As I reflect on the exceptional documentaries that screened at the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) this year, (i.e. The Pipe, The Interrupters, Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Project Nim, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, Norman Mailer: The American, The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan, OK Buckaroos, The Greater Good), I realize that the films that truly inspired me share a common theme: people striving against extreme odds to overcome injustice and/or adversity.

In each of the following films, the subjects either work to better themselves, or on behalf of an animal, individual, community, and in one case, entire countries. The following are some of the DIFF docs that to me illustrate the strength, courage and generosity of the human spirit.    

DIFF hosted the world premiere of Tim Skousen's Zero Percent, an affecting film that documents the privately funded Hudson Link prisoner education program at Sing Sing Prison in New York. The title refers to the re-incarceration rate for those who participate in the program. Over the course of the film, the audience is introduced to a variety of prisoners--murderers and drug dealers among them--all working to atone for their crimes through rehabilitation and education. Warren Buffett's sister, Doris, an advocate for the program, calls the process, a chance for redemption. This poignant film illustrates the power of education and its ability to not only open up the imagination to the possibilities of life and redemption, but how it has allowed these men the opportunity to return to society as rehabilitated and productive members of their communities.  

In Elevate, first-time filmmaker Anne Buford chronicles the remarkable personal journeys of four West African teenagers as they leave the SEEDS Academy in Senegal and head to prep schools in the United States on basketball scholarships. Filmed over four years, the film follows the young men as they learn to cope with the daunting challenges of learning a foreign language, American-style basketball, alienation and an unfamiliar American culture rife with African stereotypes. Through courage, laughter and resolve, they relentlessly pursue their dream--to obtain an education and a shot at the NBA.

As North Texas prepared to host its first Super Bowl, filmmaker Mark Birnbaum documented the efforts of more than 44,000 children in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex as they embarked on a year-long journey to determine issues facing their communities and create ways of improving the lives of those around them. In Slant 45, not only did these kids walk away from the experience full of self-respect and pride, but they also learned that heroism and leadership are not only characteristics of all-star athletes.

Based in part on the book The Sun Climbs Slow: The International Criminal Court and the Struggle for Justice by Erna Paris, award-winning Canadian filmmaker Barry Stevens' Prosecutor offers a riveting inside look at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it holds its historic first trials under the leadership of its charismatic chief prosecutor, Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Headquartered at The Hague, Netherlands, the ICC is the first permanent, treaty-based international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Moreno-Ocampo is a hero to genocide survivors, but has bitter enemies on both the right and the left. His critics believe he is responsible for threatening stability and peace.

Cases documented in the film include the prosecution of rebel leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and arrest warrants issued for Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and members of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. (The International Criminal Court is currently in the news for its investigation of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.) An intriguing story with fly-on-the-wall access, Prosecutor offers front-row seats to the historic events that will determine whether the ICC is a groundbreaking new weapon for global justice or just an idealistic dream.

In Alex Dawson and Greg Gricus' feature debut, Wild Horse, Wild Ride, the filmmakers document the Mustang Heritage Foundation's annual Extreme Mustang Makeover Challenge held in Ft. Worth. Each year the US government has to round up and relocate thousands of untamed mustangs from public lands. As a way of finding good homes for these wild horses, the challenge offers horse trainers around the country 100 days to voluntarily train these horses--which have never before had human contact--and get them ready for competition. As the countdown gets underway, the audience is witness to a kind of love story as the trainers woo these gentle giants into doing what they want and soon realize their hearts could break if they have to sell their new friends at the event auction.

It seems fitting that for the first time in the festival's five-year history, a three-part panel discussion entitled FilmMatters was curated "to specifically engage, educate and inspire an audience to support film as a means to facilitate social action." The films above are a testament to this idea and several films and filmmakers were singled out at DIFF for addressing socially conscious issues in their work.

