Over the next couple of weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here are Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina, directors/producers/executive producers of Dying to Do Letterman.

Synopsis: This award-winning documentary follows funny man Steve Mazan as he chases a larger-than-life dream: performing stand-up comedy on David Letterman's show. However, his quest becomes far more urgent when he learns he may only have five years to live. With long odds stacked against him and time ticking away, Steve faces a universal question: Should one persevere in the face of every obstacle? Or is there finally a time to give up? A funny, inspiring, emotional film that proves it's never too late to chase your dream.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina: The two of us had always dreamed of making movies. We met at UCLA, and quickly realized that all of our screenwriter friends were writing the same kinds of things. (At the time, every script seemed to be set in a coffee shop with characters who talked like a mash-up of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.) We wanted to go for "real" in the movies we hoped to make, and so we began in documentary as a way to get out in the "real" world and capture everyday people living their own extraordinary stories. Now it's turned into a love of every style of nonfiction storytelling.

IDA: What inspired you to make Dying to do Letterman?

JF: In the early 2000s, to pay our bills (well, almost pay them!), we were editing actor's demo reels, corporate videos and video game trailers out of our one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood.

Steve Mazan (subject of our doc) came in to cut his very first comedy reel--just a simple tape with some of his stand-up, and his name and contact info at the end. We kept in touch after that.

A few years later--we were still living in the one-bedroom apartment--Steve sent an e-mail saying he'd launched a website called Dying to do Letterman, and he was hoping people would e-mail David Letterman and ask to see Steve perform on the show. 

BM: I was editing when the e-mail came in, and I remember Joke went to check out the site, and then she gasped from the other side of the room. She said, "Steve's got cancer." His new website was dedicated to his dream: performing on David Letterman's show. However, doctors told him he might only have five years to live, and he planned to "live his dream or die trying."

We called Steve and asked if there was anything we could do, and he said that he'd been shooting a little footage of himself, and was thinking of making a documentary about his journey. Would we help him? We agreed to give him a camera immediately (one of two we owned), but we weren't sure about making the doc. It's a hard decision to make a documentary about a sick friend, especially if you're going to try to do it right--be there for the good and the bad--and not just make a simple valentine to a buddy whose time is short.

JF: After thinking about it overnight, we told Steve, "If we do this, we want to really do it, all the way. And what that means is, if we're there, and things are going bad for you, we can't just put the camera down and give you a hug. We're going to be there filming you; we're not going to be there as friends." 

There was this long pause, and then Steve said, "Oooh, you just made my tumors hurt." We laughed hard, and cried, too. Hearing him deal with his "death sentence" with such a sense of humor was both hysterical and disquieting, but it was uniquely Steve. That was the tone we hoped to capture in the documentary.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

JF & BM: No one could justify funding this movie--no one. Everyone wanted to know if Steve would actually get to perform on Letterman. They all asked if his health would hold out. Clearly, we could not answer those questions. All we could say was that we wanted it to be a funny, inspirational doc about chasing big dreams, no matter what. 

Potential investors weren't keen on funding a documentary that could stretch on for years, may end with Steve's death, and would probably never involve an appearance by Steve on David Letterman's stage. It was a bad bet, pure and simple. 

That meant funding it ourselves, shooting it ourselves, editing it ourselves...It meant we had to make the movie because no one else would. And we were happy to. That's what indie film is all about: You make a movie you believe in because no one else will. You put your money where your mouth is and say, "The world needs to see this story." You ask people for a lot of favors along the way. And then you hope you don't screw the whole thing up.  

Add to all of that the most amazing, incredible demand anyone has ever made of us in our entire filmmaking career--Steve's only creative input before we started filming--a pledge he asked us to make to him: "Even if I die, you have to finish the movie, and make it funny."

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

BM: There was only one thing we really knew about the movie when we started. It would have one of two endings.

Either Steve makes it on Letterman, or Steve dies trying.  

Other than that hugely emotional, simple fact, we didn't have a clue which way the story would twist and turn over the years. How much could we shoot, and how would we balance the story? How much cancer? How much comedy? How much of his friends and family?  

JF: Once the filming was complete, we had a little over 300 of hours of footage--some great, some junk, some a big question mark. So we leaned on classic storytelling structure when choosing which scenes to put in the movie.

BM: We stayed true to the chronology of Steve's journey, and never moved scenes around for dramatic effect, but we did shape the overall edit so that the most dramatic moments were laid out in a way that would feel right to movie-going audiences--making sure the opening visuals conveyed the tone of the movie, setting up Steve's story in the first ten minutes, having clear first- and second-act turning points, etc.  

Because of that approach, though, we had no idea what the final movie was really going to be like until we were pretty deep in editing. There was no "script" or interviews we planned to use as tentpoles. Everything was driven by the real story we captured over the years.

