In March of this year Ling and Lee were reporting on the trafficking of North Korean women who are fleeing poverty and repression only to end up being exploited across the border in neighboring China. Ling and Lee were apprehended by North Korean soldiers while filming along the Tumen River, which separates China and North Korea. They were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison for illegal entry and unspecified hostile acts. After 140 days in captivity, Ling and Lee were eventually pardoned, and they returned to the United States following an unannounced visit to North Korea by former US President Bill Clinton on August 4, 2009.

The 2009 IDA Documentary Awards will take place on Friday, Dec. 4 at 8 pm at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA.

Join us at the 2009 IDA Documentary Awards!

That evening, the IDA will also award its prestigious 2009 Career Achievement Award to legendary and innovative filmmaker Errol Morris. 

The IDA will also honor Michael Donaldson with 2009 Amicus Award.

Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life, will be host the 2009 IDA Documentary Awards.

A man who travels to small villages making movies, a Japanese boy who leaves his village to join a sumo group, and American millionaires who pay huge sums to have the chance to experience outer space with the Russian space agency are three films screening here at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) that turn the spotlight on lifestyles.

Argentine directors Eduardo de la Serna, Lucas Marcheggiano and Adriana Nidia Yurovich’s “The Peddler” (El ambulante) profiles a filmmaker who brings new meaning to the DIY approach. Daniel Burmeister drives around in a beat-up car approaching the local mayor in a village with a proposal: He will film a feature in the town using locals in exchange for room and board and using a camera he already owns. The doc follows this very charming man as he undertakes one project in a small Argentine town. Using his seductive charisma, he captivates the towns people and they become a part of his project. After filming, he even drives through the town with a loudspeaker offering screening times as part of his own marketing blitz. The town comes out to see the film, and they are the stars.

“There is a saying in Argentina that if there’s a problem, you fix it with a string,” said Marcheggiano referring to how Burmeister devised clever but basic ways to repair technical snafus that inevitably occur when filming. “He’s made over 50 films in 11 years, using a [rotation] of about five scripts.”

Eighteen year-old Takuya leaves his village in Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido for the capital, Tokyo, to train as an apprentice sumo wrestler in the world premiere of Jill Coulon’s “A Normal Life: Chronicle of a Sumo Wrestler.” Despite trepidation, Takuya enrolls in a sumo school to please his father. Typical of Japanese, Takuya hides his emotion as his father tells him “not to fail” and says before he leaves that if he drops out of the program “there is no place here for you.” His mother died three years prior to cancer, and his only other close relation is his sister. Coulon, who undertook the project originally planning to follow a Mongolian sumo wrestler who moves to Japan but then found Takuya, goes into the secretive and insular world of sumo, following Takuya’s preparations for tournaments, sponsors’ dinners. He misses his friends from his hometown, and as a new wrestler, he has to act as a personal assistant to the more established wrestlers. He reveals his doubts about his new life in phone conversations with his sister at a laundromat at night as he washes the other wrestlers’ belts, saying he just wants a normal life.

“Finding Takuya was a very long process,” said Coulon after the world debut screening. “It took three years before we found Takuya. It’s hard for women to be accepted - it’s a very insular world. You have to get through a lot of authorization, there are a lot of rules, so it’s a very complicated process. Filming in Japan can be very hard…”

Swiss director Christian Frei also had huge bureaucratic hurdles to deal with for his look at the rising number of space tourists who pay millions for the chance to reach orbit via the Russian space agency. Frei takes his camera to remote Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union built its “Star City,” a secretive but once proud town that was the center of the USSR’s thriving space program where the first satellite, Sputnik, launched the space race back in the ‘50s. Though the Russians still use the facilities, its a shell of its former glory when tens of thousands of people lived there and the nation looked with pride on its achievements. Gorbachev pulled the financial plug in the ‘80s. To help defray the costs, the Russian space agency has taken on “space tourists” to accompany their cosmonauts on their missions.

“Everything was difficult with this project, nothing seemed possible at the beginning,” said Frei after a screening of his film in Amsterdam’s lovely Tuschinski Theater. “The Russian secret service wanted me off the project, and they never let me film the way I wanted.” Though he originally wanted to profile a Japanese space tourist, he later settled on Iranian-American Anoush Ansari who had dreamed of going to space as a little girl living in Tehran. She paid $20 million for the chance to go into space, half the cost the Russian space agency incurrs for a launch. “What is the price of a dream?” asked Ansari in the film addressing criticism that the money was a lavish expenditure. “One month’s salary? Two months? If I could go into space but not come back, I would still do it. It’s my life’s dream.”

