Join IDA as we celebrate outstanding achievements in documentary filmmaking.

Friday, December 3, 2010
8pm Awards Show • 10pm Reception

DGA Theatre and Grand Lobby
7920 Sunset Blvd. • Los Angeles, CA, 90046

 FOR EVENT DETAILS AND TO BUY ADMISSION TIX, GO HERE....

Here's another opportunity to network with the IDA community...

Don't miss this very special IDA Member Mixer!

You are invited to IDA's next Membership Mixer on Wednesday, November 3rd, from 6:30-9:00pm, to celebrate the launch and signing of Michael Donaldson & Lisa Callif's new book, The American Bar Association: Legal Guide to Independent Filmmaking, followed by a wine and cheese reception.

Location: The Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Web Library 7000 W. Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048.

Complimentary parking is available underground. Please enter at Blackburn.

 RSVP NOW!

 To join IDA, go here...

Launched last year by distributor Richard Propper and filmmaker Chuck Braverman, the WESTDOC conference brings together the documentary and reality TV production communities with a two busy days of in-depth panels and a third day dedicated to a pitch fest.

For the second year in a row, WESTDOC enticed high-level network and cable executives who primarily work from the East Coast to fly out to Santa Monica to participate in candid, intimate panels revealing how they choose and manage the hit shows on their outlets.  "This conference should be in the face of every filmmaker out there," says Marita Grabiak, who spent the last ten years directing scripted TV and came to WESTDOC to pitch a passion project about a photojournalist traveling the ancient Silk Road. Grabiak was determined to meet with executives from A&E, TLC, History Channel and the National Geographic Channel, and was delighted to find all four appearing on one panel, after which she was able to meet each exec and score an e-mail contact for a formal pitch.  "The network programmers and the filmmakers coming together, it's like a two-way street of panning for gold," Grabiak exclaims. "It's a symbiotic relationship that seems to work well for both."

Attendees also got the chance to meet and pitch execs in two other settings: "Sit Down" sessions, where execs give an overview of their outlet's programming, and the "Face Time" sessions where filmmakers have 15 minutes for a one-on-one pitch.

 "I pressed the flesh, I was pitching constantly," says Nicole Torre, a reality TV show runner who came to WESTDOC after spending two years producing and self-financing Houston, We Have a Problem, a documentary about what Texas oilmen really think about the fate of America's oil industry.  After a year on the festival circuit, her film became a hot property after the BP oil spill, and Discovery licensed Houston, We Have a Problem for Planet Green's Reel Impact environmental documentary block.  Torre came to WESTDOC to make new contacts in the documentary community and refresh her contacts in reality TV. "I'd love to stay in documentary," says Torre, "but it's very hard to make a living in documentary so you kind of have to balance that with-unfortunately--reality television."

WESTDOC fed the appetite of traditional documentarians with a preview screening of the Sundance hit Catfish; a fact-filled keynote speech by Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper; Paradise Lost; Crude); and panels on fair use, how to qualify for an Oscar nomination and how to navigate PBS, as well as a "Sit Down" session for The Documentary Channel, hosted by President and CEO James Ackerman.

The Documentary Channel was added to Direct TV's lineup last year, racking up its potential viewership to around 27 million. Ackerman offered hope to the crowded room when he explained that The Documentary Channel is considered an "R"-rated channel, so it doesn't shy away from films with potentially controversial or explicit material, and that HD is not a required format as the independently-owned channel can't afford to broadcast yet in HD. Ackerman also stated that The Documentary Channel has no intention of moving in the direction of "reality TV," and is committed to staying the course of programming nothing but straight-ahead documentaries.

The future of traditional documentary hours on other cable outlets, however, seemed less hopeful, despite how hard executives from once-documentary friendly outlets such as TLC, History, A&E and National Geographic Channel tried to argue otherwise in a roundtable panel on documentary programming on cable television. Bridget Whalen, vice president of development, co-productions and acquisitions for Nat Geo, claimed that "probably more so than anyone else, we have more slots open for one, two-hour specials," noting that Nat Geo had opened an acquisition branch just this year.

Charles Nordlander, vice president of development and programming for History, insisted that History programs about 40 documentaries per year, but added that what he called "the nature of the documentary film" could change when created for a ratings-driven outlet and not PBS. Nordlander explained that where three years ago History was a "traditional-looking network in terms of programming that was primarily unhosted, driven by interviews, recreations, b-roll," it is today intentionally trying to make a "more active presentation" of history that is "more entertaining." But he added, "I just want to put out the room that if you're actually here because you're interested in making documentaries, we're looking for them," noting History's success with a documentary about the January 2009 US Airways flight that crashed into New York's Hudson River, not to mention the Emmy-nominated series America: The Story of Us.