JF: One thing that did turn out exactly as we planned were fun "narration pods" that explain certain concepts to the audience in a fun, stylized way. These look very different from the vérité scenes, and that was important--we never wanted viewers to confuse the two.  

IDA:  As you've screened Dying to do Letterman--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

JF & BM: The number of standing ovations has been overwhelming, humbling and, to be honest, shocking. I don't think there's been a single screening where the audience reactions afterward haven't brought us both to tears. 

We've heard from many, many people who've told us that the movie has inspired them to chase their own dreams. 

The most unexpected reaction to the movie was a young lady from Ohio who said, "That's it! I'm taking drum lessons!" Turns out her one regret in life was never learning to play the drums. She told us she was going home, getting a drum set and starting lessons--all because of the movie. That's one of our favorite stories so far, and it makes us so happy.  

We think the world would be a better place if more people decided to chase their own dreams, no matter how big or small.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

JF & BM: When we were coming up, we were lucky to work with R.J. Cutler (The War Room, The September Issue), and he taught us to "shoot everything" and trust that a great story will emerge if you stay out of the way and just let it happen.  

We count a huge variety of docs and filmmakers as inspiration, but some of our all-time favorites include American Movie, Capturing the Friedmans, King of Kong, Man on Wire, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and newer faves include Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Waiting for Superman. 

In an interview somewhere, Davis Guggenheim related something his dad [Charles Guggenheim] had told him. We're paraphrasing, but it went kind of like this: "Documentaries are not about issues, they're about people."  

That's the best advice we've ever heard. 

Dying to do Letterman will be screening August 26 through September 1 at the IFC Center in New York City and September 2 through 8 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for Dying to do Letterman in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for Dying to do Letterman in Los Angeles, click here.

Don't miss the fifth and final part of "50 Documentaries To See Before You Die" which will air on Tuesday, August 30 at 9PM ET.  Hosted by Spurlock, the final installment of the hour-long weekly series counts down the top 10 films! 

Here's the list of films that have been announced thus far:

50. Spellbound
49. Madonna: Truth or Dare
48. The Kid Stays in the Picture
47. One Day in September
46. Little Dieter Needs to Fly
45. Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years
44. Burma VJ
43. When the Levees Broke
42. Catfish
41. King of Kong
40. When We Were Kings
39. Biggie and Tupac
38. March of the Penguins
37. Inside Job
36. Taxi to the Dark Side
35. Paragraph 175
34. Brother’s Keeper
33. Tongues Untied
32. Dogtown and Z Boys
31. Jesus Camp
30. Farenheit 9/11
29. Man on Wire
28. Gasland
27. Tarnation
26. Murderball
25. Enron
24. Paradise Lost
23. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
22. Shut Up and Sing
21. Exit Through The Gift Shop
20. Capturing the Friedmans
19. Touching the Void
18. Food Inc
17. Street Fight
16. Bus 174
15. Crumb
14. Dark Days
13. The Fog of War
12. Bowling For Columbine
11. Paris Is Burning

For more program information, click here.

Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Marc Smolowitz, director/producer of The Power Of Two.

Synopsis: The Power Of Two offers an intimate portrayal of the bond between half-Japanese twin sisters Anabel Stenzel and Isabel Stenzel Byrnes, their lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis, their survival through miraculous double lung transplants and their improbable emergence as authors, athletes and global advocates for organ donation. Featuring expert interviews, archival footage and deeply personal testimony from the twins and others whose lives have been impacted by organ transplantation from the US and Japan, the film provides unprecedented insight into the personal and societal aspects of this modern medical miracle affecting millions worldwide.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Marc Smolowitz: I got my start with documentaries first in film festivals, then in theatrical distribution, and then through co-production, sales and international financing of films. This eventually brought me to some very important professional opportunities, which included producing two award-winning feature documentaries that I am extremely proud of--Sandi DuBowski's Trembling Before G-d and Sam Green and Bill Siegel's The Weather Underground. From there, I worked in local television in San Francisco for a number of years, where I had the chance to move into nonfiction directing. I fell in love with directing, and working with characters who have had a life epiphany that takes them in unexpected directions, whereby they have a chance to touch the lives of others. After an amazing two-year stint working as a producer at a VOD production house in Silicon Valley, I decided to try my own hand as a feature documentary director and producer of my own films; The Power Of Two is my second finished film. My other release is Still Around, a feature-length, short film compilation about living and thriving with HIV/AIDS at the 30th anniversary, currently in distribution through Outcast Films. At 42, I am decidedly a social-issue filmmaker, committed to high-impact storytelling about characters who change hearts and minds about important, often surprisingly universal issues.

IDA: What inspired you to make The Power Of Two?

