As alternative delivery methods continue to evolve, new challenges accompany them. Those on the DEAF WORLD AS EYE SEE IT blog/vlog are furious at Netflix because the company is streaming the documentary Through Deaf Eyes, directed by Diane Garey, without captions. The two-hour documentary explores 200 years of deaf life in America.

Efron writes on her blog, "I cannot imagine that Netflix would post this documentary as an online streaming option which Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals are unable to watch because there is no captions available!"

Netflix is currently exploring solutions for subtitling and captioning streaming video, which involves several technological hurdles. More details can be found on the Netflix blog, which states that the company hopes to deliver closed captioning and subtitles in 2010.

This is not soon enough for those who have posted on the Deaf World blog, many of whom feel that this documentary in particular should only be streamed with captions. There is also a push to get Congress to pass HR 3101, designed to increase closed or open captioning on the Internet. Otherwise known as Caption Action 2, the bill picks up where Caption Action left off. From their Facebook Cause page: 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a movement called Caption Action to get closed captions on home video. That movement was successful. Now we have the Internet, and television is moving to the Internet. But, many networks and channels do not caption on the Internet. This is Caption Action 2: Internet Captioning.

Also, we have also become aware that some deaf and hearing people think mistakenly that the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 will require everyone to caption on YouTube. That is not true. Only commercial and government broadcasters will likely be required to caption on YouTube. Grandma won't have to caption her video of her grandbaby learning how to walk.

Polanski, 76, and who holds French and Polish citizenship, was arrested in relation to a 30-year-old U.S. case involving sex with an underage girl, when he arrived in Switzerland in September to collect a lifetime achievement award at a Swiss film festival.

"All I know is that he has been taken from prison for medical attention. I don't know where he is or when he will be returned to prison," French lawyer Herve Temime told Reuters.

The Oscar Award-winning director pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and spent 42 days in prison. But, Polanski fled the United States before the case was concluded because he believed a judge would pass a tough sentence.

U.S. authorities have up to 60 days to make a firm extradition request. U.S. judicial sources have said the complex extradition process could take years if Polanski challenges it.

Related Articles:

The Roman Report: Polanski Wrapping Up 'Ghost' in Prison
The Roman Report: More on The Sequel
The Roman Report: A Statement from Director Marina Zenovich

Photo: Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library Department of Special Collections

2009 DocuWeeks participant Severe Clear will make its international premiere at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival. This film will also play Nov. 21 at the St. Louis International Film Festival. The film is also coming back to Texas for the 3rd Annual Lone Star International Film Festival in Fort Worth, Nov. 11-15.

WorldScreen.com reports that Lorber Films has scored the North American rights to another 2009 DocuWeeks participant Kimjongilia, along with picking up the feature-length documentary Nobody’s Perfect.

Another DocuWeeks alum, Debra Anderson's Split Estate, premieres on Planet Green this week. The film, which documents the struggle between a community in Colorado and an energy company bent on drilling on private property, has inspired debates in other towns across the country, including upstate New York, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, where State Representative Brian Egolf commented in a press release, "It is impossible to over-estimate the impact Split Estate had in the greater Santa Fe Community when it was threatened with wildcatting oil development. The film made a difference; we now have an educated community and the best natural resource ordinance in the United States."

Michael Jackson's This Is It has soldout more than 1,600 screenings--two weeks ahead of its opening, the New York Daily News reports. Let the eBay madness commence! Also, MovieTickets.com reports that the King of Pop's music doc is now No. 23 on its list of the Top-25 Advance Ticket Sellers of All-Time, moving ahead of both Quantum of Solace and The Departed. Didn't get a ticket? Well, here's the trailer at least:

Polanski is fighting extradition to the United States after being arrested in Zurich on September 26 in connection with a three-decade old charge of unlawful sex with a minor.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature festival, Harris, who co-wrote the screenplay from his novel of the same name, said the Oscar-winning director was able to make his wishes known despite being locked up in Switzerland. "I don't think he can make phone calls," said the author. "But he can communicate."

