Meet the IDA Documentary Awards Nominees: Cynthia Wade of 'Mondays at Racine'
In the countdown to the IDA Awards, we've been spotlighting our nominees and honorees, either through previously published articles or through fresh new pieces.
Here's an interview with Cynthia Wade, director/producer of Mondays at Racine, a Best Short Award nominee.
Synopsis: Every third Monday of the month, two bold, brassy sisters open the doors of their Long Island hair salon to women diagnosed with cancer. As locks of hair fall to the floor, women gossip, giggle, weep, face their fears and discover unexpected beauty.
IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?
Cynthia Wade: I was a theater major in college, but I burned out on the audition process. I hated standing in a hallway waiting to read a few lines just for the slim chance of participating in a creative process. I usually didn't get the part. I was told I was too tall, my hair was too dark. I grew weary of someone else being the gatekeeper. I didn't want other people to decide whether I could join the creative endeavor. I wanted more control and autonomy in the realm of storytelling.
So I picked up a camera in college. I made two documentaries as an undergraduate at Smith College, and then after working for a couple of years post-graduation, I attended Stanford University's MA program in Documentary Film. I learned the technical aspects of film-shooting, editing, lighting, sound recording-and then spent eight years in New York City working as a camera operator for other directors. In 1998, I co-produced and shot a national PBS special called Taken In: The Lives of America's Foster Children (directed by Vanessa Roth). In 1999, Grist for the Mill , a personal documentary I directed, shot and co-edited, aired on Cinemax. That was the beginning of the launch of my production company and my career as a documentary director.
IDA: What inspired you to make Mondays at Racine?
CW: I was interested in making a film about why, in the face of a cancer diagnosis, losing hair is such a shocking, traumatic and extreme experience. When you are facing potential loss of life and health, how is it that losing your hair is such a devastating event?
What I discovered is that hair is just the tip of the iceberg. In losing your hair and eyebrows and eyelashes, life as you know it is stripped away, both cosmetically and psychologically. The delicate web of how you perceive yourself, how others perceive you and how you negotiate the world all come into question. It's the first domino in a long chain of falling dominoes. Many people start to question other things, too: relationships, jobs, dreams, goals. Marriages that once worked can struggle. Even the slightest and smallest disappointment can bring up years of unspoken conflict. All bets are off. The hair falls, and other parts of their lives follow.
This can be traumatic, but it can be liberating, as well-especially when women find a community that supports their experience. For two years, I shot in a Long Island salon called Racine, where two sisters (Rachel and Cynthia; their combined names created the salon's name, Racine) open their doors on Mondays to women undergoing chemotherapy. Mondays are typical days off for most salons, but Racine is open at least one Monday a month to help women regain a sense of lost self. Heads are shaved, locks fall, lashes are applied, eyebrows are drawn, facials and pedicures and massages are all available for free. This sounds trite, but what happens as the customers are followed home over the course of two years is anything but trite.
IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?
CW: I wanted to make a serious film about seismic changes happening unexpectedly in marriages. But at the same time, I wanted the film to have lighter moments-even burst-out-loud laughing moments. Because the lighter moments are there, too. They're a real part of the experience.
I ended up shooting a year longer than I originally expected because the stories unfolded slowly, relationships changed over time. I also spent time casting our "couples" -double interviews in which various couples talk about how cancer has affected their personal and intimate lives.
One husband wanted nothing to do with me. He avoided me for a year. I accepted that he would probably never be part of the film. Then one day he texted me. We ended up having a three-hour interview in which he expressed feelings he had bottled up for 20 years. It was very intense and very, very sad. Then he avoided me for nine more months. I wasn't sure what to do with the footage. Then, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, he called me to say he wanted to be part of the film. We filmed some more. He told me that he was really afraid that he would be cast as the "bad guy" because he felt like he'd completely failed as a husband.
