"I don't know how to say 'I love you.' I don't dare."

- Serge Gainsbourg

Starting today and running through Saturday, September 2, our friends at Cinefamily are hosting several screenings of the French documentary Gainsbourg and His Girls. A joint program with Cinespia, Gainsbourg is presented as a part of the France Goes Pop series.

Known primarily as a legendary voice and "France's coolest icon," musician, director and artist Serge Gainsbourg has also been called a total misogynist and a "world-renowned womanizer." Through television footage found in the archives of the French Institute Nationale Audio-Visuel, Gainsbourg and His Girls invites audiences to embark on a journey that takes a deep look into the artist's life and career. Directed by Didier Varrod and Pascal Forneri, this digitally-presented film doesn't promise to answer every question about Gainsbourg's personality. But it will certainly come pretty close to broadening our perception of him.

Join the Cinefamily for the LA premiere of this gorgeous documentary that takes a thorough look at the mysterious allure that is Serge Gainsbourg and the women in his life.    

The first screening begins at 7:30pm on Tuesday night at Cinefamily, located at 611 N Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. Get your tickets now!

Over the next week, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs through September 1 in New York City and 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 Trisha Ziff, director/producer/writer of The Mexican Suitcase.

Synopsis: The Mexican Suitcase tells the story of the recovery of 4,500 negatives taken by photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour during the Spanish Civil War. The film follows the journey of these negatives to Mexico--images as exiles, recovered 70 years later. The Mexican Suitcase brings together three narratives: the suitcase, the exile story and how people in Spain today address their own past, 30 years after transition. The Mexican Suitcase addresses the power of memory, and asks, Who owns our histories?

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Trisha Ziff: I come from a world of photography. I have worked with photographers for over 25 years now, first teaching community workshops in the north of Ireland during The Troubles, then running an agency of photojournalists in London.

I believe that documentary filmmakers and photographers think in similar ways: We tell stories and have the same passions and commitments. Of course, now as technologies change, photographers are becoming filmmakers. Look at Restrepo: It was made by a journalist and a photographer.

These are overlapping worlds, but leaving one world for the other has been an amazing experience. Chevolution (2008) was the first film I directed, and it grew directly from an exhibition and a book.

I had always worked with photographers, but I was never hands-on. I regretted that, so now I have a chance to shape ideas through film; it's the most exciting step I have taken.

IDA: What inspired you to make The Mexican Suitcase?

TZ: So many things inspired me to make this film.

First, I finally got the rights to make the film, primarily because I had been pivotal in the return of the negatives to their respective estates in New York. I had grown up in England, in a liberal family, and I met so many people who had fought in Spain in their youth, in the international brigades. I heard their stories and I always imagined that had I been born in that era, I would have gone to Spain.

So when I got involved in The Mexican Suitcase and I looked at these images, it was not only through the eyes of someone who worked in photography, but through the narratives I remembered from when I was younger. My son Julio is also a first-generation Mexican, the son of a Spanish refugee. My ex-husband, photographer Pedro Meyer, who is in the film, was born in Spain in 1936, and left with his family as a baby and found safe haven, as so many others did, in Mexico.

So telling the story of the suitcase is also very personal. It is the story of exile, which is part of my son's heritage. In fact, Julio traveled with me to New York to return the suitcase to the estates. I thought it was important. Our narratives matter, and making this film for me was an incredible opportunity to bring all these elements together.

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

TZ: Every film has its challenges! For me it was how to braid together these three narratives: the story of the suitcase and the photographers, which is, of course, a film in and of itself; the story of the exile from Spain to Mexico; and the story of how Spain today looks at and understands and addresses its own past.

Convincing the Spanish investors about the stories of the exile and of contemporary Spain was not so simple. People wanted to see what was in the suitcase. I felt that was not enough. I wanted to make a film that asked questions and addressed notions of responsibility towards our past. If all you got were the images and the story of the photographers, it would be too simple and it would avoid the issues in Spain, which continue to be controversial. But for an outsider to broach these questions is very complicated. Finding a way to make that work was hard.

I overcame all this by working with amazing people: my editors, Luis Lopez and Paloma Carillo, and my producer, Eamon O'Farrill, challenged me in their specific and very different ways. I have a very strong support group.  In addition, the archeologists were key to the film and of incredible importance to the narrative.  

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

TZ: I remember the exact conversation and location when I realized in pre-production that I had to tell a story that was more complicated than just the journey and content of the suitcase. A conversation on a plane with a Catalan friend, Mar Verdura, shifted my focus away from the literal suitcase to the narratives of uncovering the past going on in Spain as a result of the Law of Memory being passed, giving the Spanish people the right to look at their own narratives--literally to dig for their own answers. I immediately saw the parallel of digging in the earth for answers and holding these old negatives to the light and giving them light again. I knew then the film I had to make.