Zero Percent received the festival's first ever $10,000 Silver Heart Award, presented by the Embrey Family Foundation for the filmmaker's dedication to fighting injustices and creating social change for the improvement of humanity. Dallas favorite (and environmentalist) Larry Hagman was on-hand to present the Environmental Visions Award to If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman. DIFF also honored Scott Z. Burns, the Academy Award-winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth, and The Interrupters director, Steve James, with the Shining Star Award. Wild Horse, Wild Ride received the Audience Award for Best Documentary.

Finally, Peter Fonda presented Anne Buford with the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Documentary Feature for Elevate. Upon receiving her $25,000 award, the filmmaker stated that she would donate the money back to the SEEDS Academy.

A generous act, which yet again proves that films and filmmakers can make a difference.   

Michele Goodson Garrison is field marketing specialist at the Dallas-Forth Worth office of 20th Century Fox.

"Wheelchair Accessibility," named Best Documentary/PSA at the 2011 Los Angeles Student Media Festival. The filmmakers Megan Roope, Kelly Voosen, Carlee Renteria, Emily Henderson and Mary Ruben are all Seniors of Providence High School located in Burbank, CA. As winners of the Best Documentary category, the students won lunch with IDA's Executive Director, Michael Lumpkin and a one-year IDA membership.

IDA is reaching out to the documentary community for support on an important issue that affects our community.

The multiple award-winning documentary film PRESUMED GUILTY (PRESUNTO CULPABLE), shines a light on the Mexican judicial system by addressing the case of Antoñio Zuniga, wrongly sentenced to 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Released theatrically in mid-February 2011, the film has quickly become the highest grossing theatrical documentary in Mexican history. However, the film is currently fighting in the very courts it criticizes for the right to remain in theaters, based on a claim brought by a sole witness in the documented trial that the film violates his privacy. Judge Blanca Lobo Dominguez ordered PRESUMED GUILTY pulled from theaters pending resolution of the privacy claim. While the filmmakers were successful in filing an appeal against this action, returning the film to theaters, the film’s exhibitor, CINEPOLIS, is now being ordered to “camouflage” the face of the witness. This ruling is untenable and effectively prohibits the film from being shown in theaters, since altering and reprinting the 300 non-digital film prints would be economically disastrous.

Both the Mexican Senate and Congress have passed resolutions supporting the film. In the words of the Mexican Senate, “The film reveals startling irregularities in the preliminary investigation and criminal proceedings that in turn display the current deficiencies in the enforcement and administration of justice throughout the country.” Congress states, “This film, made by young lawyers Layda Negrete and Roberto Hernandez, reveals the disaster and disgrace of our justice system.”

IDA and a group of filmmakers have issued an open letter in support of PRESUMED GUILTY urging the Mexican courts to allow this important film to continue screening theatrically in the interests of the greater general public, and to use the opportunity provided by this film to engage their citizens in a deeper dialogue about the system that was designed to serve them. We ask you to join them by giving your support below.

April 7, 2011

Open Letter in support of the documentary film, PRESUMED GUILTY (PRESUNTO CULPABLE).

The multiple award-winning documentary film PRESUMED GUILTY (PRESUNTO CULPABLE), shines a light on the Mexican judicial system by addressing the case of Antoñio Zuniga, wrongly sentenced to 20 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Released theatrically in mid-February 2011, the film has quickly become the highest grossing theatrical documentary in Mexican history. Without question, there is clear evidence of the utmost relevance of the film to the greater population in Mexico.

However, the film is currently fighting in the very courts it criticizes for the right to remain in theaters, based on a claim brought by one sole witness in the documented trial that the film violates his privacy. This witness was filmed exclusively within the context of the public courtroom where the filmmakers had sought and obtained permission to film. With five cameras filming over 100 days, there could have been no question that filming was openly taking place.

We, the undersigned, fiercely defend the right of documentary filmmakers everywhere to practice their art and to seek and reveal truth in their films, however provocative that truth may be. We strenuously uphold the principles of free speech and freedom from censorship, including attempts at back-door censorship. The expression of the truth should never be silenced by the exercise of power by a State or system of authority that may be threatened by the content of the artistic or journalistic work.

