Two of IDA's fiscally sponsored documentaries, Lost Angels and A Small Act, premier this weekend at Los Angels Film Festival. Screenings are FREE!

Find out what Fiscal Sponsorship with IDA can do for you. Get Funded!

Lost Angels
(USA, 2010, 76 mins, HDCam)
Directed By: Thomas Napper
Thomas Napper’s empathetic but tough-minded documentary invites us into a part of Los Angeles that many choose to ignore—downtown’s skid row. As we meet the distressed area’s residents, including a former Olympic runner, a transgendered punk rocker, and an eccentric animal lover and her devoted companion, their remarkable stories paint a multifaceted portrait of life on the streets. There are undeniable problems—mental illness and addition are common themes—but there is also hope and a surprising sense of community. 

Lost Angels is also a scathing condemnation of the Safer Cities Initiative of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton. Although its stated purpose is to reduce crime in the area, for many the program is nothing more than officially sanctioned class warfare, unfairly targeting the low income and homeless population of skid row in what some feel is an effort to pave the way for gentrification. 

Passionate, polemic, and generous in spirit, Lost Angels finds a unique vitality to life on skid row and a stirring humanity in those who live there.

Screening Schedule
Fri, Jun 25th 7:45pm
Regal 11
FREE

Sat, Jun 26th 1:45pm
Regal 11
FREE

More info about: Lost Angels

A Small Act
(USA, 2010, 88 mins, HDCam)
In Swahili, Swedish, English with English subtitles
Directed By: Jennifer Arnold
Decades ago, Hilde Back, a gray-haired Holocaust survivor, began sending $15 a month from Sweden to Kenya to fund a child's primary school education. To her, that amount felt inconsequential but for Chris Mburu, it changed his life. When no other Kenyan family could afford to send their children to high school, Mburu went, and that was enough to springboard him to Harvard. Now a U.N. human rights lawyer, he's founded a new scholarship fund for the next generation of smart kids with few options. And he's named it for the benefactor he never met. Until now.

Jennifer Arnold's colorful and moving documentary weaves Back and Mburu’s intertwined stories with the current plight of three Kenyan eighth graders desperate to be their village's next success story. Their shot at a bright future come courtesy of the Hilde Back Education Fund and the generosity of a distant benefactor. As the elderly Hilde visits the village in which she sowed hope, sighing, "I'm simply not used to being a hero," we're inspired to witness firsthand that one person, without a doubt, can make a difference.

Screening Schedule
Sat, Jun 26th 7:30pm
Regal 11
FREE

More info about: A Small Act

About LAFF

Now in its 16th year, Film Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by Los Angeles Times, showcases the best of American and international cinema. The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival takes place June 17-27, 2010 in downtown Los Angeles. The Festival screens more than 200 features, shorts, documentaries and music videos from more than 40 countries. The Festival connects the movie-loving public to critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals, and emerging talent in the heart of Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world.

Passes on sale now. Tickets on sale June 1. For full Festival details, please call1.866.FilmFest or visit www.LAFilmFest.com

Check out the complete list of Festival Documentaries:

Click here for more info on the LAFF Documentary line-up.

Find out what Fiscal Sponsorship with IDA can do for you. Get Funded!

Industry organizations and documentary filmmakers joined forces today by lending their names to an amicus brief filed on their behalf by attorney Michael C. Donaldson in support of Joe Berlinger who was ordered to turn over some 600 hours of raw footage shot in connection with his film Crude.

American petrochemical company Chevron Corporation asked the court for the order in connection with an Ecuadorian class-action lawsuit. Chevron is being sued over environmental contamination in the Amazon rainforest (the Lago Agrio Litigation). Additionally, Chevron intended to use the footage to help fend off threatened Ecuadorian criminal prosecution of two of its attorneys in the litigation. A related international arbitration is also pending.

Chevron's attorneys are seeking to obtain footage shot during the production of appellant Joe Berlinger's 2009 film "Crude," a documentary which reports on the Ecuadorian lawsuit and focuses on indigenous efforts to hold Texaco (now owned by Chevron) accountable for its role in polluting the Amazon rain forests. Chevron obtained the order to turn over the raw footage on May 10, 2010. A federal appeals court stayed the order pending the appeal, but is handling the matter on an expedited schedule due to the timing of the lawsuits in Ecuador.