The Ghost is a political thriller starring Pierce Brosnan as a British prime minister loosely based on Tony Blair, with Ewan McGregor as his ghostwriter, who begins to expect that foul play was involved in his predecessor's recent death.

Read the full article here.

Related Articles:
The Roman Report: More on The Sequel
The Roman Report: A Statement from Director Marina Zenovich

Photo: Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library Department of Special Collections

Two classes taught in Santa Monica, CA will touch on various elements to needed to get a documentary made.

The first day's class on Saturday, Oct. 31 will focus on getting public and private sector funding. Then, on Sunday Nov. 1, a daylong workshop will help you decide if that dream doc is worth pursuing and if it's not selling, how to fix it.

The cost of seminar includes numerous handouts. Specific case studies will be covered and ideas or projects at any stage of development are welcome.

Get the full information for the Oct. 31 Financing and Producing Documentary Programs with Mitchell Block workshop here.

Get the full information for the Nov. 1 Documentary Tune-Up with Mitchell Block and Eva Orner workshop here.

According to the buzz at the bagel bar, the first-ever WestDoc Conference exceeded everyone's expectations, thanks to a remarkable lineup of panelists...who were often hanging out at the bagel bar.

"There was a more relaxed schedule and atmosphere here than you see at other conferences," said filmmaker Chuck Braverman, who co-founded WestDoc with Richard Propper of Solid Entertainment. "The heavy hitters are out in the hall here schmoozing and networking. You don't see that at the other conferences." 

Braverman and Propper created WestDoc as the first forum designed specifically to serve documentary and reality TV professionals. "These two genres are very closely related," Propper asserted, "and no one's addressing this bandwidth."

Based on how crowded the panels were, it's an idea whose time has come. "I think we're going to have to find a bigger venue," confided Braverman, squeezing past the crowd at the "Power Programmers" panel, where broadcast execs revealed the secrets behind getting shows on their channels. 

WestDoc's power lineup included executives from Independent Lens, Sundance, NBC, ABC, Fox, Documentary Channel, Discovery, Bravo, TLC, Animal Planet, History Channel, National Geographic, ESPN, WE, Planet Green, The Travel Channel and MTV. Just about the only outlet that didn't fly an exec to Santa Monica was that NASA channel that broadcasts from a camera on the side of the Space Shuttle.

"The most senior executives are coming to this event," said filmmaker Peter von Puttkamer of Gryphon Productions, who works with Discovery, Animal Planet and History Channel. "And they're sitting down with the people. They're even going to the cocktail parties."

WestDoc also featured power filmmakers. On the doc side there was Ondi Timoner (DIG!; We Live in Public), Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price; Outfoxed) and Kirby Dick (Outrage; This Film Is Not Yet Rated).

On the reality side, there was TLC's executive vice president Steve Cheskin (the man who invented Discovery Channel's "Shark Week"); Tom Rogan of Authentic Entertainment (Ace of Cakes; Toddlers and Tiaras); and even William Morris vet John Ferriter (the man behind the deal behind Who Wants to Be a Millionaire).

The keynote speakers were R. J. Cutler (The September Issue; 30 Days; American High) and reality's current king, Thom Beers (Deadliest Catch; Monster Garage). Beers gave a very candid talk about everything from how he built his empire to what gets him chased off the road by the end of every season of Ice Road Truckers (seems he just can't resist that footage of truckers peeing...while driving). Cutler dished the dirt about making The September Issue and dancing the divide between documentaries and reality. 

The most popular panel for the doc crowd was "How to Get on PBS If You're Not Ken Burns," which decoded the maze of roads that lead to PBS. The conference also featured case studies of Food, Inc. and Anvil!: The Story of Anvil.

Just as Propper and Braverman had hoped, the doc and reality communities had plenty to commingle about. "The crossover to me is an easy one," said Biggest Loser producer J. D. Roth of 3 Ball, explaining why he called up director Kristopher Belman after seeing his LeBron James doc More Than a Game. "I think he'd be great in reality television," Roth exclaimed. "A good storyteller's a good storyteller."

