With sold-out screenings, lively Q&As and impassioned audiences, the 22nd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) drew a record 132,000 attendees out of the sunshine and into theaters in January. Of the 205 films screened, 43 were feature documentaries, including four world premieres.

A combination of submissions and films sought out by PSIFF programmers from other festivals and industry contacts, the documentary line-up featured a wide range of current international and US-made nonfiction films. "It's an eclectic round-up in content and style," says Ken Jacobson, the festival's programming/education coordinator, adding that  the documentary selections were narrowed down from approximately 300 submissions. "We're committed to playing the best in documentary," he affirms.

Twenty-two countries were represented in the festival's True Stories documentary program, which varied from 2010's most notable documentaries such as the Academy Award-nominated Waste Land to the world premiere of directors Alex Dawson and Greg Gricus' debut feature Wild Horse, Wild Ride, to New Directors/New Films standout Bill Cunningham New York to PSIFF Audience Award winner and DocuWeeks 2010 participant Louder Than A Bomb.

 "We really want to continue to raise the profile of documentary films," Jacobson asserts. To that end, the festival's juried John Schlesinger Award, previously awarded to a debut feature, is now presented to an outstanding documentary. In 2011, the award went to Summer Pasture from filmmakers Lynn True and Nelson Walker. The film, which also screened at DocuWeeks 2010, chronicles a traditional, nomadic Tibetan family's summer in remote grasslands, set against the lure of modernization.

The majority of PSIFF's filmgoing audiences are retirees, a demographic that responds enthusiastically to nonfiction, historic and cultural subjects. Art-themed documentaries resonate strongly and often screen to overflow crowds such as those at the Bill Cunningham New York screening in the 400-seat Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs Art Museum. "The audiences were so smart and sophisticated," says Richard Press, the film's director. "It was a total pleasure to watch the film with them,"

A profile of famed New York Times fashion photographer and writer Bill Cunningham, who writes and shoots the On the Street and Evening Hours photomontages for the Sunday Styles section, the documentary chronicles the octogenarian's extraordinary work ethic and process. "He has such a passion for what he does," explains producer Philip Gefter. "Audiences get the purity, essence, integrity and simplicity of the man, which is gratifying to us."

An original, charming and ultimately shy and self-deprecating character, Cunningham was reluctant to participate in the film and has never seen the finished work. As the filmmakers related at a festival Q&A, it took them more than eight years to convince Cunningham to allow them to capture his daily forays across Manhattan, where he shoots of-the-moment fashion trends as they happen on New York's sidewalks. 

 "We tried not to give the appearance of making a movie," explains Press, as Cunningham would never agree to be tracked by a full-on film crew. Press and cinematographer Tony Cenicola trailed Cunningham inconspicuously, using two lightweight, hand-held Canon pro-consumer cameras. An engaging portrait, the film also demonstrates the photographer's influence and wide reach. "Bill's work is basically the chronicle of fashion and society in New York City," Gefter notes. "It is very important in terms of documentary photography, as well as anthropologically and journalistically significant." Cunningham's knowledge of fashion from the 17th century to the present is astonishing. "He's a walking encyclopedia of fashion and brings all that to his images," says Press. Distributed by Zeitgeist Films, Bill Cunningham New York, which was a runner-up for the Audience Award at PSIFF, opens March 16 at Film Forum in New York City and March 25 at the Nuart in Los Angeles, to be followed by a roll-out to 50 US cities.

Throughout the festival, audiences lined up well in advance of screenings; many make a point of coming every year, drawn by the chance to see films not usually available in the desert community or elsewhere in the southwest. Per Jacobson, approximately 50 percent of the documentary screenings included Q&As with the filmmakers and sometimes the subjects of the films. Documentaries were screened at all festival venues, from the 1,000 plus-seat high school auditorium to the multiplexes at the Regal Cinemas and Camelot Theaters. 

The festival is one of the high points of Palm Springs' social calendar and its black-tie awards gala has become a prestigious pre-Oscar event too, drawing major stars such as Colin Firth and Natalie Portman in 2011. It's also a major fundraiser for the Palm Springs International Film Society--more than $1.3 million was raised at this year's event.

For the first time, the festival expanded beyond the city limits, hosting a pre-fest filmmakers' retreat in Rancho Mirage, co-sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation Trust, at the soon-to-open Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands. Both narrative and nonfiction filmmakers were invited to the inaugural event. "It was a really great and totally unique experience," reflects Jon Siskel, Louder Than A Bomb's co-director and co-producer. Case studies were presented, and each filmmaker screened their film's trailer for the assembled filmmakers. Per Siskel, the filmmakers formed strong connections, and often went out en masse to each other's screenings during the festival.