MS: The Power Of Two is inspired by The Power Of Two: A Twin Triumph Over Cystic Fibrosis, a memoir co-written by the centerpiece characters of the film. When I read their book, I was incredibly moved by the way Anabel (Ana) Stenzel and Isabel (Isa) Stenzel Byrnes write so eloquently about their experiences with chronic illness. My big takeaway from their memoir was that we all have a stake in global conversations about public health, organ donation and transplantation, and we can all find a space in our lives for community and advocacy of social causes. From there, it made perfect sense that a feature documentary would be a natural evolution for this story. As I began the filmmaking process, I quickly fell in love with Ana and Isa, both as people and as characters, and over time, we developed a powerful three-way trust in all aspects of this storytelling collaboration. All in all, I see Ana and Isa as both ordinary and extraordinary women, which reminds us that we often see such humbling and familiar contrasts in our own lives. As such, they are entirely approachable yet somehow also bigger than life. Ultimately, it is their twin bond that resonates on-screen with immense power-- the kind that transcends boundaries of culture, race and nation. In bringing their stories to screen, I have had the great pleasure of following them across two countries and 27 cities, and now, I look forward to sharing their stories of survival with the world. I am quite sure that audiences will embrace them with the same openness and excitement that they themselves bring every day. It truly has been an honor to make this film--a highlight of my life and career--and I have learned so much about what it means to opt in for being an advocate for something bigger than myself.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

MS: When it comes to filmmaking, my take on challenges is that they're generally also opportunities. For me, the greatest challenge and opportunity was our ambitious timeline for making this film. Since transplant is not a panacea for cystic fibrosis patients, everyone involved in making this film wanted to make sure that it could be realized in a manner that supported the twins to remain healthy and robust in every way. As such, we opted in for a fundraising, production, post and completion timeline that came in at just under 22 months. This way, I could focus the involvement of the twins on specific events and production cycles that would allow them to continue their lives as patients and advocates outside of making the film. While this was certainly fast for an entirely independent production, it forced me to be laser-focused when it came to evaluating opportunities and executing on them.

Working with Japan was also an amazing challenge and opportunity, one that required a dedicated, Japan-facing associate producer who could assist with language, community and business interactions. For my part, I also work very hard to build an infrastructure around my projects at the earliest stage, so while The Power Of Two is a feature documentary, it is also an enterprise in many ways. For example, we have 40+ nonprofit partners who are actively engaged, and at every stage of this project, partnerships have driven much of the success we've been able to achieve. I also have to go on record with how grateful I am to my producing partner, Andrew Byrnes, and to my executive producer, Chris Kelly. Together, our combined skills, talents and networks made this film possible, and it has been a joy to work with them. Finally, surrounding myself with talented people who are at the top of their game has always been my approach to team-building and collaboration, and the team behind this film includes an impressive roster of creative people who have done some of the best work of their careers. Now, that's how you address challenges and turn them into opportunities!

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

MS: When I look back on the earliest proposals and treatments that I wrote for The Power Of Two, I am actually pleasantly surprised how similar my early vision for the film comes through in the final version. Initially, production was launched with a very ambitious one-month cycle in Japan that followed Ana and Isa on a book tour to encourage organ donation awareness in their mother's native country. When we returned with 90+ hours of amazing content, I recall thinking that we had enough material for a feature film that focused on the twins and their innately powerful connection to Japan. In retrospect, we found ourselves filming in Japan (during fall 2009) at a time when the nation was at a tipping point with respect to critical public health issues (organ donation) that are at the center of my film. This was very powerful for me as filmmaker to witness and record, and it also came with great responsibility--my storytelling choices around Japan came with opportunities to make a truly global film with great resonance. Over time, it was clear that the film would achieve much more global power if it could manage to be a lush comparison of characters and stories from both the United States and Japan--through the eyes of the twins. This approach became the backbone of how I built this story, how shoots were prioritized and how creative choices were made in post-production. Oftentimes, the twins resisted being the central focus of the story, and they pointed me to other people, patients, advocates and experts who could help broaden the scope of the film. All in all, I am so grateful for their insistence. In the end, it was these introductions and shooting opportunities that took the film in some very exciting directions. Then, during post, I had the joy of embedding myself with two very talented editors, and together, we built a film with upwards of 40 scenes, featuring 25+ on-camera characters and interview subjects. During this phase, I also got to focus on music and score with an incredible team that understood how music can influence story. And, I also got to focus on motion graphics and animation as a storytelling trope, and these are the tools that I always intended to use to weave together a complex set of stories and characters into one clearly written, 94-minute journey. For me, it was always my vision that the twins would serve as our anchor, and through their eyes, we meet many wise people who have incredibly salient things to share about life, illness, death and advocacy.