Laura Fleury, vice president for nonfiction and alternative programming for A&E, insisted that her network is enjoying an exciting "experimental" phase as they explore what kind of shows their slogan "real life drama" can translate to. "This is just an incredibly exciting time in nonfiction," said Fleury. "There are so many channels, there are so many venues, there's so many outlets, that it may not be A&E, but there's a place that's right for your passion project, for your vision, for the story that you want to tell...It's not just like there's one channel. It's not just PBS. There's all these different ways that you can tell stories, real stories about real people. So keep up with your passion; don't give up."

Another hot topic at WESTDOC was going beyond the perennially confusing topic of how, where and for how much to digitally distribute your documentary to the latest trend: fundraising via crowd-sourcing. Innovative marketeer Peter Broderick covered this latest trend in a panel on "crowd-funding," explaining how fundraising websites Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com give artists the chance to appeal to a worldwide general public for funding. But such successful sites have proven to filmmakers the power of engaging an audience of strangers during the production of your film. "You think it's about raising money," said Broderick. "No. You've got to go out to audiences early; you've got to get their feedback." Broderick argued that filmmakers should start to embrace a Wikipedia mindset that invites participation and, ideally, loyalty to a film.  "You can't make a documentary in a cave and then finally when it's done show it to somebody," he maintained. "You need to involve people--strangers now, not just friends and family--and get reactions, get feedback and get responses."

Case in point, the winners of this year's WESTDOC Pitchfest, James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot, raised $23,000 on Kickstarter.com for their documentary about quirky game developers, Indie Game: The Movie, but at the same time raised quite a bit of buzz, finding that many filmmakers at WESTDOC had already seen, and become fans of, their project on Kickstarter.

You can hear Broderick speak about the new world order of distribution at his seminar "New Rules of Crowdfunding" November 13 in New York and November 20 in Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.peterbroderick.com.  You can see Nicole Torre's documentary Houston, We Have a Problem on Planet Green or, because she retained her DVD sales rights, buy the DVD directly from her at her website: http://www.houstonwehaveaproblemfilm.com/orderdvd.html.

For a complete list of this year's WESTDOC speakers, visit www.theWESTDOC.com.

Elizabeth Blozan is a freelance writer and frequent transcriber of hundreds of hours of field footage for documentaries and reality TV shows.

Independent Feature Project's (IFP) 32^nd Independent Film Week took place September 19 to 23 in New York City. The annual event (formerly known as the IFP Market) focuses on celebrating, advocating and introducing new voices on the independent scene. While the landscape of independent film has radically changed over the three decades of its existence, IFP continues to evolve and respond to the shifting tides.

Independent Film Week offers many ways for the independent film community to come together. This includes facilitating over 2,000 industry meetings for both established and emerging makers with new projects at the Project Forum, helping filmmakers build audiences through showcase screenings, and offering the independent community the opportunity to discuss the future of film at the Filmmaker Conference.

The Project Forum is the centerpiece of Independent Film Week, where filmmakers present their projects in varying phases, from development through post-production, to key people in industry--producers, financiers and distributors--who can help them realize the full potential of their projects. Projects are accepted into one of three sections: Emerging Narrative, No Borders International Co-Production Market, and Spotlight on Documentaries. Fifty percent of the accepted projects in the Project Forum are documentaries. 

I spoke with both filmmakers and those from industry about their experiences, and everyone seemed to have very favorable reviews. From the filmmakers' side...Leslie Gladsjo is still at an early stage with her doc, Sayonara, Daddy-san, a personal film about the children left behind by America's military occupations. She went into the week with pretty low expectations, but found it to be a very positive experience. "This was my first chance to present my project to industry people and other filmmakers, so it was exciting to discover that some viewers already 'get' what I am trying to do," she observes. "Nobody wrote me any checks on the spot, but I met some amazing people and got a lot of great advice and encouragement that will help me to move forward. It was inspiring to see other people's projects as well, and to run into some people I hadn't seen in years!" 

Mike Plunkett's project, Charge, about the competition for access to Bolivia's substantial lithium reserves, drummed up significant interest among many industry reps; in the course of the week, he had about 22 meetings. Even though Charge is still in production and months away from a rough cut, most of the foreign distributors expressed interest in pre-sales, and several put forth specific numbers. Plunkett is currently following up on these potential offers, and also commented on the benefit of meeting many talented and like-minded filmmakers at the events, who "I definitely plan to keep in touch with. This was my first time at Film Week, and it was the most inspiring and productive networking experience I've ever had."

Melissa Haizlip's production, Mr. SOUL: Ellis Haizlip and the Birth of Black Power TV, came into the week with six scheduled meetings, but by the end of the week, she had taken 25 meetings. The experience allowed her to "make great inroads and gain entrée to a very desirable echelon of possibility and deal-making, enabling us to get a foothold in the early marketing of the film by creating a presence and market validation." She says she's "in over her ears with follow-up," and through her micro-cinema screening she was able to connect with a key editor and filmmaker who have expressed interest in working with her on the project. She also mentioned having good meetings with industry reps from POV and Women Make Movies.