The brief was filed for fear that the subpoena, if upheld in the Court of Appeal, would have far-reaching and potentially devastating consequences on documentary filmmakers' ability to not only acquire the statements they need from confidential sources, but also to protect through anonymity those who do come forward to tell their stories, often at great personal risk to themselves and their families.

The amicus brief is filed as a friend of the court in order to bring to the court's attention the interests of the broader group of filmmakers who are not a party to the dispute. "Allowing an entity--any entity--to have access to all the raw materials that comprise a film--any film--effectively muzzles the future of free speech as it applies to our profession," states Eddie Schmidt, IDA President and Oscar nominee for the 2005 documentary Twist of Faith. "The scope of this order--all 600 hours of shot footage for a 105-minute film--is so vast, it threatens to swallow an entire profession along with it."

Initially, the brief was prepared on behalf of the International Documentary Association. The following organizations joined the brief: Center for Asian American Media, Directors Guild of America, Film Independent, IFP, Inc., Latino Public Broadcasting, Native American Public Telecommunications, National Association of Latino Independent Producers, Pacific Islanders in Communications, Producers Guild of America, Tribeca Film Institute, University Film and Video Association, Women Make Movies, Writers Guild of America East and Writers Guild of America West. Individual amici also joined the brief: Patricia Aufderheide, Theodore Braun (Darfur Now), Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated), Alex Gibney (Casino Jack and the United States of Money), Andrew Goldberg (Armenian Genocide), Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.), Tia Lessin (Capitalism: A Love Story), Eddie Schmidt (President of the International Documentary Association) and Ricki Stern (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City will rule on the decision of the lower federal court that granted Chevron's request forcing Berlinger to hand over the footage. Attorney Michael C. Donaldson plans to attend the hearing, which will be held on July 14, 2010.

Michael C. Donaldson, of Donaldson & Callif, organized the writing of the amicus brief along with his partner Lisa Callif and their legal team: Chris Perez, Melissa Radin and Brianna Dahlberg. The International Documentary Association recruited filmmakers and organizations as declarants and signatories.

As reported in indieWire, Berlinger appeared at the IFC Center on June 22 in a fundraising event for his legal fees. Following a screening of Crude, he was joined on stage by his attorney, as well as filmmaker Morgan Spurlock and WGA East President Michael Winship. A separate coalition of media companies-HBO, The New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS among them-has also signed on to an amicus brief, filed by attorney Floyd Abrams. "It is American media versus corporate interests and defense attorneys," Berlinger said at the event, calling the impending battle "an amazing squaring off of the media against corporations."

Filmmaker and IDA member Mohammed Ali Shirzadi has been held in Iran's notorious Evin Prison for the past five months, in the wake of the crackdown following last year's disputed elections. Shirzadi is one of many journalists and filmmakers-including the recently released filmmaker Ja'far Panahi--who were arrested during the crackdown.

Shirzadi was arrested in January of this year. According to a report in astreetjournalist.com and on Amnesty International UK's website, his family believes he was arrested because of an interview he filmed in 2008 between human rights advocate Emadeddin Baghi--founder of the now-banned Association in Defense of Prisoners' Rights, of which Shirzadi was a member--and the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Baghi was arrested shortly after the Montazeri died in December 2009, and remains in prison.

Amnesty International called for the release of both Shirzadi and Panahi last month, and following a high-profile appeal at the Cannes Film Festival, which had invited Panahi to serve on the jury, Panahi was released. Prior to the Cannes Film Festival,

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock issued this statement: "Free speech has been severely restricted in Iran since last year's disputed elections, and thousands of people have been locked up: journalists, activists, students and demonstrators. Once again Iran is shaming itself on the international stage as it seeks to repress its own citizens and silence its critics. These men are prisoners of conscience, detained for the peaceful expression of their opinions. The Iranian authorities should release them immediately."

In Make Believe, armed with magic hoops, decks of cards, and homegrown illusions, six hopefuls from around the world prepare for Las Vegas' World Magic Seminar and the chance to win the title of Teen World Champion.

With the dexterity of a master of prestidigitation, J. Clay Tweel directs this irresistible documentary with a keen eye, deftly balancing the personal stories of these kids with their amazing feats onstage. From an acrobatic duo from South Africa to an all-American perfectionist from Malibu, Make Believe offers a sensitive peek into the world of some dazzling teens, a world of--if you'll forgive us--pure magic.