Because of its subject matter--a youth poetry slam competition in Chicago--festival organizers also screened Louder Than A Bomb for free for area high-school students. Co-director Greg Jacobs and the film subjects Nova, Nate and Kevin Coval (founder of the Chicago Youth Poetry Festival) also conducted poetry slam workshops at the high school.

The enthusiasm of festival audiences guarantees that Louder Than A Bomb will return to Palm Springs during the film's theatrical run. "We now have an army of high-school students supporting the film," says Siskel. "We doubled our Facebook fan numbers from that one screening alone." Grey or young, Palm Springs' film fans have taken documentaries to heart.

Kathy A. McDonald is a Los Angeles-based writer.

The Association for Information, Media and Equipment (AIME), a nonprofit trade association of educational video publishers, and New York-based Ambrose Video Publishing (AVP) recently filed a copyright infringement and breach of contract suit against The Regents of University of California and UCLA.

The plaintiffs charge that UCLA has illegally streamed copyright-protected DVD titles hundreds of times for use by faculty and students both on and off campus on the University's Web-based Intranet, using a technology system called Video Furnace, which enables the recording of content and subsequent delivery as video-on-demand to computers and set-top boxes..

According to the complaint filed with the US District Court of the Central District of California, UCLA had acquired a series of BBC productions of Shakespeare plays. The DVD streams of the series were linked to course websites and accessible to students and faculty enrolled in or teaching the course.    

Upon learning of UCLA's practice, AVP challenged the university, citing copyright law, and the fact that streaming was a violation of the AVP DVD license. AVP also offers institutional streaming licenses for its titles.

UCLA countered these challenges, claiming fair use as well as a public performance exemption for face-to-face teaching and digital distance learning uses.

According to the court filing, UCLA has placed over 2,500 titles on its file server for use by students and faculty. The titles include hundreds of documentary films distributed by such respected companies as The Criterion Collection, California Newsreel, Women Make Movies, among many others.

Given the educational market's longstanding preeminence as a major and steady revenue stream for documentary filmmakers, this case has significant implications for the documentary community. IDA will be monitoring the developments of this case and posting updates on www.documentary.org.

To download the PDF of the US District Court Filing of AIME v. The Regents of the University of California, click here.

As reported in The New York Times, a federal appeals court ruled earlier this month that filmmaker Joe Berlinger could not invoke journalist's privilege in protecting the 600 hours of footage of his documentary Crude from Chevron's subpoena of the material last spring.

Although the same Second Court of Appeals ruled last summer that Chevron could not arbitrarily claim all of Berlinger's footage, in submitting the more recent ruling, the judges wrote, "Given all the circumstances of the making of the film, as reasonably found by the district court, particularly the fact that Berlinger's making of the film was solicited by the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio litigation for the purpose of telling their story, and that changes to the film were made at their instance, Berlinger failed to carry his burden of showing that he collected information for the purpose of independent reporting and commentary."

At last week's Cinema Eye Honors in New York City, IDA Board President Eddie Schmidt addressed the audience about the January 14th ruling: "In a year when corporations were given the opportunity to express themselves in our elections, and another corporation is able to win a ruling judging that a documentary filmmaker investigating them is not, in fact, a journalist...I ask if you begin to see the connections in the world we're living in. If we're not independent, who is?...There's no question in my mind that the most important investigative journalism, and the most in-depth examinations of the human condition, are happening today because of the people in our community. 

"One of the things that IDA is working on for the future is a federal shield law that properly includes documentary filmmakers in the very definition of journalists. Had this been in place in a meaningful way, what happened to Joe Berlinger might not have been possible.  It appears there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the process in our work, and just as we expect truth from our news sources, our new sources require the building of trust.

"So I may be calling on many of you, as I have in the past, to come together and make a difference again to help this bill work its way into law.  We can be independent, but should be united.  As we clearly see from what is happening in Joe Berlinger's case, our professional lives and our pursuit of the truth may depend on it."

For his part, Berlinger responded to the ruling, in an e-mailed statement, "I am deeply concerned by the Court's fundamental misunderstanding of the circumstances surrounding the production of this film in particular and the nature of long-term investigative documentary reporting in general, when filmmakers embed themselves with their subjects over a long period of time to be able to tell underreported stories that serve the public interest. 