From the industry side, Women Make Movies' executive director, Debbie Zimmerman, attended the week from several different perspectives. Her organization is serving as fiscal sponsor for six projects that were at the market. "It's such a fantastic way for filmmakers to become visible," she notes. "Face-to-face meetings are incredibly important as a way of moving a project forward."  Women Make Movies also had meetings with representatives from 20 new projects, and Zimmerman felt the projects were very strong this year. Diana Holtzberg from Films Transit had meetings with about 17 projects and also felt it was a very strong year. It's likely she'll come on board with one of the films in the next couple of weeks, and she said she's interested in three others. Holtzberg noted how she's found other projects at past Independent Film Weeks--The Most Dangerous Man in America, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's doc about Daniel Ellsberg, and also Jeff Stimmel's The Art of Failure, about artist Chuck Connelly. In the latter case, she saw a five-minute trailer by a first-time filmmaker, loved the story, and got on board, working with Stimmel for four years on the project. What many people don't realize is that these things can take some time. The fact is, for many filmmakers, Independent Film Week is the first opportunity to meet with people from industry. 

This year there was also a new component to the IFP Independent Filmmaker Labs, which introduce and support "under-the-radar" new talents--providing them with the access, mentorship and tools necessary to ensure that their unique stories reach audiences. The Labs is the only year-long program in the country that supports filmmakers in post-production throughout completion, marketing and distribution of their films. By incorporating filmmakers from the IFP Independent Filmmaker Labs into the Forum, filmmakers have the additional opportunity to initiate relationships with industry, as well as participate in working sessions with top marketing professionals to identify audiences and devise Web, print and grassroots campaigns for their projects. There were ten documentary lab projects and ten narrative lab projects. Jon Reiss, filmmaker and author of Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era, helped spearhead the new distribution component of the Lab, along with independent filmmaker Ted Hope, co-founder of This Is That and Good Machine. According to Reiss, one of the Labs' mentors, "The idea is to get makers to think about engaging with their core audiences, connecting with organizations that are important, doing basic outreach. No other film lab seems to be doing this. The focus is on completion, marketing and distribution; what's new this year is the marketing focus." In fact, Reiss thinks it's a good idea for any project to have a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD)--someone who works specifically on audience development.

Kathy Brew is an independent filmmaker, media arts curator and writer, who also teaches at The New School, The School of Visual Arts and Rutgers University.

Editor's Note: The Kids Grow Up airs June 19, Father's Day, on HBO. This article was published in conjunction with the film's theatrical release last fall.

When we last left off, filmmaker Doug Block was discovering surprising things about his parents that made him-and us-question both whether we really knew our parents, and more bluntly, whether we really wanted to know about them. 51 Birch Street resonated with audiences around the world who recognized the mysteries and mystique about parents and parenting in their own families. One critic in Ecuador opened his review of the film, "51 Birch Street is everyone's address." And Block managed to sell the film to both Al Jazeera and Israeli TV.

In what seems to be an answer of sorts to that film, Block, facing the prospect of losing his daughter Lucy to adulthood and college, decided to document her last year at home. The Kids Grow Up, which opens October 29 through Shadow Distribution, not only brings his (and his wife Marjorie's) parental prowess to the fore, but ruminates on other themes like letting go, the prospect of an empty nest marriage and growing older.

The Kids Grow Up - trailer from Copacetic Pictures on Vimeo.

It seems that with these two films, as well as with his 1999 film, Home Page, in which we meet him and his family for the first time as he explores the early stages of the Web culture, he has helped allay whatever resistance there may have been to the personal documentary genre. Home Page depicted the early stages of what would come to be known as blogging, and hinted at the public/private ambiguity that would take hold in the 2.0 era.  We caught up with Block by phone as he was preparing the opening of the film

IDA: In reflecting on your last three films--beginning with Home Page, then 51 Birch Street and now The Kids Grow Up--there seems to be a trilogy or triptych of sorts at work here. Home Page is ostensibly one filmmaker's inquiry into the Web 1.0 subculture and how it impacts our lives, but it's really about your own personal journey through this culture. You incorporate home movies and personal footage, and you're an on-camera presence for the first time. In putting these films together, side by side by side, do you see them as a trilogy--intended or not?

Doug Block: I do, but that would confuse the issue with the next film. It's sort of like a continuing saga, almost like one big film, coming at it in different ways. How Home Page became personal and the reaction to it informed everything else--and certainly gave me the courage to go forward with 51 Birch Street.

Two things happened with Home Page: Here I was thinking I was doing a film looking outward at these kids who were doing these interesting things on the Internet, which we now call blogs, but they were called personal home pages. They were doing the most personal of personal home pages, and the one doing the most personal of all was Justin Hall, our main character, who, if you look on Wikepedia, is actually credited as the Web's first blogger. The whole idea of people putting their personal lives out there so publicly, so personally...and Justin really challenged me in many ways--he challenged me to put up my own home page.