We urge the Mexican courts to allow PRESUMED GUILTY (PRESUNTO CULPABLE) to continue screening theatrically in the interests of the greater general public, and to use the opportunity provided by this film to engage their citizens in a deeper dialogue about the system that was designed to serve them.

Eddie Schmidt
President, IDA Board of Directors

With the support of IDA's Board of Directors:
Adam Chapnick, Beth Bird, Bob Niemack, Brian Gerber, Gilda Brasch, Laurie Ann Schag, Marjan Safinia, Moises Velez, Pi Ware, Sara Hutchison, Senain Kheshgi, Steven Reich, Thomas Miller
Executive Director Michael Lumpkin 

Simon Kilmurry, Executive Producer POV
National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP)
Robert Kenner, Joan Churchill, Alex Gibney, Lucy Walker, Joe Berlinger,
Ondi Timoner, Haskell Wexler

Sean Welch, Paul Devlin, Eva Orner, Miranda Yousef, Morgan Spurlock, Leon Gast, Chris Paine, James Longley, Lucy Massie Phenix, Morgan Neville, Doug Block, Charlotte Lagarde, Amy Ziering, Colin Powers, Valentina Leduc Navarro, Hima B., Mark Landsman, Rebecca Cammisa, Martha Sosa, Johanna Demetrakas, Kurt Earl Norton, Churchill Roberts, Gordon Quinn, Violeta Ayala, Edgar Lopez, Fredrik Gertten, Mark Kendall, Alejandro Springall, B. Ruby Rich, Peter Kinoy, Greg Barker, Ken Schneider, Marcia Jarmel, Paola di Florio, Annie Roney, Kathryn Fink, Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Salvador Quiroz Ennis, Brian Newman, Marshall Curry, Judy Branfman, Cameron Yates, Kate Amend, Tia Lessin, Cecilia Real, Ignacio Gómez-Palacio, Ted Braun, Bernardo León, Luisa Ortiz Perez, Daniel Aguayo Mosqueda, Carl Deal, Janet Pierson, David Wilson, Cynthia Kane, Carlos Hagerman, Mary Ellen Sanger, Aaron Schock

Elena Fortes, Jim Kolmar, Yissel Ibarra, Sylvia Perel, José de la Cruz, Alexandra Gallardo, Emmanuel F. Herrera C., Tania Salas Hurtado, Oscar Arturo Vela Silva, Daniela German, Ricardo Alfredo Espinosa Perez, Tania Sevilla, Vanessa Reynaud, Juan Carlos Tapia Hernandez, Aaron David Fuentevilla Topete, Beth Caldarello, Daniela Alatorre Benard, Victor Daniel, Selene Martinez, Rocio Chapman, Andrea Garcia Vazquez, Edgardo Gonzalez, Yasser Ezath Berrelleza Pérez, Francia Vianney Arenas Piquero, Yesica Hernandez, Perla Velez Portillo, Mauricio Pérez Mancilla, Erika A Nuñez, Citlally Villarejo, Dalia Díaz De León, Jesús Franco, Fernando fernandez, Juan Miguel Hurtado, Resendiz Espinoza, Roy Delgado, Mayra Aurora del Rocio Gonzalez Sanchez, Ariadna Casas, Yatziri Zepeda Medina, Enrique Fabregat, Beatriz Parra Rios, Andres Ilescas, Stephen Hewitt, Rodrigo Aguirre Arias, Gustavo Munoz Castro, Alejandro Rodriguez Garcia, Javier Zaragoza, Victor Lagos, Daniel Gomez Villegas, Fany Franco Perez, Adriana Grimaldo, Ambar Zarate, Gudberto Meza, Rocio Montes, Hector Pedrajo, Jose Ignacio Zuniga Leyendecker, Beatriz Adriana Chavez Roque, Octavio Vladimir Armendariz Altamirano, Alfredo Gutierrez, Karla Ivonne Espinosa Cruz, Oscar Fernandez, Nadia Licely Bartolo, Carlos Ernesto Contreras Flores, Monika Garcia Tamayo, Vera Machon Urruchua, Ingrid Nosti Romero, Develotte Catherine, Alvaro Tejera Perez, Daniel Kandell, Hector Silva, Laura Garcia, Norma Marcela Jiménez Torres, Maribel Solache, Anat Shenker-Osorio, Fernando Ballesteros, Miguel Angel Montes De Oca Galindo, Claudia Lopez, Amos Lieberman Michaeli, Irma Guerra Ruiz, Eduardo Herrera