IDA: As you've screened The Power Of Two--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

MS: DocuWeeks is the official world premiere of The Power Of Two, so I am very excited to begin this journey of sharing my film with the film-going public and then some. To date, we have had a number of private screenings since the film was finished, and it is clear that this film has the potential to be much more universal than a short synopsis of it sounds. When I tell people the quasi-log line--"Half-Japanese, identical twin sisters who grow up with cystic fibrosis, both receive double lung transplants, and go on to become authors and global advocates for organ donation"--it always stimulates interest because it sounds so unlikely and specialized. But, what is clear from early screenings is that this is not just a cystic fibrosis film, not just a transplant film, not just a film about Japan, and not just a film about twins. Rather, it's all of these things and so much more. It's also a heart-rending experience; one viewer said, "It's a seven-hanky movie." Perhaps. But, it's also a very frank look at what it means to survive through illness and decide to go public about it.

Audiences have, so far, confirmed that the film is not saccharine in any way, which gives me great confidence that it will stand on its own as a captivating illness story. People have also said that it has the potential to inspire organ donation. While I certainly hope this is the case, I mostly hope it becomes a conversation-starter for people and communities to talk about this difficult and deeply personal issue. Through making this film, I now understand that any individual or family can be impacted by an acute or chronic illness whereby organ donation and transplant might be the only solution available to save a person's life. I am sensing already that a big takeaway from The Power Of Two is that when our health care systems work, they can actually save patients' lives--reminding us that by saying "yes" to organ donation, we're all implicated in one of the most universal decisions a person can make to save the life of another.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

MS: Early on, I was deeply inspired by the films of Marlon Riggs and other activist/LGBT directors of the late '80s and early '90s. I entered the film world at a time when personal documentaries and first-person storytelling were increasingly celebrated, and I remember being stunned and inspired by films like Silverlake Life, Thank You & Good Night and Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter. I've always loved the films of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and I was honored to be able to work on The Celluloid Closet in a development and research role--an early experience that sealed the deal for me on a documentary career path. Other films that stand out for me as influential include Paris Was A Woman, Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, Dark Days, Promises, Daughter from Danang, Tarnation, Born Into Brothels, and more recently, The Age of Stupid, Food, Inc. and Outrage.

The Power Of Two will be screening August 19 through 25 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles and August 26 through September 1 at the IFC Center in New York City.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Power Of Two in Los Angeles, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Power Of Two in New York, click here.

Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Maggie Betts, director/producer of The Carrier.

Synopsis: Told through the eyes of an increasingly empowered heroine, The Carrier is a powerful and moving portrait of an unconventional family, set against the backdrop of the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zambia. This lyrical film follows Mutinta Mweemba, a 28-year-old subsistence farmer living in a polygamous marriage. After learning she is HIV-positive and pregnant, Mutinta sets out to keep her unborn child virus-free and break the cycle of transmission.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Maggie Betts: I don't know that I ever really "got started" in documentary filmmaking; it's more just something I woke up one day and found myself doing. I'd spent a large part of my adult life traveling to various countries in Africa, and was always very interested in the plight of HIV and its impact upon the continent. As this interest grew, I also began to learn more about PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission)--particularly all these incredibly brave young women and mothers who were all fighting so anonymously and in total isolation to try and save their babies from their disease. It just struck me at some point what a valid and important topic this might be to explore in a documentary--how hopeful it was. I'm also a very artistic person who'd always dreamed of making a film. I suppose it all just kind of gelled in a weird way, and somehow I ended up making this documentary.

IDA: What inspired you to make The Carrier?

MB: In addition to wanting to support this extraordinary goal of soon seeing a new HIV-free generation in Africa; my initial inspiration for the film had a lot to do with motherhood, with just exploring this idea of maternal love and sacrifice, pushed to such an unthinkable extreme. And it was mostly just a very visceral and emotional type of pull towards something for me; it wasn't at all academic. I often thought, "What would I do if I was pregnant and there was a disease in my body that could somehow harm my baby? What would that be like and feel like and how could anybody possibly be strong enough to get through that?" Still, this was all very hazy and theoretical--until I finally met Mutinta, the lead protagonist in the story, as well as a very beautiful young mother who was actually living that experience. There was and is something so transcendent about her--the way she handled herself, carried herself and got herself through. So Mutinta soon became the film's most motivating and enduring inspiration for me.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

MB: I think the greatest challenge in making the film had to do with the fact that it all takes place in a small community in rural Zambia. Just the experience of spending months at a time living and shooting in a country so far away, in a culture so radically different from our own. It was also very hot, and we had to endure an entire month of the rainy season--these torrential downpours that would come in out of nowhere and totally ruin our shoot for the day. So that wasn't always easy. Being constantly surrounded by people living and struggling with HIV/AIDS and having to look it so directly in the face every day was also frequently very sad and difficult for me emotionally. There was so much loss and death everywhere. Everybody in the community was in some way affected by AIDS, so sooner or later it really starts to affect you too. Still, I was so continuously moved by how resilient and heroic the people were. They were such fighters, so determined to overcome every obstacle. I think ultimately that also made whatever obstacles we as a crew were facing--all the little daily crises that come up in the course of a shoot--seem quite minimal and insignificant in context. 