At our first festival screening, he got a standing ovation-not because he was perfect in the film, but because he was honest and imperfect. He called me after the screening and said, "All this time, I thought I was the villain. And then I saw the film and I realized that cancer is the villain." A weight had been lifted from him: He didn't have to drag himself around feeling like the Bad Guy anymore. At the Hamptons Film Festival-the backyard of the Racine Salon-he was able to speak in front of 300 people, including members of his neighborhood and church. It was amazing to watch, and such a terrific relief to me.
Articles about other nominees in the Short Award category:
Above Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.
In a de facto preamble to the Oscar-cast on February 24, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences staged the fourth annual Governors Awards this past Saturday, December 1, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center in Hollywood.
Among the four honorees, DA Pennebaker earned an Academy Honorary Award for his undeniable impact on the documentary form. As the inscription on his Oscar says, he "redefined the language of film and taught a generation of filmmakers to look to reality for inspiration." Senator Al Franken, the subject of the 2006 film Al Franken: God Spoke, directed by Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker's wife and filmmaking partner, shared introductory remarks with Academy Governor Michael Moore, who lauded Pennebaker as a pioneer who, "with a group of his friends [that would be Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles and Robert Drew], invented the modern documentary. Nonfiction film could be daring, provocative and, dare I say it, entertaining." Moore cited Pennebaker and Leacock's innovations in synch sound and camera portability. "This was anarchy, madness," Moore exclaimed. "They constructed their movies as movies, as works of art, as works of cinema."
Following a tribute reel that featured clips from classics like Dont Look Back, Monterey Pop, The War Room, The Kings of Pastry and a host of others, Pennebaker, mounting the stage with a spryness that defied his 87 years, returned Moore the favor of his remarks:"Knowing that Michael's on the case, I sleep better." He expressed his gratitude for the Oscar-he and Hegedus were nominated in 1994 for The War Room-noting that "People in New York never expect to go to Oscarland...But between here and New York, there's finally some kind of a bridge, and you guys somehow consider us fellow filmmakers" Of Hegedus, he said, "I realized that she could be the partner I was always looking for, who was driven by the same passion for a certain kind of film that I was. When we make films, when you're shooting them, it's great fun because there's nothing but problems to be solved. You're great pals. But then, when sit down at the Streenbeck or whatever editing machine there is, then it begins, you get divorced about four times a week."
IDA honored Pennebaker and Hegedus in 2005 with a Career Achievement Award. For an article from the December 2005 issue of Documentary, click here.
Also honored that evening was George Stevens Jr., renowned for helping to found the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors. His 1984 film George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, about his father, was among the first to win an IDA Documentary Award. Stevens Jr. was also mentor to 2000 IDA Career Achievement Award honoree Charles Guggenheim, whose son Davis returned the favor by creating a short film about Stevens for the Governors Awards. Documentary also runs in the Stevens family: Son Michael has produced numerous AFI LIfe Achievement Award tributes to the likes of Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Steven Speilberg and Robert Wise, while daughter Caroline has executive-produced such films as Sons of Perdition, Devil's Playground and Cat Dancers, among many others.
The documentary community was amply represented at the Governors Awards, with R.J. Cutler, Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering, Freida Lee Mock, Terry Sanders, Haskell Wexler, Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill, Alan Barker and Rob Epstein providing enough docu-wattage at tables 405 and 406 to offset the billion-dollar effulgence emanating from Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner Jeffrey Katzenberg's table.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 85th Academy Awards®. One hundred twenty-six pictures had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,Never Sorry LLC
Bully, The Bully Project LLC
Chasing Ice, Exposure
Detropia, Loki Films
Ethel, Moxie Firecracker Films
5 Broken Cameras, Guy DVD Films
The Gatekeepers, Les Films du Poisson, Dror Moreh Productions, Cinephil
The House I Live In, Charlotte Street Films, LLC
How to Survive a Plague, How to Survive a Plague LLC
The Imposter, Imposter Pictures Ltd.