NALIP's 12th National Conference -
THE NEW NOW: Defining the Future Together

Registration is open for NALIP's 2011 national conference, THE NEW NOW: Defining the Future Together. Scheduled to run in Newport Beach, CA, April 15-17 at the Island Hotel, NALIP's twelfth conference will be the most important Latino media event of the year!

Last Chance Registration is still open until April 11. Visit the conference webpage for program information and to register.

For twelve years, the only annual gathering of the national Latino media field has been the NALIP conference. This event is organized as a creative and business event for Latino filmmakers and those interested in Latino content. NALIP’s 12th conference will be a dynamic, unique and inspiring weekend filled with professional development and networking opportunities. THE NEW NOW will include top-level speakers from the film, documentary and television industries, intimate conversations with artists, and workshops for emerging and mid-career filmmakers. Also included in THE NEW NOW will be pitch and screening events, and the annual Achievement and Estela Awards that celebrate past triumphs and rising talents. Running concurrently will be NALIP’s seventh annual Latino Media Market, a meetings event designed to match executives and funders to projects.

THE NEW NOW: Defining the Future Together is presented by Time Warner and the National Latino Media Council. The 2010 census is about to reveal the ascending significance of the bi-lingual, bi-cultural Latino market. How do filmmakers attract those viewers? How do we use new technologies to access this audience and bring resources to our projects? And what is the Latino market in the New Now? Co-chairs Jimmy Smits and Rudy Beserra have invited top industry professionals and visionaries to help us define a media future that includes Latinos at the table for key decisions and that ensures that our stories are told. Together they have programmed a jam-packed weekend of plenaries and conversations, workshops and networking events, plus an exciting sneak preview screening. All at The Island Hotel in Newport Beach, CA, April 15 – 17, with a special Latino edition of Backstage’s Actorfest on April 14.

THE NEW NOW will feature executives from Warner Bros., Sony, Disney/ABC, Turner, MTV Networks, Telemundo, Lifetime, SiTV, PBS, Smithsonian Networks, NBC, CBS, Fox, CPB, CNN, Showtime, WME and more. It will involve guilds and unions like SAG, WGA, PGA, AFTRA and the DGA while examining the craft of artists like Martin Sheen (“The West Wing”), Sofia Vergara (“Modern Family”) and Sonia Fritz (America). It will have workshops for actors and directors, documentary makers and aspiring television writer/producers. There will be a chance to practice pitching, showcase directing reels, and get in the room with top executives. This will be the Latino media event of 2011!

We look forward to seeing long-time members and industry leaders, along with new members and content creators. NALIP’s 12th annual conference is the place to be if you are a part of or interested in Latino media. Plan to spend a dynamic, creative weekend in THE NEW NOW!

Last Chance Registration is still open until April 11. Visit the conference webpage for program information and to register.

Doc U: Straight Shooting
A Conversation with World-Class Documentary DPs
April 25 in Los Angeles at The Cinefamily

 The documentary filmmaker/cinematographer faces many complex challenges, from keeping abreast of the latest camera technologies and post-production workflows to following the subtle clues of a developing story as it is happening, clues often hidden in a look or a gesture and invisible to everyone else but the person looking through the camera lens. What are some of the ethical (and technical) problems unique to this kind of documentary storytelling? As filmmakers, how do we nurture the confidence of our subjects in such a way that they will feel comfortable opening up to our cameras without ultimately betraying their trust when we leave? What are some of the techniques that documentary DP's use in the field to handle second-by-second decisions and never-to-be-repeated moments? How has the very process of filmmaking changed for the doc "shooter" with the arrival of lightweight digital video cameras? How does each one of these filmmakers work to push the boundaries of their craft every time they start a new film or go out on a new shoot?