So I wrote about the making of the film, and I tried to keep it at that. It inevitably got more personal; it was hard not to. When you write anything, you think you're going to be critical and detached and just write about what happens, but it's almost impossible not to bring personal stuff into it.

But the more personal my blog entries became, the better the feedback from the readers and the more interest there was in it. As Justin predicted, people will find you on the Web. And sure enough, The New York Times found me, and they wound up doing a full-page article a full year before we were finished with the film about this process of not only writing about the film as I'm making it, but having the film change because of feedback that I'm getting from people in the process in making it.

I'm proud of the film, and here's what I took from it: Someone made a passing remark that stayed with me for a long time. The film premiered at Sudnance, then it went to Rotterdam and I talked to a distributor there. I asked her what she thought of the film. She said, "I hated your lead guy; he was so irritating. But your family--now they were interesting." And when all this stuff happened around 51 Birch Street, and in looking at Home Page, I thought, They are good on camera. My boring family somehow rises to the occasion with a camera on them.

IDA: And it started around this discovery you had made--you had always been making home movies or b-roll of your family and you have this footage and made this discovery that inspired 51 Birch Street.

DB: I thought about that for a long time: What is it about my family that I've been able to capture them on film? My "home movies" are somehow worthy of being in bigger stories. What is the dynamic that lets them be comfortable with me shooting? I think with Lucy, it was always fun; it was a game to her. She was always really curious about the camera and she loved shooting herself. We had this ritual of doing interviews with each other; that continued on until she was about 12 or 13. It appears that I shot much more than I did.

Ross McElwee and I joke about that all the time that that's part of our mythology--all we do is shoot our families with our cameras. I actually wrestled with that in the editing of The Kids Grow Up: Do I have to explain that I actually make films for a living? My family got used to it; they think it's natural for people who shoot home movies and video to move around and change angles and get up close and move back--like a documentary filmmaker.

IDA: I wanted to bring up home movies--both in your work and in general. Home movies reveal a different truth about the subjects. They're made for private use, to document experiences and preserve moments in time. But despite the amateur camerawork and the self-consciousness of subjects before the camera, there's an honesty and poignancy in home movies.

DB: There's another aspect to that, but I think that documentary makers look for moments that reveal who people are. When I shoot my family, I hate shooting my daughter when she plays in a concert at school because I want to see the performance; I don't want to be the guy who had to capture it. I like shooting a normal day--my favorite scene in The Kids Grow Up is when she gets her ears pierced. This was never with a film in mind. It just seemed like a really important moment for her, and it was. When she got her driver's test for her license, her affect was so similar it reminded me so much of that moment when she got her ears pierced that when I got back in the car with her after she got the license, I asked her, "So, do you feel like your life has changed?"--because I remember asking her that when she got her ears pierced, and it worked so well in the film when I put it together. It's such an organic flashback and it made for a really great scene. It's about the way we come in and out of memory--what reminds us of something and then how we bring a memory into the present.

IDA: When you finished 51 Birch Street and released it, and played it before audiences, was that when you were sensing that the idea for The Kids Grow Up would be your next film--that the idea of coming to terms with or trying to understand your parents and understanding what parenting is would be a response to what you learned and discovered in making 51 Birch Street?

DB: Actually, I started The Kids Grow Up long before 51 Birch Street; I had to interrupt doing it to make 51 Birch Street. For the longest time I tried to incorporate them together. I tried to bring Lucy into 51 Birch Street; I couldn't do it. Every time I tried, it just seemed wrong. They were two separate stories, and she didn't belong in this one because it was me working it out with my parents, and I'm the kid.

IDA: Did what you discovered about your family, and what your father shared with you on camera help catalyze what you wanted to accomplish in The Kids Grow Up?

DB: It certainly gave me the confidence to go back to it. What I wrestled with was when we were in distribution,  it was also the time that Marjorie was depressed; it was really hard to think of anything while that was going on. But when she recovered, which was right around the time the release was finally winding down and Lucy was coming back from her year overseas, I woke up one morning and I thought, Within a year she'll be gone! How did that happen? Was I so focused on my filmmaking that I wasn't even there raising this kid? It's such a shock. Every parent has that moment when it really dawns on you that they're going to be gone and it just won't ever be the same. It's not like they're not going to come back and visit and you'll have this great relationship with them when they're gone. It's going to be more adult--and it has been that with Lucy, but it's not the same because the family unit isn't the same any more.

In that moment I saw the end of the film: We're going to drop her off, and we're going to go home to an empty apartment. Seeing the ending of the film gave me a structure for a story: the film is about her last year at home and about me adjusting to this idea that my only child is going to leave. The clock is ticking and that provides the momentum for the story, and then the 18 years of footage now becomes memory. And the fun part is, with memory you can go anywhere and anytime. The present day is chronological, while memory is not. Looking at it now I'd say that every moment going back to the past feels right--organic and motivated. It doesn't feel like it's a gimmick that we're just putting in there because we can. That was really important, striking that balance between past and present.