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

MB: My vision for the film changed dramatically throughout every stage of the process. From pre-production through shooting through post, the story was so constantly in flux and constantly evolving, but in a way that's also the most fun part of documentaries. I think the most significant shift took place when we first arrived in Zambia, and were scouting and interviewing different women who might serve as the main protagonist of the film. When we first met Mutinta, she was with her husband and they gradually informed us that there were also two other wives in their family. Telling a story about an HIV-positive woman who'd become pregnant and was trying to save her baby was one thing. Adding the fact that she was also in a polygamous marriage and one of three wives was another thing entirely and at first very overwhelming and scary to me. I really had to reshape the entire narrative in my head, just to somehow make room for and accommodate this reality. But in the end I do think it made the story that much richer, so much more layered and complex.

IDA:  As you've screened The Carrier--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

MB: We've screened the film a great deal, both at other festivals as well as in more intimate, "friends and family" type settings. And in general I've just been very touched by how strongly and emotionally people seem to react. It means so much, more than I can even express, to see how people really do connect with and feel for Mutinta and her experience, and often in such intense and personal ways of their own. I suppose the thing that's also surprised me, and through so many different people's reactions, is how indignantly they feel towards the husband, Abarcon. Among other things, the film focuses a lot on this evolving relationship between its two main subjects, Mutinta and Abarcon, who are husband and wife. Through the course of it you also learn about a lot of very challenging, sometimes unspeakable things that the husband has done to his wife. For myself, I think just from knowing him and spending so much time studying and editing him, I'd somehow come to see him as very complicated person, privately struggling with his own shortcomings and even his own cruelty, so maybe not necessarily "all bad." I thought others might see him that way too and possibly find something redeeming in him, but most audiences just haven't. So it hasn't really bothered as much as surprised me, how absolutely indignant people feel towards him.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

MB: I like Frederick Wiseman a lot and Albert Maysles, whom I was even lucky enough to meet and talk with a bit during the course of making my film. What inspires me most about their work is just the astounding patience they bring to it all. It's their ability to just wait and observe and let "the moment" happen on its own, to not force or manipulate things too much. It's so much easier said than done and takes a tremendous amount of discipline--a tremendous amount of faith, really. But often the "moment found" is so much more surprising and beautiful than anything you could've ever dreamed or created. Both those directors are a great testament to that and I really admire their mastery.

The Carrier will be screening August 19 through 25 at the IFC Center in New York City and August 26 through September 1 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Carrier in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Carrier in Los Angeles, click here.

As reported in indieWire and Deadline, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly, subjects of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofksy's Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) and its 2000 follow-up, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations-were  released from an Arkansas prison today, after serving 18 years for the 1993 murders of three children. The Arkansas District Attorney made the announcement.  The three defendants registered an Alford plea--admitting guilt, while maintaining their innocence. Berlinger and Sinosky were readying Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory for its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month when they heard the news. The New York-based filmmakers  flew down to Jonesboro, Arkansas this morning to film what will be a new, happy ending--the hearing and subsequent liberation of the so-called West Memphis Three.

The three were convicted of murder, despite a lack of physical evidence and allegations of Jury misconduct. DNA evidence subsequently recovered at the crime scene failed to match that of the three defendants.

"Eighteen years and three films ago, we started this journey to document the terrible murders of three innocent boys and the subsequent circus that followed the arrests and convictions of Baldwin, Echols and Misskelly," Berlinger said in a statement. "To see our work culminate in the righting of this tragic miscarriage of justice is more than a filmmaker could ask for."

The final installment of the Paradise Lost trilogy will air in January on HBO, which aired the first two films.

As Berlinger explained to Deadline's Mike Fleming, it was the Internet in its nascent stages as a social media mechanism that helped the film attract the attention of such celebrities as Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp and Natalie Maines.  And according to Deadline's  Nikki Finke, it was filmmaker Peter Jackson (The Lord of the  Rings Trilogy) and his producer/partner Fran Walsh who provided substantial financial and legal support over a seven-year period.

The truth--and documentaries--can indeed set you free.

Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is David Darg, director of Sun City Picture House.