Screenings:
Tue., June 22, 7:45 p.m., Regal 11
Thu., June 24, 5:30 p.m., Regal 10
Sat., June 26, 5:00 p.m., Regal 11

Purchase tickets now for Make Believe screenings.

About LAFF

Now in its 16th year, Film Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by Los Angeles Times, showcases the best of American and international cinema. The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival takes place June 17-27, 2010 in downtown Los Angeles. The Festival screens more than 200 features, shorts, documentaries and music videos from more than 40 countries. The Festival connects the movie-loving public to critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals, and emerging talent in the heart of Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world.

Passes on sale now. Tickets on sale June 1. For full Festival details, please call1.866.FilmFest or visit www.LAFilmFest.com

Check out the complete list of Festival Documentaries:
1428
Ain’t in it for my Health: A Film about Levon Helm
Camera, Camera
Cane Toads: The Conquest
Circo
Climate Refugees
Disco & Atomic War (Disko ja Tuumasõda)
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
Farewell
Gaslandv Kings of Pastry
Life With Murder
*Lost Angels
Make Believe
Marwencol
One Day Less (Un día menos)
One Lucky Elephant
The Peddler (El ambulante)
The People vs George Lucas
Presumed Guilty (Presunto culpable)
The Red Chapel (Det Røde Kapel)
Secrets of the Tribe
*A Small Act
Space Tourists
Thunder Soul
The Tillman Story
The Toledo Report (El informe Toledo)
The Two Escobars
Utopia in Four Movements
Vlast (Power)
Waiting For Superman
Where Are You Taking Me?

*IDA Sponsored Documentaries

Click here for more info on the LAFF Documentary line-up.

Crude focuses on a lawsuit by Ecuadoreans against Chevron over pollution in the Amazon. Chevron is seeking 600 hours of footage from the film in an effort to shore up their case in the long-running lawsuit. Lawyers for Berlinger are arguing on First Amendment grounds that his material is protected by journalistic privilege.

Hundreds of filmmakers, organizations and concerned citizens have shown their support for Berlinger since the subpoena was issued in May. The IDA supported an open letter spearheaded by Patrick Creadon and Doug Blush, (see full letter here) which has been signed by hundreds of other filmmakers since its release (see the comments sections of the following articles on documentary.org and AJ Schnack's blog to read additional signees).

Notably, Robert Redford expressed his support of Berlinger with a piece he wrote for The Huffington Post on June 4, stating, "Filmmakers like Joe Berlinger fulfill a crucial role in today's society by providing independent information on pressing contemporary human rights and social issues. Their success as storytellers depends on access to those men and women willing to talk on camera. If the subjects of those documentaries are fearful of the ramifications of telling the truth then the filmmaker has no story."

Get the latest on Crude and these legal developments at the film's website.

Editor’s Note: Restrepo, an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, will be screening Saturday, February 26, at 8:30 p.m., as part of DocuDay LA at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills, and at 12:05 p.m. at DocuDays NY at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan.

Who wouldn't want to spend the better part of 15 months at a hot, dusty, flea-bitten outpost, precariously perched on a mountain ledge overlooking a tree-lined valley that provides cover for people who shoot at you daily? Oh, and there's no electricity, no Internet, no TV, no running water, no bathroom, no heat, no privacy and no one from the opposite sex. No comforts at all. Not even a chair. Just unremitting boredom broken up by whizzing bullets that ping the dust long before the sound makes it to you.

Not the stuff of romance that typically fills the lines at Army recruiting offices, but this alluring scenario was too good for a pair of seasoned war correspondents to pass up.  Author/journalist Sebastian Junger and photographer/journalist Tim Hetherington convinced Vanity Fair, ABC News and the US Army that it would be a splendid idea to send the team to the Korengal Valley--"The deadliest place on earth."

 "I wanted to be with the best unit in the worst place," says Junger, who has reported from Afghanistan on and off since 1996 and from numerous other war zones. As Captain Kearney says in the film that resulted from their experience, "The road ends at the Korengal outpost and where the road ends, the Taliban begins."

Hetherington covered the civil war in Liberia, the wars in Chad, Nigeria and Sudan and the post-conflict zones of West Africa. He saw this assignment as "kind of a distillation of our war experiences over the ten years we've been doing this. This is what we've done; we know what to expect."