Personal films are so hard to make. I think they're the hardest form of documentary to do. But when they're done well, they're just so powerful and so fascinating. We love families; we're all fascinated by families. But you want to preserve family stories in a way that it doesn't look like the filmmaker is working out his or her therapy; they're bringing you into their story and giving you the ability to project yourself in there.

I wanted to be their entryway into this story, and that was my role in 51 Birch Street. With The Kids Grow Up, I'm more of a character driving the story, which is very daunting.

IDA: In this film, in which you're dealing with a crucial phase in parenting, you document Lucy's last year at home, but it's pretty clear you've been documenting her life all her life. What role has the camera played in your relationship with her? How is the dynamic different without the camera?

DB: It's very similar. The camera is almost like another character. The medium throughout which I show our relationship, I thought would be a lot of fun. We refer so often to the camera; even when we're young, I'm trying to teach her how to hold it. There's a whole scene in which she resists my teaching. How better to illustrate parenting than to have me trying to assert authority and expertise? She's resisting it; she's asserting her independence. And that's exactly what the parent-child dynamic is, so what more fun could it be to cover our relationship through the camera?

IDA: How did Lucy feel about being the subject of a film both during and after the process? Has she seen the film with an audience?

DB: She saw it at Silverdocs. I think it was good that she wasn't around when we went through this festival run. She's happy to put this whole thing behind her. She's not avoiding the idea that it's opening, but she's not thrilled about it. She's just a normal kid who doesn't love being the center of attention.

She thinks it's a really good film. She's a tough critic, so that part's good. There are one or two scenes that make her really uncomfortable, but she says, "Even now I know that in a couple of years I probably won't be bothered by them at all, but this time I'm really glad that I have my family on film this document of my childhood."

She feels like she's gotten perspective on it now and she feels quite distanced from the kid who's on film there. Three years later, it doesn't even totally feel like her there. I think her response has been really healthy; she sort of pretends it's not even happening. That's what she's mostly been doing these last few years, and we barely talk about it.

Before she went back to college for her senior year, I wanted to get an interview with her about her reaction to the film. She had just seen the documentary Winnebago Man. She was really intrigued by it, but she became really upset about how the filmmaker treated the subject--every time they asked him a question, they interrupted him and wouldn't let him speak for himself. And she started going into a harangue about documentaries. She said, "You documentary filmmakers have this agenda," and I said, "Oh really? Shall I get the camera?"

I hadn't filmed her in three years. We talked for 45 minutes; it was an amazing conversation. She said, "Dad, I'm sorry I didn't give you what you wanted. I know I wasn't really that articulate; I couldn't really say what was going on." I said, "I didn't want anything. What do think I wanted? I wanted you to be exactly who you are. I had no idea what I was going to get when I shot with you; I just wanted to find out who you were. It would have been weird to have a 17-year-old girl pour out her inner feelings to her dad. What was so much fun was your evasiveness, which was actually more truthful. That's how I was with my parents; I didn't tell them anything. The way you were evading was so much fun; we knew exactly what you were doing and that was great. That's what I was looking for. I was just reacting to how you were and that's what I wanted. I wanted to convey what it was like to be a parent and what the dynamic is."

IDA: In the process of making this film, what did you discover about being a parent, and about parenting in general?

DB: I was so focused on trying what I found funny or interesting about the experience of being a parent. I really wanted to do something about parenting itself. I wasn't really focused on what am I going to learn as a parent. It was more like, How can I convey what this is like? What really struck me is one thing I learned about parenting is that you don't have any clue whatsoever about how to be a parent when your kids are born.  Everybody is going to bend your ear with advice; you have all those how-to books, talk shows, magazines-- everything is geared to advising you on how to do it, and preparing you.

If you're a good parent, you actually read the books because a big part of your role is you want your kid, when the time comes, to be able to have the wherewithal to have a really happy, thriving, healthy life apart from you. So in many ways you're preparing them for a life independent of you. But nobody prepares you for a life independent of them. And that was the aspect of parenting that I decided to focus on. What is life going to be like when you're no longer an everyday parent? And then you realize, Oh, I'm making a film about marriage. Being a kid is a subset of being married. The kids come into your life after you're married. And they leave and hopefully you're still together and you have to deal with that very different dynamic. It's shocking. You're not prepared; nobody can prepare you.

It's not a message film. it's not a social issue film, but I do hope that it brings a certain awareness that it's a period in the life of a family that deserves a little attention.

Thomas White is editor of Documentary magazine.

The motion picture world has witnessed many passings of late, as has the documentary world, which lost three individuals who quietly made a difference in making this world better.

Gordon R. Hitchens, a noted international film journalist and founding editor of Film Comment magazine, passed away on Saturday, August 7, at the Carillon Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Huntington Long Island. He was 85 years old.