The Invisible War, Chain Camera Pictures
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Jigsaw Productions in
association with Wider Film Projects and Below theRadar Films
Searching for Sugar Man, Red Box Films
This Is Not a Film, Wide Management
The Waiting Room, Open'hood, Inc.
The Documentary Branch viewed the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on the shortlist. These titles included IDA Award nominees The Invisible War and Searching for Sugar Man, as well as How to Survive a Plague, whose director, David France, earned IDA's Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award this year.
The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby TheatreTM at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.
We are excited to announce that three IDA-supported titles—After Tiller, Citizen Koch, and Valentine Road—have been selected among the 16 films in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
After Tiller is one of the five films to receive grants this year from our Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund. The fund, made possible by The New York Community Trust, supports full-length documentary films that reflect the spirit and nature of Pare Lorentz’s work, exhibiting objective research, artful storytelling, strong visual style, high production values, artistic writing, outstanding music composition, as well as skillful direction, camerawork and editing.
Synopsis: Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in 2009, only four doctors in the country provide late-term abortions. With unprecedented access, After Tiller goes inside the lives of these physicians working at the center of the storm. (Directors: Martha Shane, Lana Wilson)
Citizen Koch is another of the five films receiving funds from the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund, and is also a participant in IDA's Fiscal Sponsorship Program. This alternative to starting a nonprofit allows a filmmaker to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations for a documentary, with the oversight, support and endorsement of IDA.
Synopsis: In Wisconsin—birthplace of the Republican Party, government unions, “cheeseheads” and Paul Ryan—becomes a test market in the campaign to buy Democracy, and ground zero in the battle for the future of the GOP. (Directors: Carl Deal, Tia Lessin)
Also a project in IDA's Fiscal Sponsorship Program, Valentine Road is the third film selected for competition in this winter's festival. In 2008, eighth-grader Brandon McInerney shot classmate Larry King at point blank range. Unraveling this tragedy from point of impact, the film reveals the heartbreaking circumstances that led to the shocking crime as well as its startling aftermath. (Director: Marta Cunningham)
We are so proud of all three of these films. Good luck in Park City!
There's no question, crowdfunding is a great way to reach out to your audience and gain much-needed financial support. Whether you're in the first or final stages of making your documentary, a targeted campaign could be just the thing your fundraising strategy is missing. Getting started and knowing how to create a successful campaign might seem daunting. But never fear! The professionals at IndieGoGo are here to help.
Check out IndieGoGo's blog posts and register for their upcoming webinars:
Blog Posts
- What Makes a Campaign Successful
- 5 Basic Elements for a Great Pitch Page
- IndieGoGo Insight: Perk Pricing Practices
- Introduction to Crowdfunding - November 14th, 11:00-11:30am PST
- Marketing Tips & Best Practices - November 21st, 11:00-11:30am PST
- Common Crowdfunding Mistakes - In case you missed it, listen to a recording from this week's webinar.
Planning an upcoming IndieGoGo campaign? Give us a call or email and we'll help you get set up!
lisa.h@documentary.org/213.534.3600 x7445
amy@documentary.org/213.534.3600 x7467
Since 1990, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato have been bringing their unique take on the world to screens both big and small. In an industry where yesterday’s doc becomes tomorrow’s reality show and the gay channel has to become less so to survive, the duo has not only produced some of the most most-watched, cutting-edge programming of the past two decades, but have also created one of the media world’s most successful independent production companies and distinctive brands, World of Wonder.
From award winning in-depth character studies (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Monica in Black in White) to social issue docs (The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; The Last Beekeeper) and glitzy and splashy reality franchises (Rupaul's Drag Race, Million Dollar Homes), their productions defy traditional labels and assert that compelling story and characters are what create good programs, across genres, niches, and expectations.
On Monday, November 19, Join producer Eddie Schmidt (Beauty is Embarrassing, Troubadours) for a discussion with Randy and Fenton on the challenges of running a transatlantic production company, crossing genre boundaries, and managing the famous and infamous, while also hosting a cutting edge culture blog with over 200,000 hits per month.