Join Joan Churchill, James Longley, Haskell Wexler and moderator Richard Pearce in a rich conversation about the unique POV of the documentary shooter.

Panelists:
Joan Churchill, ASC, James Longley, Haskell Wexler, ASC

Moderator:
Richard Pearce

When:

Monday, April 25, 2011
Doors Open: 7:00pm
Discussion & Audience Q&A: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Wine Reception to Follow

Where:

The Cinefamily
611 N. Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Parking:

Metered parking available for free after 6pm, and non-permitted parking
in neighborhoods behind The Cinefamily

Doc U is the International Documentary Association's series of educational seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.

Special support provided by:

IDA PROUD TO PRESENT THE BENGALI DETECTIVE

The International Documentary Association presents THE BENGALI DETECTIVE at the 9th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles! IFFLA runs April 12-17 at Arclight Hollywood. The onsite box office opens April 8th at the Cinerama Dome 6360 W. Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028. Also check out special festival events like Industry Leadership Awards, Seminars panels ("TRENDS IN THE INDIAN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY"), and live music & dance performances.

The BENGALI DETECTIVE, directed by Phil Cox, is a documentary about Rajesh and his Always Detective Agency. The film will screen, Wednesday, April 13th at 9 p.m.  To watch the trailer, please visit the film's blog.

Tickets and Passes are now on sale at: www.indianfilmfestival.org

ENVISION:

ENVISION is set for April 8-9 in New York City at the TimesCenter - the 2011 focus is on the UN's MDG #1: eradicating poverty & hunger. This forum combines documentary screenings and selections from docs in progress (the international "Why Poverty?" series) with discussions on the role of women in alleviating poverty, the issue of food security, and the challenge of balancing issues and art in documentary story-telling. Artist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte delivers the opening address. This event is sponsored by IFP and the United Nations.

For more information and to register, visit: http://www.envisionfilm.org/

IDA DocuWeeks™ CALL FOR ENTRIES

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND COMPLETE DETAILS,
PLEASE CLICK HERE.

DocuWeeks™ helps to qualify outstanding new feature and short documentaries for Academy Award® consideration, by providing its participants a commercial theatrical exhibition in Los Angeles and New York.

SPONSORED BY   . 

To become a DocuWeeks sponsor, please call 213.534.3600.

Richard Leacock, who, with Robert Drew, Albert Maysles and DA Pennebaker, helped revolutionize documentary filmmaking with a dynamic, transformational style known as cinema vérité, has died. He was 89, and he lived in Paris.

According to his website, Leacock was born in London in 1921 and grew up on his father's banana plantation in the Canary Islands-which was the inspiration for his first documentary, made at the age of 14, called Canary Bananas. "I made my first film, aged 14, in 1935," he writes on his website, "and I have been at it ever since, striving to give my viewers a sense of ‘being there.'"

He later graduated from Harvard University, with a degree in physics-which he used "to master the technology of filmmaking." He worked as a combat cameraman in Burma and China during World War II, and later shot Robert Flaherty's seminal Louisiana Story. "More difficult for me to explain is Flaherty's way of looking at things," Leacock writes. "We were constantly panning, tilting, moving the camera, searching. There is rhythm in the filming, rhythm in the captured movements and compositions that are completely at odds with the compositions that work in static imagery. I once went through Louisiana Story looking for stills that could illustrate what I am talking about and found very, very few good stills. What is there is pure film magic constantly in motion."