Gordon Hitchens began his studies at Columbia University, where he received his bachelor's degree in English Literature and two graduate degrees, one in cinematography and the other in journalism. For his master's thesis in cinematography he co-produced and co-directed the film Sunday on the River, which won several awards for its portrayal, in documentary form, of parishioners from a church in Harlem on their Sunday outing on the Hudson River.

Hitchens went on to earn renown as a documentary film journalist and jurist, covering international film festivals in Berlin, Moscow, Nyon and Yamagata, among others, over his 30- year career. As an American organizer and assistant, he helped many aspiring filmmakers submit their documentaries to film festivals abroad, including films by some who were blacklisted in the US. In 1962, he founded Film Comment, a film opinion magazine, of which he was the editor until 1970. Film Comment is currently published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. In addition to his film festival and journalistic work, Hitchens also taught film studies courses at the School of Visual Arts, Hofstra University, NYU, Adelphi University, City University, Pratt Institute, the New School, and he retired as Associate Professor of Film Studies at CW Post College in Long Island in 1990. Over the years, he was a stringer for the weekly edition of Variety Magazine, and wrote articles for the New York Times, Documentary and Film Culture as well.

As editor of Documentary magazine since 2000, I had the pleasure of working with Gordon in the early part of my tenure, until he became ill in the early-to-mid 2000s. He had a longer history with one of my predecessors, Tim Lyons, and Gordon was kind enough to write a tribute to Tim when he succumbed to cancer in 2001.
Gordon had strong relationships with the Berlin and Yamagata Film Festivals, and I was grateful for his dispatches from there. I think that filmmakers and cineastes alike owe him a debt of gratitude for having founded Film Comment, one of the more distinguished periodicals devoted to cinema.
Above all, he lived a rich and rewarding life.

He is survived by his daughter, Janine H. Parker, and son Laurence Hitchens, as well as his four grandchildren, and son-in-law Robert Parker and daughter-in-law Lauri Carluccio Hitchens. His half-brother, Michael Hitchens, is a video-journalist with the United States Air Force in Los Angeles, California.

A Memorial Reception honoring the life and work of Mr. Hitchens is planned for Thursday October 14^th from 8:00 to 10:00 pm at the Freida and Roy Furman Gallery in the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, in Manhattan. Interested colleagues and friends are welcome to attend.

Charitable donations in Mr. Hitchens' memory can be made to PBS, or Human Rights Watch. For more information go to http://www.gordonhitchens.com/.

Arthur E. Holch Jr., an Emmy Award-winning television documentarian whose work at midcentury and afterward tackled charged subjects like race relations, Nazism and Communism, died September 28 in Greenwich, Conn. He was 86.

According to The New York Times, Holch earned an Emmy nomination for writing the 1961 documentary Walk in my Shoes, a study of race in America from the perspective of African-American interviewed for the film. He later won a News & Documentary Emmy in 1992 for Heil Hitler! Confessions of a Hitler Youth, a half-hour documentary he produced and directed.

Holch began his career as a reporter, having graduated from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. He worked in radio and television before his own company. Other documentaries he wrote, produced and directed for television include The Beautiful Blue and Red Danube (1967) and Cuba: The Castro Generation (1977).

Holch is survived by his wife, the former Ellen O'Keefe Hare; three sons, Gregory, Christopher and Jeremy; four daughters, Hilary O'Neill, Milissa Laurence, Meredith Holch and Allegra Holch; and seven grandchildren.

Marshall Flaum, whose 55-year career began under the aegis of first Walter Cronkite, then  David L. Wolper, died Oct. 1 in Los Angeles. He was 85.

According to The New York Times, Flaum earned Academy Award nominations for et My People Go: The Story of Israel (1965), which traced the Jewish diaspora from 1917 to 1948, and The Yanks Are Coming (1963), which told the story of America's entry into World War I.

Flaum also earned five Emmys-two for episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau in 1972; and one for Jane Goodall and the World of Animal Behavior: The Wild Dogs of Africa (1973).  Earlier in his career, he won two Emmys for writing for the CBS documentary series The Twentieth Century, hosted by Walter Cronkite. Flaum joined the Wolper Organization in 1962.

He was nominated for other Emmys, and won awards at various film festivals.

Flaum is survived by his wife, the former Gita Miller; his daughter, Erica, and his son, Seth, both film editors; his sister, June Flaum Singer; and two grandchildren.

The early rumbling of Awards Season just revved up a few decibels as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just announced the eight short listers in the Documentary Short Subject category. And those films are as follows:

• Born Sweet, Cynthia Wade Productions
• Killing in the Name, Moxie Firecracker Films
• Living for 32, Cuomo Cole Productions
• One Thousand Pictures: RFK's Last Journey, Lichen Films
• Poster Girl, Portrayal Films
• Strangers No More, Simon & Goodman Picture Company
• Sun Come Up, Sun Come Up, LLC
• The Warriors of Qiugang, Thomas Lennon Films, Inc.