The evening's on-stage conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A, and a reception on the Cinefamily's backyard Spanish patio!
The IDA has decided upon this year’s recipients of the Creative Recognition Awards for cinematography, editing, writing, and music. The winners were decided by the Creative Recognition Awards Committee, which is made up from the co-chairs of the Features Screening Committees. At this year’s IDA Awards ceremony, Best Cinematography will go to Women With Cows, Best Editing to Room 237, and Best Music to Searching for Sugar Man. The Best Writing Award goes to Ann Richards’ Texas.
Best Cinematography recipient Women With Cows, which is also nominated for the Best Feature Award at this year’s IDA Documentary Awards, was directed and shot by Peter Gerdehag. The film focuses on 79-year-old Britt Georgsson, who has devoted her entire life to cows. Her sister Ingrid, one year her junior, cannot stand the cows. Even so, she generally helps her sister to look after the bovine family inheritance. Respected Swedish photographer and documentarist Peter Gerdehag observes both sisters over a period of time, not only during their frequent spats, but also in moments of mutual accord.
For Best Editing, the Creative Recognition Awards Committee decided on Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, a documentary that explores the many theories behind Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and its hidden meanings. The film guides us through the many attempts to decode this endlessly fascinating film. With interviews from foreign and domestic ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore, Albion College Professor of History Geoffrey Cocks, playwright Juli Kearns, author and hermetic scholar Jay Weidner, and KDK12 editor John Fell Ryan, Room 237 creates a new maze of sorts with endless detours and dead ends.
The Best Music honor will be bestowed upon Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man, which details the efforts of two fans who wish discover if the rumored death of American musician Rodriquez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. The soundtrack is comprised of a compilation containing materials from Rodriguez’s two albums, and original composition by Bendjelloul.
Lastly, the Creative Recognition Awards Committee decided on Keith Patterson’s Ann Richards’ Texas, which is also a part of IDA’s fiscal sponsorship program.
Ann Richards’ Texas is a timely documentary about the life and lessons of the late great Governor, Ann Richards. A feisty straight-talking West Texas girl, Ann Richards was a hippie housewife who traded late nights with Willie Nelson and the progressive Austin music scene for a beehive hair-do, the Governor's Mansion, and battles with special interests.
For more on all of the Creative Recognition Award recipients and nominees, download the full press release.
This year, the esteemed Pare Lorentz Award will go to The Island President, directed by John Shenk. Each year, the IDA gives this award to a film that demonstrates concern for the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems. Previous winners of the Pare Lorentz Awards include The Last Mountain, Wasteland, and An Inconvenient Truth.
IDA’s Pare Lorentz Award recipient The Island President, directed by Jon Shenk, is the story of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives. Nasheed brings democracy to the Maldives after thirty years of despotic rule, but faces an even greater challenge: rising sea levels threatening to submerge the 1200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable. The Island President captures Nasheed’s first year of office, culminating in his trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009. When hope fades for a written accord to be signed, Nasheed makes a stirring speech, which salvages an agreement. Despite the modest size of his country, Mohamed Nasheed has become one of the leading international voices for urgent action on climate change. The Island President is produced by Bonni Cohen and Richard Berge, and Executive Produced by Jon Else.
Jon Shenk is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and founder of Actual Films who has spent his career telling socially-relevant stories with a human touch. He was the Director of Photography for the Academy Award-winning Smile Pinki (2009). He was awarded an Emmy for Blame Somebody Else (2007), a feature story about human trafficking which he wrote, produced and photographed for PBS. Shenk directed and photographed the Emmy-nominated Lost Boys of Sudan (2004), a feature documentary that follows two young refugees of Sudan’s civil war through their first year in America. Shenk has produced and photographed dozens of documentaries for PBS, the BBC, A&E, Bravo, CBS, NBC, and National Geographic. He has been nominated twice for Emmys for his cinematography.