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam continues through Sunday.

This news item is brought to you by a special partnership between the IDA and indieWIRE and SnagFilms.

by Eugene Hernandez

Serious movies with weighty international topics gave way to laughter (and even some tears) today after the Saturday skies cleared and the temperature warmed up a bit here in The Netherlands. British filmmaker Julien Temple sipped red wine while lecturing this afternoon at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and earlier in the day American radio star (and 2009 IDA Documentary Awards host) Ira Glass drank from a can of Red Bull to counter jet lag at a conversation and demo at the fest.

Folks familiar with Ira Glass’ successful weekly radio documentary program (and its recent Showtime cable TV offshoot) know that he takes a more conversational approach to telling his stories, incorporating sometimes wry narration with quirky music cues, while depicting interactions between host and subject. The popular public radio program reaches well over 2 million people per week via the airwaves and online, mainly telling the stories of people who aren’t famous or necessarily newsworthy.

Today in Amsterdam, Glass encouraged journalists and documentarians to loosen up. Rather than stripping interviews from conversations in making journalism, he advocated depicting actual conversations between people, and he encouraged, “Narration is awesome.” But, only when it avoids stodgy conventions.

“Too much of broadcast news, too much of documentary, leaves out a sense of humor,” Glass argued during a jammed Doc Lab session at the Escape Club on Amsterdamn’s central Rembrandtplein. He encouraged filmmakers to loosen up and have fun with their work, admonishing them to reconsider their approach to making documentaries.

The dour tone and heavy narrative of many docs, Glass argued, “Makes (the world) seem smaller and darker than it is.” Continuing he added, “It makes the world seem smaller and stupider and less interesting.”

During today’s unmoderated presentation that was part of IDFA’s new media prograam, Glass reiterated a frustration with journalism and documentary that adopts a false sense of seriousness, rather than capturing a human conversation.

Citing the rise of commentary about the news which is more popular than the delivery of the news itself, Ira Glass singled out the success of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and even Glenn Beck, saying that they resonate with audiences because they “talk in a human voice.”

In the words of IDFA Doc Lab organizer Caspar Sonnen, “documentary shouldn’t feel like a bad day at school.”

Julien Temple would very likely agree.

Later, in the same room where Glass spoke, Temple delivered the first ever IDFA Lecture. He repeatedly encouraged filmmakers to continuously break the rules. There’s nothing worse, in a bad music documentary (he hates the word ‘rockumentary’), than an aging, overweight hippie talking about the old days, he said. Temple’s music docs sometimes featuring conversations with older musicians, but he also weaves in archival footage and cutaways to loosen up the movie.

In “The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle,” his 1980 take on The Sex Pistols that mixes fact with fiction to tell the story of their rise (and then break-up), Temple used animated caricatures of the band when they refused to cooperate for the movie. “It was an homage to Tex Avery,” he said today.

Throughout his career, Temple’s work has featured distinctive music, but not for just for the sake of it. “Fingers on guitars is not why I make films,” Temple said today, adding that he likes to make music a strong element in his work because songs are interpreted uniquely by different people.

“To me the point is to provoke thought in an audience rather than tell them what to think,” Temple said. “Let the story lead you,” he advised filmmakers. “If you think you know what you’re going to say already, you’re fucked.”

The same could be said for Temple’s talk today. While billed as a lecture, the filmmaker didn’t come in with an agenda. Instead he brought a few clips and took a free form approach to talking about his life and work, often repeating himself and then pausing to prod the audience to ask questions.

Thinking back, Temple said he heard The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” one night on a pirate radio station and his life was never the same. His life changed again when he stumbled upon The Sex Pistols playing music in an abandoned British warehouse, he recalled. In film school at the time, he eventually picked up a camera to shoot the band, leading to “The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle” and then “The Filth and the Fury,” a doc about the group’s years later.

At times rambling, but never boring, Temple’s lecture eventually felt a bit like spending time late at night in a bar with friend. He started to cry when recounting his close friendship with the late Joe Strummer, who died suddenly in 2002.