"While the idea for Crude was pitched to me by Steven Donziger, one of the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs' lawyers, this was not a commissioned film. I had complete editorial independence, as did 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, who also produced stories on this case that were solicited by Mr. Donziger.   The decision to modify one scene in the film based on comments from the plaintiffs' lawyers after viewing the film at the Sundance Film Festival was exclusively my own and in no way diminishes the independence of this production from its subjects. I rejected many other suggested changes and my documentary Crude has been widely praised for its balance in the presentation of Chevron's point of view as well as the plaintiffs'.   

"The facts concerning my independence were never fully before the Second Circuit, because this was not a significant issue in the district court proceedings and not addressed in the district court's holding.  The appeals court's ruling that a journalist must affirmatively establish editorial independence is a sea change in the law.  The standards it articulates for determining independence will unfortunately deter a great deal of important reporting by independent journalists."

Nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards have been announced.

Documentary (Feature)

• "Exit through the Gift Shop" Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
• "Gasland" Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
• "Inside Job" Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
• "Restrepo" Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
• "Waste Land" Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Documentary (Short Subject)

• "Killing in the Name" Nominees to be determined
• "Poster Girl" Nominees to be determined
• "Strangers No More" Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
• "Sun Come Up" Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger
• "The Warriors of Qiugang" Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon

Mark your calendar for DocuDay LosAngeles, February 26^th at the Writers Guild Theater, and DocuDay NYC at the Paley Center - February date to beannounced. DocuDay is IDA's annual screening of the year's best documentary films, Oscar nominated shorts and features. Watch all the above films and get a chance to listen in on filmmaker Q&A's. Stay tuned for more information.

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011. The ceremony will again take place at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollyood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.  To view the full list of nominees, visit The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.

Timed with the opening of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the Ford Foundation announced a five-year, $50 million initiative to help find and support a new generation of filmmakers whose works address urgent social issues.

The new initiative, JustFilms, will invest $10 million a year over the next five years to support and expand the community of filmmakers and mediamakers around the world focused on creating documentaries with passion and purpose, but who often lack funding to realize their visions or reach audiences.

“With the growth of the Web and social networks, the potential global audience for filmed content with a social conscience has exploded,” said Luis Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation, in a statement. “We want JustFilms to support visionary filmmakers from around the world to create works on urgent social issues, and help them reach and engage audiences.”

JustFilms will build on the foundation’s longtime support for documentaries, including such landmark productions as Eyes on the Prize, State of Fear and Why Democracy, among scores of others. It will also leverage the foundation’s global network of 10 regional offices to identify and lift new talent from around the world and to strengthen emerging communities of documentary filmmakers.

“Storytelling is a unique and powerful way of helping us understand our past, explore our present and build our future,” said Darren Walker, vice president of Ford’s Education, Creativity and Free Expression program. “We see these stories as vital ingredients to social change, translating how people engage with the world and the issues that define our time.”

The foundation said JustFilms would focus on film, video and digital works that show courageous people confronting difficult issues and actively pursuing a more just, secure and sustainable world. The initiative will pursue three distinct funding paths: 

• Partnerships with major organizations such as the Sundance Institute, the Independent Television Service, and others
• An ongoing open application process that will help JustFilms stay attuned to fresh ideas and stories wherever they may emerge, and
• Partnership with other Ford Foundation grant-making programs where the introduction of documentary film could help draw attention to an issue or advance a movement.

Directing the JustFilms initiative will be Orlando Bagwell, an internationally respected, award-winning filmmaker who has supported documentary film and other narrative art forms over the past six years as a program officer and director in the foundation’s Freedom of Expression team. 

“This major new commitment to documentaries reflects our recognition that individual stories--meaningful and well told--can be a powerful instrument of change,” Bagwell said. “The test of JustFilms will be its ability to lift the voices of independent filmmakers and mediamakers from outside the mainstream, to build audiences for social justice stories, and to enlarge the conversation on critical but often less visible issues. It’s work that at its essence is really about capturing imaginations.”

As a key component of the initriative, JustFilms will launch a major five-year partnership with the Sundance Institute, contributing $1 million a year over five years to support the Documentary Film Program at the Institute.  The resulting Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation Documentary Film Fund will support international and US productions that focus on human and civil rights, free expression, economic opportunity and other critical topics. It will also support filmmaker labs that enhance storytelling through cutting-edge editing, producing, and film scoring workshops. And it will support panels and dialogues at the Sundance Film Festival to enhance understanding and recognition of documentary film as a key component of social change.