Synopsis: After watching the last of the old movie theaters get destroyed in the Haiti earthquake, a young Haitian man rallies an entire community to build a cinema and make his dream come alive on a hill above a tent city.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

David Darg: After college I started making short films for humanitarian organizations, documenting various projects around the world for donor feedback. It started with very basic project reporting, but as my understanding of humanitarian issues grew, so did my interest in the root cause of poverty and conflict. So my filmmaking began to take on a more investigative style, and I started working for an NGO that allowed me to do backpack-style journalism on the front lines of disasters. For the past seven years I have responded to natural disasters and wars all over the world. Sometimes I will stay in a country for just a few weeks or months, but on larger disasters I have lived in places longer. In 2008 I lived in China for a year after the Sichuan earthquake and documented a project to rebuild an entire village that was destroyed. In 2010 I arrived in Port Au Prince, Haiti, 48 hours after the earthquake, and I have lived there ever since.  In Haiti I was documenting emergency relief projects for the first several months, but I now work on longer format stories about the nation's recovery. Using Haiti as a launch pad, I was recently in Japan for a month documenting the aftermath and emergency response to the tsunami, and most recently I entered the sealed-off war zone of South Kordofan in Sudan to document the unfolding genocide happening there.

IDA: What inspired you to make Sun City Picture House?

DD: Producer Bryn Mooser and I started showing films to Haitian children in some of the large tent cities at night. We took a projector and sound system and threw up a white sheet, and the kids loved it. It gave them some escape from the horrors of the earthquake and their surroundings in the camps. At the same time, one of our Haitian colleagues named Raphael took us to see some of the collapsed movie theaters in Port Au Prince; after the earthquake, there were literally no movie theaters left. Raphael had a dream to build a movie theater again and we promised him we would help him build it. So the project started and we knew that we had to document it. But the main inspiration for us in making the film was to show the "real" side of Haiti that we see every day, a different story from the one shown in the news.  The news media only seems to paint a negative image of Haiti--that it is doomed to failure. In Sun City Picture House we thought it was important to address some of the issues that definitely make Haiti a difficult challenge, but it was important that the "Hope" of Haiti shines through. Every day we are inspired by the beauty of Haiti and the Haitian people; we see constant development, improvement, joy and hopefulness, and that is the message we wanted to convey in Sun City.  

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

DD: The whole project happened so quickly that we didn't have time to plan anything. Bryn and I were helping to build the movie theater and having to shoot simultaneously. It was still grueling working long hours in the day and dumping and reviewing footage at night. The edit was also tough because we had our full-time day jobs: Bryn was working on an education project and I was coordinating clean water projects.  We would get together and edit in the evenings--sometimes in Bryn's tent! On occasion we would work on a complicated edit and the power would go out and we'd lose a bunch of work. It was about as down and dirty as you could ever hope to get on a production. When you watch the film you realize that there is a huge dichotomy of emotion from the absolute darkness of the city morgue to the joy of the children in the theater. Transitioning between those themes in 27 minutes was quite a challenge, but the contrast is so worthwhile and important.   

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes

DD: The entire project started when Bryn and I heard a Catholic priest, Father Rick, tell the story of a little red wagon. We wanted to turn that into a short film on its own. Then the movie theater project started, and we thought of how we could combine the two stories. When we started production we had a very sketchy outline of what we wanted to achieve. All we really knew was that a powerful story was unfolding and needed to be told. Then in post-production we started to see the power in the film as a whole and when we finally worked the twist in at the end, we knew that we had managed to take it full circle, from a story of misery to one of hope

IDA: As you've screened Sun City Picture House--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

DD: We've had a fantastic reaction from audiences. It's definitely a feel-good film, and viewers seem to get really uplifted by the message. The most rewarding reactions have been from Haitians who have thanked us for the film's message. It's really wonderful to be ambassadors for Haiti in that respect. Many viewers ask us how they can get involved in supporting Haiti, so the film has definitely motivated people to take action. Sun City is a bit of a tear jerker, and I've seen grown men wiping away tears as the house lights come up. Even though I've seen it more times than I can remember, I still tear up a bit every once in a while at the end.  

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

DD: Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cîté Soleil is one of the most powerful feature docs I've ever seen, and it came out of Haiti. Filmmakers like that who put themselves in the most dangerous situations imaginable to tell the story are quite inspirational. I'm very inspired by the photographer James Nachtwey; when the War Photographer documentary came out, it had a big impact on my thinking.  

It's true that those of us on the frontlines of wars and disasters have a big responsibility to tell the story well, as we are witnesses to history unfolding. Often times those oppressed by war or disaster have little chance to have their voice heard, so that is where Bryn and I want to focus our efforts--to give them a voice through film. Our website is www.ryot.org, where we regularly post short films we make from around the world with the aim of spreading awareness and giving a voice to the voiceless.

Sun City Picture House will be screening August 19 through 26 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for Sun City Picture House and the rest of the films in the DocuWeeks Los Angeles Shorts Program, click here.

Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Katja Esson, director/producer/writer of Poetry of Resilience.