This is just what Marissa Aroy wanted to hear. She won an Emmy for her PBS doc Sikhs in America, but she's suffering from grant fatigue. "I live up in the San Francisco Bay Area near Berkeley with a bunch of longtime documentary filmmakers," Aroy explained. "They had great careers, in the '70s, '80s. That kind of PBS career documentary lifestyle does not exist anymore." That made her "reality curious." Before she left WestDoc, she managed to snag 15 minutes alone in the lobby with Steve Burns, executive vice president of her favorite channel, National Geographic.

Which was great, as far as Burns was concerned. "We rely on the wonderful ideas and innovations of great independent filmmakers," Burns maintained. "I think that Chuck and Richard have done a great thing bringing WestDoc to LA. I was pleased to come."

Even vets like Puttkamer made hookups in the lobby. "If you've been at it for a while you do know the people," he explained. "But it's nice to sit down with people you haven't seen for a while and do face-to-face meetings." Before he left WestDoc, Puttkamer had turned an e-mail pitch "no" into a lobby "yes."

Day three of WestDoc was dedicated to a "Pitch Fest." Although Richard Saiz of ITVS and Tom Neff of Documentary Channel seemed open to just about any one-off with a great story, the fate of series still seems to hang on colorful characters who stir things up.

But fans of "observational" documentaries will find comfort in what an MTV exec had to say in the "Future of Reality TV" panel. According to senior vice president Brent Haynes, kids today are tired of "overproduced" shows. So MTV invested heavily in The Buried Life, a new series about community service--produced by doc folk. 

You can hear what you missed with the audio version of WestDoc, which will go on sale on the WestDoc website in November.

For a complete list of panelist bios, click here.

Elizabeth Blozan is freelance writer and director of the documentary Rebel Beat: The Story of LA Rockabilly. She can be reached at betty@betty-vision.com.

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In an era when everyone is trying to make sense of the new independent film landscape, the 31st edition of the Independent Feature Project (IFP)'s Independent Film Week (IFW), which ran September 19 to 24, in New York City, shined a light on the processes, pitfalls, partnerships and promising results for the filmmaker ready and able to master multiple disciplines. One could argue this year's event actually kicked off on September 18, with Eugene Hernandez' comprehensive historical overview of IFP in indieWire, highlighting the organization's place in the independent film pantheon. It was the perfect précis to the week, spotlighting IFP's accomplishments, evolution, and smart adaptive facility to meeting the ever-changing needs of today's filmmakers. IFP uniquely provides the right counsel and connections for works-in-progress, through career-spanning creative and business relationships, while providing a realistic state-of-play of the industry.  

IFP's Filmmaker Conference & Spotlight on Documentaries

The Fashion Institute of Technology was bustling, as the usual icons of the industry--producers, funders, distributors, broadcasters, sales agents, festival programmers and others--shared their wisdom on what filmmakers need to do for their projects to succeed. The Filmmaker Conference featured daily back-to-back panels ranging from the nuts and bolts of production, to exhibition and sales, to outreach and crowd-sourcing.  Wednesday's day-long documentary focal, "The Truth About Non-Fiction," provided insights on funding, audience development and emerging trends. Meanwhile, hundreds of other buyers, commissioning and sales agents bunkered down with filmmakers in the Project Forum, for highly targeted matchmaking courtesy of the IFP team. The week saw alliances made, presentations of artistically excellent works-in-progress, and a healthy dissection of the independent film environment: It's a buyer's market, be prepared to do everything, here's how. Milton Tabbot, IFP's senior programmer--and the heart and soul of IFP's documentary program--balances the doom and gloom prognosticators against the "great new world" optimists by taking a more philosophical view, referencing Jonathan Demme's oft-quoted quip, "La Luta Continua," and Spike Lee's "by any means necessary": The work has always been hard, is hard, and will always be hard, but the struggle endures and great films are being made and seen. With so many industry visionaries offering commandments on distribution, outreach and other aspects of filmmaking, I asked Tabbot for his as they relate to project inception:

• Commandment One: Be very familiar with other works in your subject area.
• Commandment Two: Beware of overworked subject areas.
• Commandment Three: Inarticulating your project, make sure your description reflects what you have to show on screen.