Their experience embedded with one platoon that's been tasked with securing a hilltop combat outpost as part of the Army's counter-insurgency offensive on the Afghan/Pakistan border is the subject of their riveting new documentary, Restrepo, winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

This 94-minute film takes the audience inside the none-too-glamorous life of the foot soldiers in a dangerous yet beautiful setting. "It was an anti-paradise," Junger explains. "Everything young men enjoy wasn't up there, and everything they didn't like was." 

Junger and Hetherington toted small HD cameras with them because they had a deal with ABC to supply footage, but they also wanted to make a film. Hetherington became a still photographer or "image maker," as he prefers to be called, when he wasn't accepted in NYU's film school. He'd shot one documentary, Liberia: An Uncivil War, and several short, nonfiction TV projects, but he had never tackled a "long form narrative" film before. Nor had Junger, who is a print journalist first and foremost. But they divvied up the camera chores to insure they got enough coverage.

 "We basically did everything together, put it in a pot, shook it up and it came out," says Hetherington. Asked about his neophyte cinematographer partner, Hetherington issued a warning: "If he gets any better I'll push him off a cliff." Hetherington and Jungher earned an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for broadcast journalism for "The Other War: Afghanistan," which the filmmakers produced for ABC News Nightline in 2008. The production team remains in the background while providing us with a window into this "anti-paradise." We're front-and-center with the soldiers from 2nd Platoon from the moment they helicopter into the Valley. We stay with them during their 15-month tour as they get shot at, build their remote outpost, suffer the deaths of comrades, witness the human cost of counterattacks on villagers, wile away the boredom strumming guitars, engage in horse play and, finally, pack their rucksacks to hike back to the helicopters waiting to take them home. Most embedded reporters stay with an outfit for two to three weeks, which is what Mark Boal did for a Rolling Stone assignment that inspired his feature film writing debut, The Hurt Locker. Junger and Hetherington took the deep-dive approach in an attempt to create a more "nuanced" view of what life is like in combat.

The platoon was assigned to set up one of a string of Combat Outposts (COPs) that have been affectionately referred to by some as "bullet sponges" that would draw fire from the Taliban and allow American forces to use their overwhelming superior firepower to eliminate them one by one. Embedding in the "sponge" allowed the crew to capture plenty of chilling "bang-bang" scenes, sometimes occurring four or five times a day. The filmmakers are right there as the platoon takes fire, and in the ensuing chaos we see the soldiers scramble to locate the enemy and return fire. We stay in the mix as they leave their Spartan confines to venture out on patrol. Without the rock-filled plastic battlements to protect them, they are exposed from every angle. And when the inevitable attacks come, Junger and Hetherington capture every potentially heart-stopping moment. You'll have to forgive the occasionally shaky camera work during these scenes. This is not an MTV-like conscious effect to pump up the intensity of the moment, but an honest record of the experience. 

But it's the little human moments that occur during downtime that began to excite Hetherington about the unique possibilities of the film they were making. "I understand my work is about building links to an audience," he observes. "How do I connect them to a conflict in Liberia or Afghanistan? Moral outrage is not enough. Pictures of dead West Africans are not enough. Witnessing is important, but to move an audience we have to connect in a way that shows them their sons and their brothers" as complete human beings with a range of emotions.

The soldiers' candid dialogue in the field, and the 40 hours of interviews shot after they'd returned to their home base in Italy, bring us into the story with their own words. We hear 25-year-old Corporal Pemble-Belkin tell us his hippie mother wouldn't let him play with toy guns, not even a squirt gun, as we see his face light up while he energetically sways a tripod-mounted 50-caliber machine gun back and forth, up and down. But he also says that he doesn't want to worry her, so in his most recent letter home he didn't include news about the deaths in the platoon or their upcoming dangerous mission. 

On that mission down the hill and into the villages, the platoon stops to question a young man, who tells the translator, "If we let you know about the Taliban, we will get killed."

Notes Junger, "A lot of Afghans feel caught between two realities." They remember the "bloodbath" of the '90s after the Soviets pulled out. They also remember greeting the Americans as liberators after they toppled the Taliban but saw them get distracted by the war in Iraq and not carry out the hoped-for reforms in Afghanistan.

 "Afghans are conflicted," and fear that if NATO pulls out it will be like the '90s again, Junger continues. We're left to wonder how the villagers felt when the US Army pulled out of the Korengal Valley in April of this year.