“That was my friend…” he began to explain, after playing a clip from his own film, “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten.” Temple couldn’t regain his composure, so the lights were eventually lowered and another clip screened while a stagehand brought him a tissue.

Minutes later, as the session drew to a close, he loosened things up by recalling a hilarious story from a visit with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson at their father’s home many years ago.

“Anyway,” he concluded, at the end of his lecture, “I’ve had a funny old life.” Tonight, he will cap the day in Amsterdam by DJing the festival’s late night dance party.

This news item is brought to you by a special partnership between the IDA and indieWIRE and SnagFilms.

From the interview:

It won’t be a so-called David Lynch film, really; it will be about Maharishi and the knowledge he brought out. It’ll hold a lot of abstractions. We’re on our way to India in December to start the India part of it.

It’ll have to go in the documentary department, I think. I don’t think it’ll be a talking heads kind of thing, but we’re going to do a lot of interviews with people. We’ll interview--I hope--in India, a 97-year-old man who was with Maharishi from the beginning and get stories of times that weren’t so well recorded.

Until that comes to fruition, you can get caught up on Lynch's latest activities on the David Lynch Foundation Television website, which is hosting clips from the recent 4th Annual David Lynch Weekend. There you can watch videos with titles such as "Exploring the Frontiers of Consciousness Creativity and the Brain" and "Transforming Lives - How to Get Involved with the David Lynch Foundation."

Still not enough Lynch for you? Check out his currently running, online 121-part documentary series Interview Project right here.

First, some info. To get to this 15-film Short List, about 150 AMPAS documentary branch members are expected to watch the 89 entries, pick the best and let the race begin. The actual award show is months away, and there's already a lot of huffing and puffing going on.

While we were proud of titles such as Garbage Dreams, Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, Mugabe and the White African and Soundtrack for a Revolution that qualified as part of the IDA DocuWeeks showcase this past summer, we too saw some obvious omissions: Afghan Star, Capitalism: A Love Story, The September Issue, We Live in Public, Defamation, Crude and Anvil!: The Story of Anvil. We weren't the only ones shocked.

An LA Times piece called "Frustration over Oscars' documentary short list" focused on the snub of Capitalism, but also noted that this wasn't the first time popular docs went unacknowledged. In 1990 Moore's Roger & Me got dissed. Also missing from the nomination list for their respective years: Hoop Dreams, Gizzly Man and The Thin Blue Line.

The LAT's Big Picture blog later asked "Is anyone unhappy about the Oscars' snub of Michael Moore?" The short answer: maybe not.

But back to that frustration. You can't have a little frustration without some controversy. Tyson filmmaker James Toback threw verbal punches when reached by the New York Times for a piece called "Oscar Short List of Documentaries Draws Controversy."

From the piece:

Mr. Toback said only that he had experienced something connected with the selections process, “which I put fully in the category of extortion that I did not go along with.”

Mr. Toback added that he was “furious” at himself for “having chosen to be passive and quiet in the face of that extortion.”

Asked about that claim, Rob Epstein, a filmmaker who is chairman of the executive committee of the documentary branch, said: “I have no idea. It certainly hasn’t come before me.”

Strong words from Toback (hey, the dude does know Mike Tyson.) While all of the chatter was going on, the LAT's Arts Beat column asked "Oscar Question of the Day: Who Chooses the Documentary Short List?"

The piece broke down the process and pointed out there is "certainly room for skewed results."

Skewed results or not. Snubs or winners. Epstein, said there are bound to be winners, losers, surprises and snubs in any election process. “Each year, there are painful omissions,” he was quoted as saying in the piece. “This year is no exception. There is no way around that. This year was an extremely strong year.”

And we're just getting started.

For only the third time in the 25-year history of the Awards, the IDA will present its Amicus Award to attorney and independent film advocate Michael Donaldson. Previously presented to John Hendricks and Steven Spielberg, the IDA Amicus Award acknowledges the friends of the documentary who have contributed significantly to our industry. An entertainment attorney who has been fighting for independent filmmakers for over thirty years, Michael Donaldson has represented writers, producers and directors as the go-to-attorney for fair use and other clearance-related issues. He is also the author of several books; one of which, "Clearance and Copyright" is used in over 50 films schools and is the standard reference book for the industry.

Join us as we salute the work of Michael Donaldson at the 2009 IDA Documentary Awards!