Obviously docs are made in the edit room and braiding together these narratives was a challenge. But the issue of the three stories--the negatives, the search for the past in Spain, the complexities of exile--emerged early on.  The challenge was how to make it all come together in 90 minutes!

IDA:  As you've screened The Mexican Suitcase-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?

TZ: I was at the gala premiere of the film last month at the Rencontres D'Arles in the South of France. It was screened in a Roman amphitheater to 2,600 people. I remember looking around from where I was and seeing all these people absorbed afterwards in the street;  people came up to me and some even wept, thanking me for telling their narratives. It was extraordinary.

A few people were very critical of the depiction of the French, but the story of the camps in France is not well-known. Before working on this film, I had no idea there were concentration camps on the beaches of France, where thousands died during the Vichy government. I realize that showing this causes strong reactions. It's a huge responsibility as a filmmaker to broach these subjects in Spain; there are still so many taboos about speaking of the past. After all, it's the only country in Europe that had 30 years of fascism. These things don't disappear overnight, and people have vested interests in both revealing the past and covering it up.

This film is not neutral. How can it be? The photographers were not neutral either. I guess I am surprised by the strength of people's reactions. Clearly the film has an impact. 

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

TZ: Errol Morris. The way he interviews people is for me inspirational. I guess he is the master. And Werner Herzog. Both those men are inspiring!  

The Mexican Suitcase will be screening August 26 through September 1 at the IFC Center in New York 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 The Mexican Suitcase in New York, click here.

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

Over the past month, we at IDA have been introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs through September 1 in New York City and 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 conclude this series of conversations, here are Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon, directors/producers of Semper Fi: Always Faithful.

Synopsis: As a devoted Marine for 25 years, Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger lived and breathed the "Corps." When his 9-year-old daughter dies from a rare form of leukemia, Jerry wants to know why. His search for answers leads him to a shocking discovery: a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the worst water contamination incidents in US history. With relentless determination, he spearheads a decades-long battle to make this information public and hold the Marine Corps accountable. Semper Fi: Always Faithful is a searing look at the military's betrayal of its soldiers and an emotional story of one man's transformation into the activist he never imagined he'd become.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Rachel Libert: I've always been very curious about other people's lives. As a kid I would use my father's dictation machine to interview my friends and family members. When I was in high school, I saw my first documentary and  realized that I could channel that curiosity into a profession. I studied documentary filmmaking at Boston University and have been making films ever since.
 
Tony Hardmon: My father fought in Vietnam in the 1970s, and while he was abroad I would watch television news stories about the war. As I watched the reports from the field, I developed a fascination with the correspondents and the photojournalists. I was intrigued by their profession and their adventurous lifestyle. When my father returned from overseas he brought back a new Super 8mm camera so that we could make home movies. From that point on, I took control of the household moviemaking. Now I travel the world working as a director of photography, making documentaries in other families' homes.

TH: In early 2007, we were researching another documentary film when we met the sister of our main film subject, Jerry Ensminger. She told us that her brother was in the process of exposing a Marine Corps cover-up of a water contamination and she was looking for filmmakers to document it. We were skeptical, but she laid out this incredible story of intrigue, heartbreak and betrayal. It piqued our interest enough that we showed up in Washington, DC two weeks later and met a gruff, retired Marine on the mission of his life. We knew immediately that Jerry would be a compelling film subject. Ironically, it is the skills that he learned as a Marine Corps Drill Instructor that serve him well today. He has a very commanding presence and dramatic cadence to his speech. We were also intrigued by his emotional complexity. He has this very tough exterior, yet the pain that fuels his fight is just below the surface.
 
RL: When we first learned about this situation, we were shocked that Camp Lejeune's water had been contaminated for such a long period of time (30 years) and that the Marine Corps still hadn't notified former residents of their exposure to carcinogenic toxins. When we dug deeper and learned that the Department of Defense is our nation's largest polluter, we knew that this was an important story with far-reaching repercussions.   

TH: Our past projects have been intimate stories depicting someone's personal journey. Taking on the United States Department of Defense is not something either of us ever thought we'd do.  

RL: There were logistical challenges in gaining access to the base and the Marine Corps, and we also had to do a tremendous amount of research so that we could be well-versed in military protocol and environmental and public health policy. Like many documentaries, there was a lot of uncertainty about how the film would end. We knew what Jerry was fighting for, but it was unclear how much he would be able to achieve and how long it would take him. Many contamination cases go on for years and end unresolved. We knew that if we ended up in the same place that we started, it wouldn't be very satisfying for an audience. That was a concern that nagged at us for the first few years.  

