998!" This material is nonfiction, all right, but I'd like to think it isn't the "future" of documentaries.

Also enjoyed eavesdropping on a (nonfictional) conversation about guest lists that rivaled the classic "Who's On First?"

"Who has a Plus One?"
"I have a Plus One, but I don't know if YOU'RE my Plus One."
"I have a Plus One, so I don't need your Plus One."

Unfortunately, I did not get to see any films today. I attempted one, and it had nothing to do with the world of documentaries: Spring Breakdown, Amy Poehler, Parker Posey and Rachel Dratch's seemingly funny femme comedy. But when I arrived, there were 150 people on the waitlist in front of me. Needless to say, I gave up that idea pretty quick. But I did get to stand outside the theater to see fans geeking out over the stars, who very cordially posed for photos. The trailer looks enjoyable. Here, enjoy it yourself:

Sadly, I had left the Gen Art party (which was kind of fun), and as I walked out they said, "You know, if you leave you can't come back." Then I regretted leaving, of course. But this had been my fourth event in a row, starting off with a very nice ITVS event where I got to catch up with a lot of cool docu-folks, so I figured I ought to call it a night. Fellow documentary.org correspondent Tamara Krinsky was my travel companion for some of this ride and thankfully let me be her plus one, twice.

So my evening ended, pleasantly, at the 24 hour Albertson's with condomate and Board Member Adam Chapnick, as we purchased coffee, salt and vinegar chips, and contemplated the 24 oz. Budweiser-And-Clamato in a can. I said, "contemplated," not "ingested."

I tried to take some video of myself in front of a giant stuffed bear, but something went wrong. I'll work harder at it tomorrow, I promise.

After reading Mike Jones’ Variety post on Wednesday about his amusing shuttle ride experience, I couldn’t help but hope that my arrival at Sundance would yield similar results. Turns out I didn’t even have to wait until I got into my shuttle for my Sundance moments to begin.

Straight off the plane, the baggage carousel came to a dead stop. Despite several rabble rousers who tried to spread rumors of a labor strike (haven’t we had enough of those?), turns out it was just a mechanical glitch. Whilst waiting for the bags to emerge from the dungeon of Salt Lake City International Airport, I bonded with my fellow passengers, a good sampling of Sundance attendees.

Passenger A: A studio exec whose pet project is a nascent documentary festival.
Passenger B: A vendor who inadvertently insulted the producer she sat next to on the plane when she told him she didn’t like ANYTHING about his previous film.
Passenger C: A post-production supervisor who was tagging along with A and B for several days of fun and movies. When he learned I was at the festival covering the non-fiction films, he confided that he actually goes to the theater and pays to see docs. Love that!

Stepped outside into a gorgeous, sunny day with a fantastic view of the mountains. Crisp and chill, but not a complete shock to my thin-blooded LA body.

The airport shuttle ride itself did not disappoint. I had a wonderful reunion with Deliver Us From Evil producer Frank Donner, whom I met at Sundance two years ago when I interviewed him the morning he found out his film had been nominated for an Oscar. He told me about Amy Berg’s latest project (writer/director, Deliver Us From Evil), a film about Benazir Bhutto. Donner himself has several projects in the works.

I like getting to Sundance on Thursday afternoon before the massive crowds hit on Friday. Gives me a chance to get settled in before the madness begins. Of course, this year many are predicting a muted Sundance, which in my mind might not be so bad. A return to focusing on filmmaking? Fewer long lines at parties? Less traffic? Sounds pretty OK to me. We’ll see if it actually happens...stay tuned...

IDA friend AJ Schnack pointed out that Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir becmase the first nonfiction film to ever win a Golden Globe when it took home the statuette for Best Foreign Language Film last night.

Bashir is also a 2008 IDA Documentary Award winner (in the Feature Documentary category), on the Cinema Eye Honors Feature Film Shortlist, has taken home more than a few other awards already and is a strong Oscar contender.

Check out Documentary magazine's feature on Waltz with Bashir here.

Congrats to Ari Folman and the rest of his team.

The European Documentary Network has expanded their well-known documentary funding book The EDN TV-Guide into The EDN Financing Guide. The financing guide provides documentary professionals with the information needed to navigate in the evolving landscape of documentary production, where new approaches to funding and distribution become increasingly important. The new guide will include information on funds, VDD platforms, distributors and sales agents as well as broadcasters.

It's an essential tool for documentary filmmakers, producers, distributors and program sellers looking for financing, co-financing and sales of their projects and finished films.

You can buy the EDN Financing Guide 2009 for 100 Euro + postage.

If you join EDN you will receive a copy of the EDN Financing Guide 2009 as well as access to search our online database on European broadcasters

For more information about the guide and the organization, go to www.edn.dk.

 

IDA's second free membership mixer was off and running on January 7 at Carbon in Culver City, with free suds courtesy of Heineken, choice spins from DJ's Mike D'Angelo and Dollar Short, and great conversation with a wide spectrum of the documentary community. The event was a live-wire welcome mat for our spiffy new Executive Director, Michael Lumpkin, who was personable enough to actually greet several members right at the door! Spotted amongst the packed-like-sardines crowd were DP extraordinaire Shana Hagan; Documentary magazine Editor Thomas White; filmmaker and Man About Town Michael Rose; editor Miranda Yousef; Sundance's Win-sie Tow; Board Members Steve Reich, Moises Velez, LaurieAnn Schag, Pi Ware and Gilda Brasch; and many other talented members, both veteran and brand new.

I personally was invigorated by meeting so many cool filmmakers with fascinating projects in various stages of pre, prod and post, and came away feeling psyched to pull together the community to just plain hang and have fun (and hoping that we, as an organization, can also help). Major kudos to Maria Arzola, Manager of Membership Services, her committee (the aforementioned Mr. Velez and Board Member Beth Bird), and our dedicated staff, many of whom were in attendance, including Controller Meg Madison, Program & Events Manager Peggy Ellithorpe, Webmaster and Technical Director Mark Dischler, and Executive Administrative Assistant MJ Brown. (Fiscal Sponsorship Manager Amy Halpin was there in spirit!)

Up next: Open your Trapper Keepers, there will be a mixer just for students in February.

All photos by Juan Ruvalcaba. See more pictures on the IDA Flickr Photostream.