Tabbot, a 15-year veteran of IFP, has also commented that one of the more rewarding aspects of his job is both seeing a large number of veteran documentarians working at such a high level artistically, and discovering new works from emerging filmmakers. The great equalizer for veterans and neophytes alike is that they all start from scratch when presenting new work in Independent Film Week's signature program, the Project Forum.  Of the 117 projects selected in the Emerging Narrative, No Borders and Spotlight on Documentaries sections, 80 were documentaries. There was an even split of emerging to veteran entrants this year, with 40 percent alumni who had attended previously with other projects.

Several veteran projects created waves if not raves, including Fame High, directed and produced by Scott Hamilton Kennedy (The Garden); In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee, directed by Deann Borshay Liem; Poor Consuelo Conquers the World, directed by Peter Friedman (Silverlake Life; Mana: Beyond Belief); Magic Camp, directed by Judd Ehrlich (Run for Your Life; Mayor of the West Side); Hungry in America, directed by Kristi Jacobson (Toots) and Lori Silverbush (On The Outs); and Earth Camp One, directed by Jennie Livingston (Paris Is Burning).

Popular projects from emerging filmmakers, many of whom have been toiling on shorts and work-for-hire productions, included Tyler Measom and Jennilyn Merten's Sons of Perdition; Cameron Yates' The Canal Street Madam; and Yael Luttwak's My Favorite Neoconservative. 

Other projects to keep an eye out for include Nina Davenport's Sequel to Always A Bridesmaid (working title) and Queen of the Sun, directed and produced by Taggart Siegel (The Real Dirt on Farmer John).

What is Independent Film Week like for a first-time filmmaker? Fambul Tok director Sara Terry notes, "As a first-time filmmaker, I wasn't sure what to expect, although the way IFW is set up--with industry people actually asking to meet you--is great. You go into meetings knowing that somebody already has an interest in what you're doing. We met with top programmers for national and international TV, as well as several festivals, and the feedback was strong. We're now in serious conversations that could lead to substantial financial support to finish the film. To have that kind of access to so many key players in the doc world, all in one place over one week, is incredible."

The Good Pitch

IFP hosted the third and final installment this year in North America of The Good Pitch, a newly-evolved pitching forum that has the documentary cognoscenti abuzz. Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundations' Jess Search, Katie Bradford, Elise McCave, Beadie Finzi and Maxyne Franklin; outreach impresario Sandi DuBowski; and many others from Sundance Institute and Working Films ensured that this forum reflected the best strategy and outcomes for the participating films. Having concluded its North American tour, The Good Pitch team is now tallying accomplishments since convening at Hot Docs and SILVERDOCS earlier this year. The team contacted over 1,700 foundations, philanthropists, grantmaking associations, leading NGOs and nonprofits, broadcasters, media funders, traditional and digital media platforms, technology innovators, and federal, state and local governments, inviting them to convene and form alliances around social justice films. Over 60 documentary projects applied, with 21 projects selected, and filmmakers presented their work to over 300 organizations. The sessions should be required viewing--to see what it looks like when the right mission-match occurs, and hear how different entities respond to the material, sometimes in surprising ways.

The Good Pitch team will be tracking results and provide annual updates on the selected films as they make their way through production, distribution and outreach campaigns.  Several concrete partnerships were forged: 

• At Hot Docs, Gucci Tribeca Fund came on board with Beth Murphy's The Promise of Freedom.
• At SILVERDOCS, Art Stevens of the Calvert Foundation pledged $10,000 for an outreach campaign for Megan Gelstein's Green Shall Overcome, and he is now working on a fundraiser for the project. 
• SILVERDOCS also saw Debra Anderson's sale of Split Estate to Discovery's Planet Green, while the Hungry in America team established NGO partnerships that can be firmlycounted in the "now married" column. Executive Producer Ryan Harrington noted that the anti-hunger NGOs assembled at SILVERDOCS raised $350,000 in funds for the film since June.
• Since their pitch at SILVERDOCS, Joe Wilson and Dean Hammer, producers of Out on the Silence, have raised $150,000 in outreach funds. 
• At IFW, at the conclusion of Michael L. Brown's pitch for 25 to Life,Catherine Olsen of CBC leaped up from the audience to commit to a pre-buy. While it is too soon to capture IFW results in full, everyone will be watching to see what's next with this dynamic group.