While telling the story of the soldiers, the filmmakers also wanted to convey "the nuanced sense of Afghans caught in-between," says Hetherington. They allow this to unfold without any reference to the policy decisions that sent the soldiers to this dangerous post, or the arguments surrounding this seemingly endless war. "I wasn't interested in writing about the politics or the geopolitics of the situation," Junger maintains. "I went in as a blank slate."

Instead, the filmmakers focused on the soldiers' lives in a way reminiscent of John Huston's 1945 documentary classic, The Battle of San Pietro, which was initially censored because of his realistic portrayal of an Army campaign. 

The end result of Junger and Hetherington's approach is a film about all wars--a film that transcends Outpost Restrepo as it puts you in the boots of these soldiers who spent every day, for 15 months, trying not to do anything to get one of their brothers killed as they counted the days remaining before they could go home. I resolved that there are other ways to learn about the context, but this is the only way I've discovered, outside of a 15-month hitch, to learn what it's like on the ground.

Restrepo, which the platoon named their outpost in honor of fallen comrade PFC Juan Restrepo, opens June 25 in New York and Los Angeles, through National Geographic Entertainment, and will roll out nationally through the month of July. The film airs on National Geographic Channel in the fall.

Michael Rose is a writer and documentary filmmaker.

For more information on this subject:

Sebastian Junger's book WAR, about his time in the Korengal Valley was released in May 2010.
www.twelvebooks.com

Tim Hetherington's book Infidel, about this experience in the Kornegal will be published in October 2010 by Chris Boot Ltd.
www.timhertherington.com

Into the Valley of Death
By Sebastian Junger
Photos by Tim Hetherington
Vanity Fair
January 2008
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/01/afghanistan200801?currentPage=1

Return to the Valley of Death
By Sebastian Junger
Photos by Tim Hetherington
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/10/afghanistan200810?printable=true

Institute for the Study of War Report: "Kunar and Nuristan: Rethinking U.S. Counterinsurgency Operation"
http://www.understandingwar.org/report/kunar-and-nuristan

Overview of Combat Operations in Kunar Province by 173d Airborne Brigade
Tactical Leader: "Lessons Learned in Afghanistan"
Military Review, July/August 2009
Colonel William B. Ostlund, U.S. Army
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20090831_art004.pdf?q=predeployment

Pare Lorentz Jr., the son of the legendary documentary pioneer Pare Lorentz, died this past Friday at his home in Frankfort, Kentucky. He was 73.

Lorentz, a graduate of Harvard University, made a number of industrial films and documentaries in the 1970s and early 80s. But he was especially instrumental to the International Documentary Association in helping to establish the IDA/Pare Lorentz Award, which, since 1997, has honored documentaries that best reflect the spirit and aesthetic vision of Lorentz Senior, addressing the issues he cared about--the environment and social justice--and how those issues are rendered cinematically.

Over the years, the IDA/Pare Lorentz Award has gone to such films as Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke (2007) and Charles Guggenheimn's Berga: Soldiers of Another War (2003), and Lorentz Jr. served on the award's Blue Ribbon Committee from the very beginning. 

Lorentz Jr. also provided invaluable support and counsel for IDA's Pare Lorentz Film Festival, launched in 2007 through a grant from The New York Community Trust

For more information, here's an obituary from the Frankfort State-Journal

Filmmaking team Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg are not known for shying away from difficult subject matter. Through their company, Break Thru Films, they have created powerful, character-driven documentaries for years: The Trials of Darryl Hunt (2006), The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), The End of America (2008). Their most recent effort, Joan Rivers--A Piece of Work, produced, directed and written by Stern, and produced and directed by Sundberg, is just as hard-hitting and just as intense as their other films. Don't let the comedic material fool you; this film is far from a celebrity puff piece. The humiliation of their subject is real, the self-denigration is real and the angst is real--as is the pain and fear of being an aging has-been in a world obsessed with youth and beauty.

For those of us who grew up watching Joan Rivers on TV and have been lifelong fans, her perseverance, strength, groundbreaking work and decades-long career in the most unforgiving business in the world is not a revelation. But for those who only know her as a plastic-surgery freak, QVC jewelry maven or red-carpet hostess, this film shows, to wonderful effect, the unbreakable spirit of an aging woman still working her ass off, and making every moment of her life matter. We journey with Rivers for a little over a year as Stern and Sundberg capture the full scope of her life in quite poignant and moving ways.