That evening, the IDA will also award its prestigious 2009 Career Achievement Award to legendary and innovative filmmaker Errol Morris. 

Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life, will be host the 2009 IDA Documentary Awards.

Join us as we honor the best documentaries of the year!

Let the race-and parlor games--begin! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 82nd Academy Awards®. Eighty-nine pictures had originally qualified in the category.

Among the titles include four that qualified as part of IDA DocuWeeks Showcase this past summer: Garbage Dreams, Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, Mugabe and the White African and Soundtrack for a Revolution.

And among the missing: Afghan Star, Capitalism: A Love Story, The September Issue, We Live in Public,  Defamation, Crude and Anvil!: The Story of Anvil.

Here's the complete list:

• The Beaches of Agnes; Agnès Varda, director (Cine-Tamaris)
• Burma VJ,; Anders Østergaard, director (Magic Hour Films)
• The Cove ; Louie Psihoyos, director (Oceanic Preservation Society)
• Every Little Step; James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, directors (Endgame Entertainment)
• Facing Ali; Pete McCormack, director (Network Films Inc.)
• Food, Inc.; Robert Kenner, director (Robert Kenner Films)
• Garbage Dreams; Mai Iskander, director (Iskander Films, Inc.)
• Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders; Mark N. Hopkins, director (Red Floor Pictures LLC)
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers; Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, directors (Kovno Communications)
• Mugabe and the White African; Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey, directors (Arturi Films Limited)
• Sergio; Greg Barker, director (Passion Pictures and Silverbridge Productions)
• Soundtrack for a Revolution; Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, directors (Freedom Song Productions)
• Under Our Skin; Andy Abrahams Wilson, director (Open Eye Pictures)
• Valentino The Last Emperor ; Matt Tyrnauer, director (Acolyte Films)
• Which Way Home; Rebecca Cammisa, director (Mr. Mudd)

This summer, HBO Archives retrieved over 13,000 videotapes of never-before-cataloged footage highlighting all facets of the world of Entertainment dating from the early 1980’s to the late 1990’s. This newly available material now joins HBO Archives vast Entertainment News Library, covering the 1970’s to the present, all of which are offered for clip licensing. Learn more at http://www.hboarchives.com/entertainment

Current TV, the cable channel founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has begun overhauling its programming model, with the elimination of 80 full-time staff positions. Originally positioned as a showcase for short-form, user-generated content, Current is shifting toward a more traditional content strategy, with plans to run 30- and 60-minute programs, many of which will be acquisitions. Could this lead to more opportunities for freelance doc makers? (via Mediaweek)

I'm With Cancer scribe Will Reiser is in talks to write Young@Heart, Working Title's narrative remake of Fox Searchlight's singing-senior documentary. Working Title acquired remake rights to Heart in 2007. Stephen Walker's original doc Heart tells the story of a group of seniors who, under the tutelage of a younger choir director, sing versions of songs from artists such as The Clash, Coldplay and James Brown.

Looking for inspiration and advice? A few good reads for the week that have come across the desks of the IDA's Editorial Staff...

Over on DocumentaryInsider, Stephanie Hubbard interviews Kirby Dick about funding, how to choose subjects and the value of screening works-in-progress.

Zach Levy (Strongman) airs his thoughts on DIY distribution in a web exclusive article for Filmmaker Magazine. Levy says:

For more and more of us then, having already taken the lion’s share of the risk during production and now doing the basic distribution groundwork anyhow, taking that step towards full DIY begins to look exactly like a logical step forward and not some crazy blind leap off a cliff. Yes, we have reached a potential tipping point between traditional distribution and the DIY models, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In the piece, he goes over the pros and cons of going the hybrid route, and puts forth the idea that if filmmakers are doing more of the work, they should reap not on the the financial rewards, but also increased creative opportunities.

Long-time Los Angeles City College professor Tom Stempel goes into detail on his teaching methods and the syllabus of films he uses for his class on the history of documentaries. He begins with a reel of early actuality films from the late 1890s and the early 1900s, and ends with films about the Iraq War, such as Gunner Palace (2004) or Baghdad ER (2006). In between, he covers everything from Capra's The Negro Soldier (1944) to Walt Disney documentaries from the late forties and early fifties such as Seal Island. Lots of choices for the Netflix queue...