JustFilms will spend roughly one-third of its annual budget on each of its three core funding paths (strategic partnerships, open applications, engagement with Ford Foundation grantees).  The initiative has also set aside funds for marketing partners who will help filmmakers promote their work and engage directly with audiences.

The Foundation for Jewish Culture, whose mission is to "invest in creative individuals in order to nurture a vibrant and enduring Jewish identity, culture and community," recently granted $140,000 to five exemplary documentaries, ensuring their delivery to film festivals, television and other distribution outlets. The grants, which range between$20,000 and $35,000 each, will enable filmmakers to pay license fees for archival footage, complete additional shooting, and reach a wider audience through outreach and engagement strategies.

This year's grantees of the Foundation's Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film include: Joann Sfar Draws From Memory (Dir./Prod.: Sam Ball; US/France), a portrait of one of France's most celebrated graphic novelists; Regarding Susan Sontag (Dir./Prod.: Nancy Kates; US), a spotlight on the life and work of the late American writer and icon; The Law in These Parts (Dir.: Ra'anan Alexandrowicz; Prod.: Laura Poitras; Israel/US), an examination of Israeli military tribunals in the Occupied Territories; Numbered (Dirs.: Dana Doron and Uriel Sinai; Israel), a meditation on the relationship between Holocaust survivors and their tattoos; and The Hangman (Dirs.:  Netalie Braun and Avigail Sperber; Israel), a chronicle of Adolf Eichmann's executioner.

The foundation received nearly 100 grant applications from around the world. Selected by a rigorous panel of scholars, critics, filmmakers and curators that included IDA's own executive director, Michael Lumpkin, the 2010 grantees reflect the global diversity of contemporary Jewish culture. Elise Bernhardt, president and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, said in a statement, "This year's films are notable for the extraordinary characters they follow and the passionate way in which they live their lives and follow their internal sense of what is right and true."

Since 1996, the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film has supported the completion of original documentaries that explore the Jewish experience in all its complexity. The fund was created with a lead grant from Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation and sustained over 10 years with major support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation. The priority of the fund is to support projects that address significant subjects; offer fresh, challenging perspectives; engage audiences across cultural lines; and expand the understanding of Jewish experiences.

Foundation for Jewish Culture Board Member Lynn Kroll said in the statement, "The annual funding of works-in-progress is always an exciting risk. Jules and I were impressed with this year's submissions and grantees.  We are confident that the excellent and diverse panel of judges has made sound, informed recommendations.  I am particularly pleased that our challenge grant was matched by Ellen and Steve Susman, the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, Linda Platt, and others who share our belief in the power of documentary film to stimulate productive dialogue and debate."

In the past 14 years, documentary films supported by the Kroll Fund have received Academy Award nominations, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Award Nominees, George Foster Peabody Awards, and prizes at festivals such as Berlin International Film Festival, Silverdocs, Sundance Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. Past grantees include Waltz with Bashir, Budrus, Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh, Crime After Crime, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, Off and Running: An American Coming of Age Story, The Rape of Europa, among others.

Besides Michael Lumpkin, the panelists included Natan Meir, the Lorry I. Lokey Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at Portland State University; Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes; cinematpographer John-Keith Wasson, whose credits include The Devil Came on Horseback, and Surviving Hitler: A Love Story; and Pamela Brown Lavitt, director of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.

We are happy to announce the launch of IDA's Member Directory. Exclusively for IDA Members, the directory allows you to post  your profile, search member profiles and connect directly with other IDA members. Get listed today - it's a great way to connect with the documentary film community, promote your projects and network with like-minded folk!

To view the Member Directory, go to http://www.documentary.org/community/member-directory. The directory only displays members who have opted-in, so if you would like to be listed you must  be an IDA Member and opt-in.  Simply go to your profile settings (under edit profile), and select the "Share Profile in Member Directory" check-box.

Want to get listed but not an IDA member?  It's easy to join - simply visit the Membership page and follow the instructions!

The FCC came out with a net neutrality ruling December 20 that is a victory for the position enunciated by the International Documentary Association (IDA) and filed on a pro bono basis by entertainment attorney Michael C. Donaldson. Net neutrality is important to documentary filmmakers in that it ensures their films travel the Internet at the same speed as films by the major studios who can afford to pay for faster transport. The vote was 3-2.