Rivers is a close friend of Stern's mother, so the director has known her for years, and because Stern grew up in the business, she's no stranger to the types of personalities that are drawn to performing as a lifelong obsession. In making the film, Stern says that she was equally obsessed with her subject. "There was an instant rapport; we immediately trusted one another. She gave us access when others around her, trying to protect her, were shutting us out." To enhance that intimacy, the production team always stayed small. Oftentimes, it was just Stern and DP Charles Miller, hopping on the subway to Rivers' palatial Manhattan penthouse, cameras in tow, shooting in whatever light was available. Stern captured as much as she could and spent as much time with Rivers as possible throughout the year. It wasn't so much the concrete or material aspects of Rivers' life that the filmmaker wanted to capture, but the drive, needs, fears and passions of this force-of-nature septuagenarian. The archival interludes throughout--stills, television and film excerpts, family home movies and other materials--remind us that, no matter what we might think of Rivers (and she garners plenty of negative criticism), no one can discount her legacy. As well, no one can disregard the utter brutality of a comedic performer's life, and how much, especially as a female, she's had to fight and sacrifice over the decades.

Rivers has never been a shrinking violet. The raw and visceral nature of what she allows the camera to capture only enhances our empathy. However, lest this be mistaken for some kind of "cotton candy treat of a tribute," as Stern describes what she distinctly did not want to make, in true Rivers fashion, the comedienne tells the story of a young woman who said to her, "You opened the doors for me."  (Note the past tense.) Rivers says she wanted to say to her, "Fuck you. I'm still opening the doors." And she is.

The film contains many painful moments, ones in which a viewer might want to turn away. Yet Rivers is the one who always keeps it real, fresh, compelling us to never give short shrift to what it takes for her to keep going. This is a woman who was born and raised in the tony bedroom community of Larchmont, New York, daughter of a doctor and a housewife, schooled at Barnard and expected to marry a nice Jewish man and have babies. But from a very early age, Rivers explains that the theater was the only place in which she was ever interested: "The only time I'm truly happy is when I'm on the stage. I am a performer. That is my life. That is what I am. That's it."

Joan Rivers--A Piece of Work shows us this workhorse in action--day in, day out, collaborating and brainstorming with her assistants, her agent, her manager and others, on how to keep doing what she's been put on the earth to do. But the imperative to never stop is not for her alone, at this point. Rivers is the sole supporter of the many people (and their families) in her employ. "I'm a small industry," she informs us. "I send my employees' kids to private school. I support many members of my own family." She equates "fear" with an empty calendar, the days and months stretching out on a blinding white canvas with nothing to fill them--no jobs, no gigs, no prospects. This is a woman, mind you, who is an entertainment legend and an internationally renowned comedienne, Tony-nominated actress, best-selling author, Emmy Award-winning television host, film director (1978's hilarious Rabbit Test, a comedy about the world's first pregnant man, starring Billy Crystal in his first major movie role), playwright, screenwriter, jewelry designer, businesswoman, mother, grandmother and on and on and on. And the last thing we will ever see her doing is chilling on one of her silk sofas, popping bon-bons, perusing the fashion mags and filing her perfect nails. Her schedule would undo your average ambitious and energetic 25-year-old starlet on the rise. This is also a woman who still titters at her own fart jokes like a 12-year-old boy. She is, indeed, ageless and timeless. 

Throughout the year Stern and Sundberg shot, we traverse the different aspects of Rivers' life: at home with her staff; her complex relationship with long-time manager, Billy Sammeth, who's been with her for 35 years and who disappears on her regularly; Jocelyn Pickett, her personal assistant for the last 15 years, who came to work for the performer at a particularly low period in Rivers' career; with her family, most notably, her daughter, Melissa, who is just as candid and forthright as her mother as they both try to parse a deeply loving, but incredibly complicated, relationship; and, her painful memories of husband, Edgar Rosenberg, who helped manage her career, and committed suicide in 1987.

The moment that saddened me the most, however, and gave real insight into the damaged psyche of a "star," was a short exchange that most might regard as a throw-away scene: After a triumphant performance at London's Leicester Square Theatre of her autobiographical play, Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress, she greets an adoring crowd, signing autographs and receiving compliments about how funny and brilliant she is. One man says to her, "Do you feel the love we have for you?" And she looks directly at him and says, "No. I'll feel it when I read the reviews." It turns out the reviews are pretty horrible and cruel. As Jocelyn reads one insulting review after another to Rivers as they ride in the back of her limo, we see that she is utterly destroyed, as if the accolades of the adoring crowd the night before never happened.