TH: Fortunately,  Jerry ended up achieving much more than we could have imagined. So I guess you could say that we overcame this challenge by being patient and waiting it out. We also made sure that we were mindful of the story that was unfolding before us, which isn't always the story you think you are going to tell.

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

RL: We wanted to tell the story of an environmental disaster from a very personal perspective. We were following a career Marine who was transforming into the activist he never imagined he'd become. We looked at feature films like A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich, which also tell an environmental detective story and a story of personal transformation. We decided to reveal most of the facts through the eyes of our main characters. Information is presented as they discover it. This is particularly helpful when we need to convey complex scientific information. As our characters struggle to make sense of something, the audience begins to understand it too. We felt this would be more compelling than using traditional expert interviews.
 
TH: When we started the film, we were somewhat cynical about how much one man could achieve when fighting the US government. We came to realize that social change is possible, especially when undertaken by relentless and determined individuals, and we hope that's what our audiences take away from the film.

IDA:  As you've screened Semper Fi: Always Faithful--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?

TH: When the lights come up, we see tears and outrage. It seems to be a very emotional experience for our audiences. We've had Jerry at a lot of the festival screenings, and the audiences go crazy for him.  

RL: Often the first question from the audience is, "What can we do?" When you make a film like this, you hope that it motivates people to act, but I don't think we anticipated how immediate and intense the reaction would be. It's been amazing and overwhelming.

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

RL: I love the work of Heddy Honigmann--in particular her film Crazy. Another favorite film of mine is Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann's Long Night's Journey into Day.

TH: Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Brothers Keeper was an early inspiration for me, and more recently, Laura Poitras' The Oath.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful will be screening August 26 through September 1 at the IFC Center in New York 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 Semper Fi: Always Faithful in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for Semper Fi: Always Faithful in Los Angeles, click here.

Over the next week, 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 Roland Legiardi-Laura, one of the directors/producers, with Edwin Martinez, Deborah Shaffer and Amy Sultan, of To Be Heard.

Synopsis: Three Bronx teens search for their voices and an answer to the question, Can language change lives? Karina, Pearl and Anthony are precariously balanced on the edge. Inspired by three teachers in a radical poetry workshop, they set out to write their own life stories, imagining a future where fathers aren't in jail, mothers aren't abusive, and college is a place where you awake every morning instead of just dreaming about it every night. A dedicated filmmaking team follows their lives, celebrating the value of poetry and devoted teachers, and the power that comes from writing your own life story.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Roland Legiardi-Laura: I studied political science and poetry in college. My life was, and still is, about trying to find ways to combine the two. My first documentary was a bit of an accident. I was in Nicaragua in the early '80s, studying and reporting on the Sandinista Revolution. Among the things I learned was the fact that Nicaragua had an amazing and popular culture based in poetry. Its tradition stretched back to the time before the Conquistadors. The native Nahuatl people composed an epic poem, El Gueguense, as a defense of their native culture against the Spaniards. The tradition of using language as a tool and a weapon continues to this day, with Nicaraguans using poetry as an element of everyday life to solve problems and explore issues. Poetry had real use and value, in much the same way we use a hammer or a toothbrush. It was not an abstracted and alienated art form to be appreciated only by a well-educated elite.

I began collecting recordings and copies of all the Nicaraguan poetry I could find. Once back in New York I had a vague plan to write a series of articles or perhaps a book about this phenomenon. One day I attended a photography exhibit about Central America that included a sequential series of beautiful photos of a young Sandinista rebel celebrating the liberation of Managua by spray-painting lines from a famous Nicaraguan poem on a wall. In one hand he held his AK47 and in the other his spray-paint can. In that instant I saw that I needed to make a film about this culture of poetry. I understood there was a story to tell and that this story was profoundly visual.

RLL: To Be Heard is the story of three high school kids from the Bronx who learn to use poetry as a weapon of transformation in their own lives and in the world around them. It is in many ways a natural extension of the work I have been doing all my life. Along with one of my co-directors, Amy Sultan, and another dedicated poet and teacher, Joseph Ubiles, we started a program called Power Writing, focused on empowerment through literacy. We began that program about 10 years ago at University Heights High School in the Bronx.

About six years ago at a fundraiser for the program, Deborah Shaffer, the second co-director, came up to me after hearing our kids recite and said, "Why aren't you making a documentary about this? These kids are amazing!" Deb is an old friend and a documentary filmmaker. She won an Oscar for her short doc, Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements, so when she makes a statement like that, one has to take it seriously. I protested by saying I didn't think I could focus on the doc and be an effective teacher at the same time. She immediately offered to co-direct.