The Award's namesake, American filmmaker Pare Lorentz, was known for his non-fiction films about the New Deal. Lorentz is rightfully celebrated for making a distinct contribution to more than just American film history. Arguably the most influential filmmaker of the Great Depression, Pare Lorentz made films that set out to document the American experince in the Dust Bowl and the great American Plains. His sensitivity to American's impact on the environment is precisely why he is remembered today.
Each year IDA recognizes the achievements of a filmmaker who has made a significant impact at the beginning of his or her career in documentary film. This year IDA will honor David France, the producer and director of one of the year’s most-acclaimed films How To Survive A Plague, with the 2011 Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award.
Since his film's premiere last January at the Sundance Film Festival, award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author David France has received tremendous praise from critics, programmers and fellow filmmakers for his directorial debut. A former Newsweek senior editor known for his pieces bridging science and culture, his work has appeared in the New York Times and New York magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and has been recognized with a National Headliner Award and a GLAAD Media Award, among others. His three nonfiction books include Our Fathers, the critically acclaimed epic examination of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis. Several films have been inspired by his work, including the Emmy-nominated Showtime film Our Fathers, for which he received a WGA nomination. He is at work on a major new history of AIDS, due from Alfred A. Knopf in 2014.
Previous recipients of the Donnet Award include Marshall Curry (If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front; Racing Dreams), Danfung Dennis (Hell and Back Again), Natalia Almada (The General), and Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation, Walk Away Renee) .
David France will receive his award at the 28th annual IDA Documentary Awards ceremony, to take place Friday, December 7 at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles.
Back in November 2011, the IDA and Kartemquin Films sent out a request for your help as we were preparing to submit comments to the Library of Congress regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). We were requesting that an exemption be renewed to allow all filmmakers to obtain the clips they need to tell their stories under the protection of the law. With your help and support, we submitted these comments for consideration of appending the DMCA’s current restrictions for accessing footage on Thursday, December 1, 2011.
Yesterday, on Thursday, October 25, the Librarian of Congress made his determination in the DMCA Rulemaking. Under the former DMCA exemption, documentary filmmakers were allowed to take materials from DVDs for fair use in their films. We were asking that all filmmakers would be recognized under the exemption.
Most of what was asked for was granted: the exemption was renewed for documentary filmmakers and granted for nonfiction e-book authors "offering film analysis," on both DVD and online distribution services. This can be considered a HUGE step forward toward making sure that encryption doesn't prevent documentary filmmakers and e-book authors from fully envisioning their projects.
Jack Lerner, Clinical Associate Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, had this to say about the decision: "This is an important day for documentary filmmaking. In today's digital environment, technological locks are ubiquitous and confounding. Without this exemption, filmmakers simply could not continue to do what they've done for decades: use the language of film to examine and illuminate our culture, history and civic life." Professor Lerner's USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic and Michael C. Donaldson served as counsel for the filing of the comments mentioned above.
"This is a huge expansion of the permission allowing documentary filmmakers to crack DVDs," said Michael Donaldson, founding partner of Beverly Hills law firm Donaldson & Callif. "Now they may also crack online distribution services. This is a huge step forward. I must acknowledge my co-counsel, Jack Lerner of University of Southern California Gould School of Law." Michael Donaldson helped to organize the request for the exemption.
"While enthusiastic that the Librarian of Congress has seen the importance of preserving fair use rights for documentary filmmakers in the digital age, I am even more excited to see all the amazing films that that will use this exemption over the next three years," said Alex Cohen of the USC Gould School of Law.
Another cohort from USC, Brendan Charney, also weighed in about the rulemaking: "We were thrilled to have the opportunity to advocate for such a critical exemption, but the most important work was done by documentary filmmakers who told their stories to the copyright office and made clear why fair use is essential to their compelling work."
Read more about the decision here. The IDA wants to thank all who submitted their stories for your support in helping to ensure that filmmakers are no longer harmed by the DMCA!
Further reading: USC Gould’s IPTLC Wins Battle on Behalf of Filmmakers, E-book Authors