Net neutrality regulations essentially state that the Internet service providers cannot pick and choose which items get preference as they travel the Internet; broadband providers will be prohibited from blocking access to lawful content. The new rules create two differing classes of service--one set of rules for fixed broadband networks and the other for wireless networks. The first rule requires providers be transparent in their management and operation of their networks; the second prohibits traffic blocking on the Internet; the last applies only to fixed broadband providers and prohibits discrimination against traffic on their network.  

 "An Internet that is not neutral could weaken, marginalize and eventually shut out the very work our community produces, as it is so often politically, socially and fiscally threatening to the corporate interests that control mainstream media and now seek to regulate the digital realm," said Eddie Schmidt, president of the IDA. "This hurts the community immeasurably, but it also hurts a global audience that relies on our work for hard news as well as valuable insights into the human condition." Michael C. Donaldson said, "This is far from  a complete victory, but a huge step forward for the documentary community."

Michael C. Donaldson organized the efforts on a pro bono basis, along with Jack I. Lerner and the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic. The International Documentary Association led the fight, garnering support from organizations such as Film Independent, University Film & Video Association, Independent Filmmaker Project, Independent Feature Project Chicago, IFP Minnesota and National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.

Top Photo: Left to right--IDA Board President Eddie Schmidt, Host Morgan Spurlock and IDA Executive Director Michael Lumpkin. Credit: A. Rodriquez/Getty Images.

Photos by Rene Lego

More Awards Photos by Meg Madison

In a week that began with IFP's Gothams in New York and continued with the Film Independent's Sprit nominations in Los Angeles, the 26^th edition of the IDA Documentary Awards brought things to a rousing crescendo at the jam-packed Directors Guild of America Theater.

Filmmaker and docu-funnyman Morgan Spurlock performed a second tour of duty as Awards Host, following his 2008 gig, with IDA Board President Eddie Schmidt joining Spurlock on stage for a few reconstituted scenes from some of the Feature nominees.  In what is probably the first instance of partial nudity in IDA Awards history, Spurlock and Schmidt sported towels for their Steam of Life routine, breaking into rollicking song 'n' dance about the travails of docmaking-and the towels, miraculously, stayed on. Then there was this Pinteresque interplay between two sheepherding cowboys from Sweetgrass: (long pause) "I guess we can make a documentary." (long pause) "It don't look all that hard." (long pause)

But the real theme of the evening was The Documentary Community, and with some of the best minds of the generation packed into the room Friday night, there was plenty to testify about. Joe Berlinger, discussing his very costly legal battle with Chevron and the IDA-led response to it, said, "...this experience has taught me that I am proud to be a part of this community and that the IDA can play a pivotal role in pushing our collective agenda forward...While we can debate whether or not it is easier or harder to be a documentarian today, I would argue that being a documentarian today has never been more important. ...We documentarians are one of the last bastions of independent journalism.  Whether those films show a bias or not, some of the most courageous and important reporting on real problems affecting all of us are being done by this community.  So, it's more important than ever to stick together and help each other and be thankful that we have the IDA to help further our very important mission.  Because of the tremendous good will that was shown to me, I intend to do my part to help however I can, and I hope you will too." 

And that seemed to set the tone for the rest of the evening. Walker, on collecting her second honor of the evening-Best Feature Documentary for Waste Land--remarked, "It's great to sit in a room with people who remind you of why you're doing this in  the first place." Laura Poitras, who earned the Humanitas Award for her film The Oath, noted, "We're thinking about this community as a movement." "It's a chance to meet all your heroes," said Donnet Award winner Jeff Malmberg. And Barbara Kopple, the Career Achievement Award honoree, exclaimed, "It's so vital and important to have a community such as this one."

Mark Jonathan Harris, the Preservation & Scholarship Award winner, talked about his love for teaching: "Teaching in the classroom reaffirms my faith in documentary. The experience is always rewarding... It's an adventure in engaging with new people and grappling with new ideas."

In addition to the Best Feature Award, Walker took home the previously announced Pare Lorentz Award for Waste Land, adding to the trove (landfill?) of honors that film has picked up this year since winning the Audience Award at Sundance. Among the other prizes, Kiran Deol's Woman Rebel took the Short Documentary Award, ESPN's 30 for 30 won the Continuing Series Award and Connie Field's Have You Heard from Johannesburg captured the Limited Series prize. For a complete run-down of the Awards, click here.

Here's a run-down of coverage of the IDA Awards:

Variety

Hollywood Reporter

IndieWire

The Wrap

Los Angeles Times

New York Times

UPI

About.com

AJ Schnack