But then she is back in the saddle, unstoppable, hopping planes, zigzagging across the country to do live performances, special appearances, lectures, book signings, etc., etc., etc. The film does end on a high note, although Stern admits that that wasn't really important to the narrative arc of the film. But Rivers has won Season Two of Donald Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice, and is, once again, the "golden girl," in high demand, her calendar filled to capacity. The unrelenting taskmaster of fame has smiled down upon her once again. The entire piece makes for one of the most satisfying profiles of a major celebrity that I've seen.

After winning the US Documentary Editing Award at Sundance this year, and playing a number of high-profile festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival and Hot Docs, Joan Rivers--A Piece of Work will be the Centerpiece screening at New Fest, the New York LGBT Film Festival, on Wednesday, June 9, where Rivers will be making a special appearance in a post-screening conversation with Village Voice columnist Michael Musto. The film opens Friday June 11, in theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, through IFC Films.

Pamela Cohn is a New York-based independent media producer, theatrical outreach and social engagement producer, film programmer, and freelance arts journalist writing for many publications and sites including Hammer to Nail, Filmmaker Magazine and DOX Magazine. She writes a well-regarded blog on nonfiction filmmaking called Still in Motion.

WESTDOC: The West Coast Reality and Documentary Conference, which made its debut last year, returns to Santa Monica, Calif., September 13-15, 2010. The WESTDOC Conference gathers producers and directors of nonfiction/documentary and reality TV programming and the executives who fund and/or acquire such programs.

More than 100 industry speakers are expected to participate in the three-day conference of panels, case studies and exclusive networking sessions. The conference's climatic event is an all-day PitchFest, where new projects are pitched directly to network and development executives in front of a live audience for potential acquisition or co-production funding.

For the second year, WESTDOC will be held at the Doubletree Guest Suites Santa Monica. Conference fees cover all aspects of the day, including breakfast and lunch sessions. "We plan the conference so that it is rich with real-world information and as many strategic business contacts as possible," says Richard Propper, Past IDA President, distribution executive and managing partner/co-founder of the event. As co-founder, Academy Award-nominated producer/director Chuck Braverman explains, "WESTDOC provides a forum where producers can actually meet and interface with those networks that do the financing and buying of projects. In our first year, the turn-out was amazing - people in LA need an event where deals can be cut in the hallways." 

More than 30 panels are scheduled regarding financing, shooting and selling a documentary or reality TV one-off or series. Contemporary topics covered will also include distribution models from theatrical presentation to digital platforms. Among the companies that will be participating are Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Spike TV, National Geographic Channel, ITVS, TV Land, SyFy, History Channel, WE, OWN, RDF,  BBC, Lonely Planet and The Doc Channel, with more networks to be announced shortly. Open to all documentary and reality TV professionals, more than 400 people attended the inaugural WESTDOC in 2009. The evenings' mixers and screenings gather all participants in one venue. "It's a real community for three days," says Propper.

Registration information as well as an updated list of panels, speakers, master classes and instructions on how to participate in PitchFest can be found at www.thewestdoc.com. Discount rates are now available. The IDA Discount code is "IDA2010" which is 10 percent off of the listed price, until September 1. The rates are graduated, so earlier registration gets a lower price.

Updates will also be posted on WESTDOC's Facebook.com page and via twitter.com/thewestdoc (#westdoc2010).

Although he was best known for tackling such seemingly unfilmable works of literature as James Joyce's Ulysses, Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Jean Genet's The Balcony, Joseph Strick did earn an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1971 for Interviews with My Lai Veterans. He died June 1 in Paris of congested heart failure at age 86.

According to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Strick was an aerial photographer for the US Army during World War II. His first film, the 1948 documentary Muscle Beach, profiled body builders in Southern California. In the 1950s, he collaborated with Ben Maddow and Sidney Meyers on the experimental documentary The Savage Eye, about a young divorced woman attempting to start a new life. The film won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' Robert J. Flaherty Award for Best Documentary.

Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who shot both The Savage Eye and Interviews with My Lai Veterans, told the Los Angeles Times, "Joe was interested in looking at the underside of things. You see that he is a maverick and was never a conventional filmmaker. You have to make your own judgment about the films that he's made. I found them all very interesting and inventive content-wise, if not in style."

Interviews with My Lai Veterans features US Soldiers who were present at the infamous 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.