Killing in the Name (Dir./Prod.: Jed Rothstein; Prods.: Liz Garbus, Rory Kennedy) and Sun Come Up (Dir./Prod.: Jennifer Redfearn; Prod.: Tim Metzger) both screened as part of IDA DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase this past summer. Thomas Lennon and Ruby Yang return to the Oscars fold with The Warriors of Qiugang; the filmmakers earned an Academy Award in 2008 for their short The Blood of the Yingzhou District, another DocuWeeks alum.

The 83rd Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 25, 2011, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Eliot Spitzer, a member of the pantheon of fallen, libidinally challenged political icons--John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Henry Hyde, Strom Thurmond, Wilbur Mills, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson--is the subject of a new documentary that explodes the myths surrounding his case. 

The biggest myth is that he and call girl Ashley Dupre were engaged in non-stop, horizontal bop. In fact, he only slept with her once. Recognizing a good career move when she saw one, Dupre stepped into the limelight when Spitzer's regular escort decided to duck the media storm after his carousing became public. "She [Dupre] was very clever,"  says Alex Gibney, the writer, director and producer of Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. "She did nothing to disabuse anyone of that notion."

It's fitting that so many myths surround this story. Even Spitzer likens himself to Icarus, a mainstay of Greek mythology. For those of you who don't have your copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology nearby, Icarus ignored his father's warnings about the fragility of the wax-covered wings he strapped on in order to escape the confines of the labyrinth in which he and his father were imprisoned.  Icarus flew so high and close to the sun that his wings melted, and down he went, plummeting to his death. The takeaway from his aborted flight has been that arrogance, or hubris, will lead humans to crash and burn. 

Eliot Spitzer's career is a model for this lesson. The "Luv Gov" resigned from office in April 2008 when The New York Times revealed that Governor Spitzer, who was seen as a candidate to be the first Jewish President, had developed a taste for illicit sexual encounters with prostitutes. A few months before his fall, he uttered this prophetic observation to a luncheon crowd at the New York State School Board Association: "Hubris is terminal."

"You can't make that stuff up," says Gibney, whose film lays out how Spitzer's drive to root out corruption on Wall Street and in New York's State Capital created enemies that coalesced to "take him out of Albany."

"I don't condone what he did," Gibney continues. Nor does Spitzer, who appears in the film to explain how his career-ending dalliances provided the ammunition his foes needed to bring him down.

We meet a colorful array of characters who'd been stung by Spitzer's relentless, hard-charging prosecutorial ways. We're reminded that he sued out-of-state coal-fired power plants for causing acid rain in New York and took on General Electric for dumping PCBs into the Hudson River. 

But it's his battles with Wall Street that may have sealed his fate. Spitzer pursued two analysts, Henry Blodget and Hank Grubman, who were accused of misleading the public about the value of investments they knew were, in Blodget's terms, "POS"--or, "pieces of shit."  Both financiers were banned from their profession for life-and were given multi-million-dollar severance packages. 

Spitzer took on the CEO of insurance giant AIG, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who'd engineered a scheme to artificially pump up the value of his company. Spitzer kicked over a hornets' nest when his gaze landed on one of the richest men in America, investor Ken Langone and his pal, Dick Grasso, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, whom Spitzer sued over a $187 million pay package.

"There were a lot of people who wanted him gone," Gibney explains. "He wanted systemic change." The press dubbed him "The Sheriff of Wall Street," but his declaration of "war" didn't earn him any supporters in Albany on either side of the aisle when he became governor. He took his attack dog approach to public service into the governor's office, where he tangled with the rough-and-tumble entrenched interests in the State house. Gibney interviews Senate leader Joe Bruno, who became Spitzer's main foe.

"I've been threatened by hoods and gangsters my whole life; if you think you're going to bother me, don't," Bruno, a former professional boxer, maintains in the film what he said to the governor. When Spitzer did get under his skin, Bruno met with Greenberg, and later hired political operative Roger Stone, a lobbyist known for his wild sexcapades as a swinger and for his inclination to dress up like James Bond. "Sometimes the stories are just too good," Gibney admits. "The glory of nonfiction is running across characters like this."

Political lobbyist/strategist Roger Stone and friend. From Alex Gibney's Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, a Magnolia Pictures release. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Spitzer came to town with the campaign promise to "Bring some passion back to Albany." His constituents would soon find out exactly what that meant. After the government got wind of Spitzer's encounters, the Department of Justice (DOJ) began to close in and his fear--"If we stumble, they will kick us in the nuts"--came true, according to Gibney.

The twists and turns of why the DOJ was involved, how they traced Spitzer's transactions, the identity of his frequent escort, the names of the cabal that had it in for him and how the Feds manipulated the press to break the story and the fact that he was never charged with any crime, are part of this riveting, feature-length documentary.