Amy became the third member of our directorial team shortly afterward. She has had a lot of experience in film production in New York.

And we soon added Eddie Martinez, the fourth member of our rare directorial quad-umvirate, a bit later. Eddie's mom is the college advisor of the high school where we teach. He grew up in the neighborhood and was completely at ease in this environment, and the film's subjects were comfortable around him. He is a brilliant DP and a strong editor, so the rest was easy. We resolved to make this a collaborative process.

RLL: The most important focus for us has been in striking the right balance between compelling storytelling and exposing the underlying issues and themes embedded in our film. With an issue-driven documentary, that is often the toughest mountain to climb. If you rein in the story to get your points across, you can end up with a very pedantic, talking-head polemic, and if you put too much emphasis on the story, you can end up with a bit of overwrought melodrama. If we have succeeded, I think it is mainly because of the four-way dialogue we created among ourselves, along with the generous input of our executive producers from ITVS and Dialogue Pictures. 

Our film straddles a couple of sub-genres in the documentary world: The Spoken Word/Slam Competition Story, and the Struggling Inner-City Community Story. While we were making the film, and before it began to receive serious critical attention and win awards, we often found ourselves straining to distinguish To Be Heard from the many other docs that fell into those categories. Ultimately we were rewarded by the people who watched the entire film, and were moved by it. They were the ones who saw its relevance to the ongoing debate about our educational system. We were rewarded by those who understood the importance of literacy to a functioning democracy and who appreciated the power of language to enable individuals to live fulfilled lives.

RLL: Two key perspectives evolved over the length of this process: At first we had a much broader palette of characters; our students are wonderful poets and had compelling stories to tell.  But as time passed we realized that in order for the story to be an effective narrative and have emotional depth and fully fleshed-out character arcs, we would have to focus on only a few of our young writers. And at the beginning of the process, we were more intent upon showing how the writing program itself worked and explaining why it was successful. It became evident after many tries and a lot of strong feedback that we were bogging down the rhythm of the story and in fact, we didn't need to make a "process" film in order to have our viewers understand the power of this process to transform lives.

Another important realization for us was that our film was ultimately about one of the most important challenges facing education and our country as a whole: literacy. The United States is in the midst of a literacy crisis, and we can trace most of the problems our school system has and many of the shortcomings of our democratic system to the depth of this crisis. Only one of eight American adults reads well enough to understand our Constitution. And nearly two-thirds of prisoners in the US are functionally illiterate. Once we realized this was our core issue, many of the subsequent decisions about distribution, engagement and outreach became much clearer.

Finally, one of the results of thinking about and working on this film for nearly six years has been understanding the challenge of bringing it directly to our primary audience: young people, especially from stressed communities. Making this demographic aware of docs in general has always been a problem, and motivating them to actually see the film, no matter how germane to their own lives, is never easy. The big shift for us in this case has been the development of our breakthrough transmedia project: Power Poetry, which will be the world's first mobile poetry community for youth. It will give young people a global platform for sharing their work, but more important, it will offer young people a way to use their poetry to speak truth to power and to use their creative energies to change the world. Look for our launch of Power Poetry in conjunction with the PBS broadcast of To Be Heard in early January 2012.

RLL: Two things:  I don't think any of us really expected that we would be regularly greeted by standing ovations after each screening. It is hard to describe how gratifying that experience can be, and not just for us filmmakers; we often bring our young writers to the various festivals we attend. We've seen that they are truly loved and appreciated by audiences. Most wonderfully, they have come to see themselves as inspirational forces in the lives of other young people.

Second, I don't think any of us saw our film as a classic Hollywood story of triumph over adversity, and yet the reactions of audiences around the country have shown us just how inspirational the characters in this film are. The young poets inspire their peers, and the mentors deeply move adults to rethink their own values and question the policies governing our approach to teaching today.

RLL: Just speaking for myself now: Fred Wiseman, because of his unflinching commitment to his singular vision; Barbara Kopple, for her ability to tell a powerful story using the documentary form; the Maysles brothers, for their insight into the complexity of the human character; Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, for their understanding of the importance of humor as a delivery system for important political truths to a jaded public; Claude Lanzmann, for his sense of the epic in doc storytelling and his commitment to patient viewing; and finally, Robert Greenwald, for his radical approach to distribution. 

To Be Heard will be screening 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 To Be Heard in Los Angeles, click here.

Over the next week, 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 Pawel Kloc, director/producer/writer of Phnom Penh Lullaby.