In the 1950s, with television in its nascent stages, Leacock was invited to make a film for the cultural program Omnibus. The film, Toby and the Tall Corn, documented a traveling tent show in Midwest; it would be his first film since Canary Bananas-and "my final attempt to make a documentary using classical film industry techniques."  

Filmmaker Roger Tilton, a fellow veteran combat cameraman, invited Leacock to film at a jazz club in New York's East Village, and encouraged him to shoot as they had during the war: "We shot wild! NO tripod! Move! Shoot! I was all over the place, having the time of my life, jumping, dancing, shooting right in the midst of everything. We spent a fabulous evening shooting to our hearts' content. Roger and his editor Richard Brummer laid these fragmentary shots in synch with the four pieces of music selected for the film; slow, medium, fast and faster! It worked! On a big screen in a theater, WOW! You were there, right in the midst of it and it looked like it was in synch... it was in synch! We couldn't film dialogue or sustained musical passages this way. But it gave us a taste, a goal."

The quest was on: "I needed a camera that I could hand- hold, that would run on battery power; that was silent, you can't film a symphony orchestra rehearsing with a noisy camera; a recorder as portable as the camera, battery-powered, with no cable connecting it to the camera, that would give us quality sound; synchronous, not just with one camera but with all cameras. What we call in physics, a general solution. Filming an orchestra with two or three cameras, all in sync with a high-quality recorder and all mobile... This became a goal that took another three years of intensive effort to achieve. Remember that the transistor, without which none of these goals could be achieved, was still in its infancy."

By this time, Leacock had found a kindred spirit in Robert Drew, a reporter for Life Magazine, who himself was exploring a less verbal approach to television reporting, without interviews or narrators-purely observational. Leacock had also met DA Pennebaker, who had majored in electrical engineering at Yale University, so with their science degrees they spent the next few years with Drew developing portable synchronous equipment. They were later joined by Albert Maysles, and the four of them headed for Wisconsin to follow Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey in their quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

"We were breaking all the rules of the industry," Leacock writes. "We were shooting and editing our own footage on location. The people taking sound were not ‘sound men'; they were reporters, journalists, trained in finding and telling stories. It was a collaborative work, filmmakers and journalists; not cameramen and soundmen.

"There were no interviews and little narration," Leacock continues. "Bob Drew was executive producer and had final say; he bore the burden of responsibility for the outcome, he worked with us and took sound and sweated over the editing. Primary was shot in about five days with four two-man crews; no script, no lights, no tripods, no questions, no directions, never ask anyone to do anything. Just watch and listen. Then the same people that shot moved into a hotel suite and edited with little film viewers and sound heads. We worked hard and fast, I think we had a cut of the long version in about two weeks."

Over the next four years Drew Associates would continue to raise the bar for documentary filmmaking. Leacock and Pennebaker would later form their own company and produce such classics as Dont Look Back and Happy Mother's Day. Leacock would later film Pennebaker's  Monterrey Pop and Company.

In 1968, Leacock and Ed Pincus were invited to create a new film school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and over the next 20 years his students would include Ross McElwee, Robb Moss, Steve Ascher, Jeff Kreines, Joel DeMott, Michel Negroponte, Mark Rance, and many others.

Leacock retired in 1989 and moved to Paris, where he met and married Valerie Lalonde, who would be his filmmaking partner. The couple embraced the digital revolution, beginning with the Video-8, and continuing with every versatile, cost-efficient piece of equipment that followed. "With this new equipment it is possible to make not just documentaries... fiction... whatever you want for very little money. What we will then need is a distribution system more like the book industry, a whole infrastructure that must and will be developed. Then we can make shows that are more than a stop-gap in an entertainment industry. Works that can combine written and motion-picture material in a complex manner that can be savored, thought about and enjoyed where the dreadful People that run Hollywood and Television will have no influence whatever."

In his last years, Leacock was working on his memoir, The Feeling of Being There, a transmedia project that would include a book and a Digital Video Book. For more on that project, click here.

Richard Leacock took us there.