Greek mythology wasn't about redemption, but it's clear that Eliot Spitzer is attempting a comeback. He's taught college classes and now has a talk show on CNN. Will he be able to wax up those wings and set flight again? "I disagree with [F. Scott] Fitzgerald, who said there are no second acts in America," Gibney maintains. "This country loves second acts."

I suspect Spitzer has one, but what it is remains to be seen.

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, which is being released by Magnolia Pictures, opens November 5 in New York and November 12 in Los Angeles. The film is also available right now on major cable systems across the country, iTunes, Amazon, Xbox live, hotels, etc.

Michael Rose is a writer, producer and director of nonfiction programs; he also writes for The Huffington Post and other publications.

Editor’s Note: Inside Job, an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, will be screening Saturday, February 26, at 6:10 p.m., as part of DocuDay LA at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills, and at 3:15 p.m. at DocuDays NY at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan.

Most films geared to young boys bank on them coming back time after time to watch their favorite action heroes take on the forces of evil. Adults are usually good for one viewing. But after seeing a new documentary, Inside Job, which uncovers how a group of "evil doers" tanked the global financial system, I think the post-adolescent crowd finally has a multiple must-see. 

It's a densely packed film that methodically lays out the who, what, when and where of the ultimate bank job. "My first choice for a title was Bank Job, but that was taken," says director Charles Ferguson.

Ferguson's film is not peopled with a group of charming rogues like the Lavender Hill Mob or sexy, populist, anti-heroes like John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, who held up one bank at a time. His characters are the pillars of Wall Street--the bankers, the analysts, the ratings agents, the regulators and their lackeys in Congress and academia who together tunneled into the banking system and made off with all the loot. The response to this calamity was to engineer a shakedown of tax payers or depositors in order to fill the banks back up so this gang can do it again.

So far, only one industry titan has been charged: Angelo Mozilla, the CEO of Countrywide Financial. But, Ferguson notes, "He's only being charged with civil fraud not criminal fraud." Ferguson believes that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) zeroed in on Mozilla because what he did was "so egregious--and he's not connected." Mozilla spent most of his career independent of the large financial institutions and brokerage houses.

That's not to say others shouldn't be doing the perp walk. "Many people knew [the financial boom] was going to end badly," Ferguson explains. "And their financial behavior suggests that."

At the same time they were touting the shares of their firms, these financiers were not investing their own money in the companies. "They took out hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it in cash," Ferguson says. These actions constitute "potentially both civil and criminal fraud." There's nothing stopping the SEC from going after these guys, but, Ferguson notes, "for anything else to happen would be due to public pressure."

Right now the vocal pressure for reform, however misguided, is coming from the Tea Party, whose members the Republican Party hopes will support its recently announced "Pledge to America." This platform is what a friend used to call "the same old sandwich"--a retread of the same policies that party stalwarts have championed for years: tax cuts, a spending freeze, rolling back health care reform, missile defense and a raid on Social Security as the prescription for what ails the country. There's no mention in the manifesto of any financial regulatory reform, let alone a call to lock up the malefactors who took down the system while lining their own pockets.

The GOP also fails to point out that America's financial system, once the world's gold standard (no pun intended), is no longer trusted. "If you talk to people in Europe, Asia and Latin America, they don't take seriously what America's bankers have to say," says Ferguson.  These countries, all with vibrant, growing economies, are looking for other places to put their money besides Wall Street. "It will reduce the amount of investments and will have an enormous impact on America," Ferguson warns. "America's impact is declining."

This wasn't the first time an economy has melted down. The world has experienced numerous economic disasters over the last several centuries, according to Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, who took the long view in their book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. What they found was that as far back as the 1300s elements like rapid deregulation and real estate bubbles coupled with arrogance and ignorance were the sparks that set the economy on fire.

Ferguson agrees with the authors who say that these disasters can be avoided if politicians and regulators step in. "If we don't fix this, it's going to happen again," he warns.

It's up to us to apply the pressure. First step: Go see Inside Job. Bring your friends and better yet, bring someone who doesn't agree with you. Then see it again and bring some more people. 

Then let your legislators know that you don't want any silly, faux fixes; you want them to really put some teeth in regulations. Demand someone like Elizabeth Warren be appointed at the SEC and at the Treasury Department, and demand that the ratings agencies be held accountable. And while you're working yourself up into high umbrage, tell Congress to appoint a special prosecutor and put some of the financial system arsonists behind bars.  Nothing like the threat of serious jail time to shake things up in the Hamptons. It's not going happen without you. Ferguson's done his job; now it's up to the rest of us.

Inside Job, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, opened October 8 in New York, and opens October 15 in Los Angeles. The film rolls out to additional cities, starting October 22 with Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Michael Rose is a writer, producer and director of nonfiction programs; he also writes for The Huffington Post and other publications.