Synopsis: Poetry of Resilience is a documentary about six poets from around the world who survived some of the worst political atrocities of the 20th Century: Hiroshima, the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, the Kurdish Genocide in Iraq, the Rwandan genocide and the Iranian Revolution. By summoning the creative voice of poetry to tell stories of survival and witness, each reclaims humanity and dignity in the wake of some of history's most dehumanizing circumstances. With grace and humor, the film explores language as an internal means of survival--for the poet and the readers of poems.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Katja Esson: My film education started in fiction. But when I moved to New York, I saw a million stories of real people all around me. My first short doc, Vertical Traveler, is about an "elevator man" and New York City's unique relationship with elevators. Shortly after, I made Ferry Tales, about sisterhood in the Staten Island Ferry bathroom. My two most recent documentaries, Latching On, about the politics of breastfeeding in America, and Skydancer, about Mohawk Indian ironworkers, also take place in New York. Having maintained the eye of an outsider, I have a different perspective on many things. When Ferry Tales was all over the media, some reporters asked, "Why did it take a German director to discover something that was under our noses?" The answer is that distance and strangeness bring their own kind of focus.

Poetry of Resilience is very different in that regard. It feels like a culmination of all the work I have done so far.

IDA: What inspired you to make Poetry of Resilience?

KE: In September 2006, I was invited to Massachusetts to document a conference of poets from around the world. I have to admit, my first thought was, "Oh boy, filming people reading poetry...How boring!" But as soon as these incredible poets--who are also survivors--stepped on stage and spoke not so much about the atrocities they endured but rather about the will to survive spiritually and artistically, I knew that this was a film I needed to make.

Making documentaries satisfies my deepest hunger for discovering who we are and what makes us human.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

KE: Poetry and resilience are two powerful forces but very elusive. The poets' stories challenged me to find new ways of interweaving cinematic and written language, to find new forms of visual storytelling. While working on the film, I constantly battled two questions: What is the resilience of the human spirit? And can art (in this case poetry), as an expression of our common humanity, help transform lives?

The making of the film has taken me on a five-year journey of discovery on which I feel that I experienced the best and worst of humankind. The biggest challenge for me was to experience that my own belief in humanity was often shaken.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change of the course of the pre-production, production and post-production process?

KE: The film was planned as a feature film, with the individual stories of survival and the historical and political backgrounds taking up a much larger part. But during editing,  a fact became so painfully clear for me: History repeats itself. The biggest horror is how "similar" all these atrocities really are. And how we keep saying "never again" and then there is always an "again." So the focus shifted. Evil has no name and no country. And the documentary short became the perfect frame for the film.

IDA: As you have screened Poetry of Resilience--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What was the most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

KE: I know that I was tackling something that had not been done before; in fact, many people warned me about making this kind of film about poetry. We just finished the film and only screened it at private screenings, but the reactions have amazed me. People suddenly can't get enough of the poetry. Everybody has been able to find connections in the film--interestingly enough, very different ones; some might love what others absolute hate.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspiration for you?

KE: I am inspired by other artwork, like music or in this case, by poems. But my biggest inspiration comes from people--people who then often end up in my films.

Poetry of Resilience will be screening August 19 through 26 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for Poetry of Resilience and the rest of the films in the DocuWeeks Los Angeles Shorts Program, click here.

Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Marina Goldovskaya, director/writer of A Bitter Taste of Freedom.

Synopsis: In her fearless quest to uncover the wrongdoings of Russian authorities, Anna Politkovskaya inspired awe in some and fear in others. An investigate journalist for Moscow's liberal Novaya Gazeta, she was often the only spokesperson for innocent victims. At age 48 she was assassinated for simply doing her job. Filmed over a period of 20 years, A Bitter Taste of Freedom tells an incredible story of a woman who consciously gave her life for her convictions.

IDA:  How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Marina Goldovskaya: I graduated from the Department of Cinematography of the Moscow State Film School, which was founded by Sergey Eisenstein. I started my professional career as a newsreel cinematographer at Central Television in Moscow in 1964. It was an exciting time for Soviet Television: In 1968 our TV News Unit had been transformed into a big Unit called "Ekran"("Screen"); it produced not only news programs, but also films--both documentaries and narratives. Within years, this studio grew into the biggest in the USSR. It gathered a wonderful team of  filmmakers who came from all the Soviet republics. Ekran also had the best and most modern equipment, mostly French and German, which allowed me to use the most advanced methods of filmmaking, such as the observational method, which was the Russian analogue of Direct Cinema and Cinema Vérité.

I started as an assistant cameraperson, but within five years I became one of the leading cinematographers working for the News programs and films in the Documentary Film Unit. I also was the first and the only woman to shoot, direct and write my own documentaries.

During my 25-year tenure at Central Television (1964-1989), I  made 150 TV programs and 25 documentaries as director/cinematographer. Many of my films received top awards at festivals.