Synopsis: Ilan Shickman left Israel dreaming of a new life. He now lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with his Khmer girlfriend, Saran, and their two young daughters, as he tries to make ends meet as a street fortune-teller. Ilan works at night, near bars frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers. He decides to place the older, 2-year-old daughter with Saran's family in the countryside, but the family doesn't want to care for Marie for free. Ilan and his family have to return to Phnom Penh, and he still must decide about Marie's future. Phnom Penh Lullaby is about people entrapped in their lives as they struggle to realize the dream of a happy, loving family.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Pawel Kloc: I think it was the opposite. Documentary filmmaking got me started. I was never thinking my first feature would be a documentary. As Ilan Shickman, the protagonist in Phnom Penh Lullaby, says in the film, "Reality goes beyond imagination." Contemporary philosophical discourse addresses the blurring of the boundaries between fiction and reality, interprets fiction as reality and seeks out the elements of fiction in reality. This is in the center of my interests. I believe documentary film can be constructed and received as a fiction film. This is what I am experiencing with my film during Q&As in festivals around the world. 

IDA: What inspired you to make Phnom Penh Lullaby?

PK: I think inspiration can be a drive, something existing in reality; or it can be a ghost, something hiding, something impossible to describe. The everyday life of Ilan and his family, from my point of view as a filmmaker, carries a difficult, very symbolic, multi-layered story. Saran, Ilan's girlfriend, is a victim of a post-colonial Cambodian reality, and Ilan and Saran are victims of post-war trauma societies. Ilan, as a white Jew, is trying to make ends meet as a street fortune-teller, against a backdrop of mass prostitution and drugs; their young kids are in danger of following their mother's fate (married at 15 then abandoned, her children taken from her, her struggles with alcohol...); and Ilan and Saran never formally learned English, making their communication difficult and fraught with misunderstandings.

I made the decision to make this film after the first night I spent at their home. That experience can't be described.

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

PK: I don't like to talk about obstacles; they seem very natural in everything we do, including filmmaking. The biggest challenge was getting so close to a human soul and assuming the responsibility for someone's life. The camera is like an invisible guest, in front of which the theater of life is played. What's said and done is not forgotten, and sometimes it is only said and done  because the camera is there.

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

PK: I should write an essay about it. In terms of numbers, I organized production in two months, shot the film in three-and-a-half weeks, and edited for two-and-a-half years. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to make this film as a fiction: Take real life and make it universal. The pre-production was the easiest part. I knew what I wanted to shoot. Ilan told me what was going to happen in his life. Filming was much more difficult. There was a moment I was thinking we shouldn't continue. We were surprised many times. The film of which we were the first viewers was breaking. Not only did the question "What's the  next question?" come up, but also, "What was the meaning of what had already happened?" These surprises, misunderstandings, these moments of change in real life were for me an inspiration to create a dramaturgical structure in the editing process. I wanted the audience to experience my experience at the time, to change their perspective from viewers to participants.

The whole process changed my point of view on filmmaking. There are many things left to try. Why not take a risk?

IDA:  As you've screened Phnom Penh Lullaby--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?

PK: I've been very lucky with this film to have had the opportunity to meet with audiences all around the world-at Vision du Reel in Nyon, Switzerland; Hot Docs in Toronto; Doc/Fest in Sheffield;  Krakow Film Festival; Festival of the Two Riversides in Poland; Moscow International Film Festival; Palic International Film Festival in Serbia; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; and DokuFest in Kosovo. The audience reaction was very strong. I had long Q&As that finished on the street outside the cinemas, with people sharing their time with me, telling me their private stories, asking detailed questions, being very emotional. This was my big lesson.

I saw a film once and I had a dream to give someone what I had received by watching that film. That's how I decided to become a filmmaker. And the audience made me feel like my dream has come true.

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

PK: I am very interested in both fiction and documentaries. I think that the space between those two is the most interesting cinematic dimension. With everything I've seen that was important to me, after I leave the cinema, I don't know my name or the way home.

These filmmakers are my inspiration: Maciej Drygas, Kazimierz Karabarz, Andriej Tarkowski, Sergo Paradjanof, Pier Paolo Passolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Derek Jarman, Teodor Dreyer, Werner Herzog... to name a few. I wish we could see more contemporary documentaries in cinemas; there are many masterpieces. The list would be too long.

I am very proud to show Phnom Penh Lullaby in New York and Los Angeles for DocuWeeks; thanks to IDA and the Polish Film Institute.

Phnom Penh Lullaby will be screening August 26 through September 1 at both the IFC Center in New York City and the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

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

To purchase tickets for Phnom Penh Lullaby in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for Phnom Penh Lullaby in Los Angeles, click here.

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.