Concurrent with my filmmaking career, I pursued a career as a scholar. I wrote and defended two dissertations and published five books on documentary and the art of cinematography.

Starting at the age of 25, I also started teaching documentary and cinematography--first in the Moscow Film School, then in the Department of Journalism at Moscow State University.

In 1989 I left Central Television to become an independent filmmaker working for different Russian and mostly foreign studios and units ( American, French, German and Austrian).

In 1991 after teaching documentary at University of California at San Diego, Vassar College and Cal State Northridge, I joined the faculty as a tenured professor at the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media at UCLA.

IDA: What inspired you to make A Bitter Taste of Freedom?

MG: In 1991 I made A Taste of Freedom, a documentary about the Politkovskaya family. This film was an attempt to show the changes happening in the Soviet Union via a Russian family. I chose as my protagonists the family of my former students, Sasha and Anna Politkovskaya. I felt that they were interesting people, very charismatic and very much involved in the events happening in our country. At the time, Sasha was a news reporter who traveled around the country, and was one of the best known TV journalists in the Soviet Union. His wife, Anna, was a housewife, raising their two children. Anna and I became friends while I was making this film. Our friendship continued after the film was finished.

After completing A Taste of Freedom, I felt I had to continue to film the changes happening in Russia. I felt that it was very important to document those changes and film people living their lives in the midst of these changes. The Politkovskaya family were some of the many people I followed over the years. Anna became one of my best friends and one of my most favorite characters. She was one of the most charismatic people I knew. And while I had been following her life with my camera, she was growing into one of the most prominent journalists and civil rights activists in Russia. So I captured not only the changes in Anna's personal life, but also the changes in Russia.

Her work was dangerous, and she knew she was risking her life. But her conscience didn't allow her to stop working.

When Anna was killed, I knew I had to make a film about her. I wanted people to know what kind of a person she was and what a great woman our country had lost. I knew I had the footage of Anna that nobody else had. Many journalists filmed her when she was alive, but nobody filmed her as a woman, mother and friend. I knew my footage was unique. And so I made the film A Bitter Taste of Freedom.

 It is a film about Anna, and it is a film about my country.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

MG: There were many challenges. But challenges and obstacles in documentary follow the filmmaker from day one, and that's why it is such a joy to try to overcome them and try to fulfill the goals you set up, beginning from the very first stage of formulating the idea.

You set the goals, and then life starts to push you away from the first vision of the film. And usually on the way to reconciling the primary idea with the reality you face and film during the shooting  period, you try to keep the story straight, but allow life to stuff your primary idea with new events, details and of course, new ideas. The film grows, and you try not to force anything. Just allow it to grow, keep your eyes and heart open, and trust life. It is hard to explain, what you think, but it is an amazingly exciting and rewarding process. It is a truly creative process, when out of little things big things emerge, and the film starts to live its own life...

My main challenge was an enormous amount of material I had accumulated over the years. And many things that were very interesting did not belong in this film. It was a torture for me to get rid of this "unnecessary footage." My only consolation was that I hope that I'll still find a way to use this footage in another film I hope to make in the future.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

MG: This was a unique film in my life: From the very beginning I knew what I wanted to make, and finally made exactly what I wanted to make. Of course I couldn't know from the beginning how the film will unfold; I couldn't foresee the film structure. The film, as it usually happens, was born in the editing process. But well before we began editing, I knew I would start the film from "the end," Anna's funeral, and then will tell the story of her life: her young years, her first exposure to the war, her growing involvement in human rights activism, etc. And parallel to her story I was pulling "the big story": the history of the rise and fall of democracy in Russia. My characters such as Michail Gorbachev, the architect of Russian perestroika; Karinna Moskalenko, the lawyer and family friend;, Ilya and Vera, Anna's kids; Raisa Mazepa, Anna's mother; and journalists Alla Bossart, Alexei Venediktov and Evgenia Albatz all gave me the opportunity to build this historical line, which was a very important element in this film.

IDA:  As you've screened A Bitter Taste of Freedom--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

MG: I showed the film to only a couple of friends, and their input was enormous. They helped me to make the story more comprehensive and emotional. I am extremely grateful to them: to my producer Malcolm Dixelius, to Roland Joffee, Cara Mertes, Robert Rosen, Vivian Umino, and of course, my husband, George Herzfeld, who saw all my cuts and patiently and passionately  gave me his critical comments.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

MG: I love Dziga Vertov and Chris Marker, and I am a great fan of Ricky Leacock, the Maysles Brothers, DA Pennebaker, Bob Drew, Fred Weisman, Errol Morris and Alan Berliner.

A Bitter Taste of Freedom will be screening August 19 through 25 at the IFC Center in New York City, and August 26 through September 1 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for A Bitter Taste of Freedom in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for A Bitter Taste of Freedom in Los Angeles, click here.