Dan Cogan of Impact Partners noted that an unexpected benefit of the Good Pitch process has been the building of a community among funders. Similarly, Greenpeace's Pablo Mathiason underscored the important advantage to seeing new works early in development for campaign building. There is talk that the pitching forum will repeat in 2010, which is exciting news for the social issue documentary community.

While no one knows what is in store in the year to come--and which films will soar or flail--nor which festivals, distributors, critics, broadcasters or theaters will thrive, we do know we will see and hear the state-of-play for documentary from the industry's brightest--with their strategies for survival--at IFP's Independent Film Week.

Jody Arlington is managing partner of PR Collaborative and co-founder of The Impact Arts + Film Fund.

While Barack Obama's historic trek from the Illinois State Senate to the US Presidency was reported by hundreds of journalists covering the campaign trail, a new documentary, By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, which premieres November 3 on HBO, provides an insider's version of events.

Filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, who produced and directed the film, had a front-row seat to Obama's amazing rise from underdog to frontrunner to victor and made the most of their incredible access to capture many never-before-seen private and personal moments with his family, campaign staff, organizers and volunteers.

"When we started shooting, all the odds were against Obama," says Rice, who also served as cinematographer on the documentary. "But he and his team kept their eyes on the prize, and our hope is that future generations, whether Democrat or Republican, can show their children and they can learn and gain something from this amazing story."

"We never tried to editorialize," adds Sams, "but we kept everything in the moment and just showed how it happened--how someone gets elected, the good times, low points, all of it." 

The finished film, as actor Edward Norton, one of the film's producers, puts it, is as much a portrait of a man as it is a portrait of a movement.

Other than Obama (and his wife, Michelle), Robert Gibbs, the communications director on the campaign and now White House Press Secretary, emerged as a character in their film along with Ronnie Cho, a young campaign field staffer. The filmmakers followed Cho from Texas to Indiana and Maine, as he moved up in the campaign. By the general election, he was promoted to a managerial position (He now works as assistant director of legislative affairs at the Department of Homeland Security.).

"We met him during our first trip to Iowa," says Sams. "He was charming, enthusiastic and good on camera. We just kept developing the relationship, but we didn't know about his background until close to Caucus night." Cho's family had emigrated from South Korea, and lived in a car for about a year of his young life; Cho was the first in his family to attend college. His cathartic release while on the phone with his mother during several key points of the campaign are very powerful, and he and the other staffers worked so hard, driven by their belief in Obama and his message of change and hope. 

Rice herself was also inspired by Obama, well before he became a contender for the presidency. A graduate of New York Universty, Rice, who grew up in Oklahoma, worked as a cinematographer on documentaries that aired on Sundance Channel and Discovery Health. In 1998 she co-directed her first documentary, From Ashes, about the challenges facing an AIDS hospice in Southern India.

While Rice knew she wanted to be a filmmaker, it was losing her older brother, David, who worked in the World Trade Center, on 9/11, that served as her political awakening and radically changed her perspective. So, when her other brother, Andrew, called her, wowed by then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama speaking at the Democratic Convention in 2004, she quickly turned on the television to watch his speech. "I was so impressed," she recalls. "I saw him as my generation's Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy, and I also thought he could be the first African-American president."

The next day Rice bought Obama's book Dreams of My Father, and the seed for the documentary was planted. In the fall of 2005, Rice called Sams, whom she had met when they both volunteered for the Change for Kids Collaborative Documentary, a series of short films addressing the issues facing New York City elementary schools.

"I'm 12 years older than her and much more cynical," Sams admits. "So while I thought her idea for a doc was a good idea, I didn't share her belief that he would run for president or that he could win." Sams began her career working on documentaries for PBS and has executive-produced Amreeka and Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's, and produced Toots and Hello He Lied, and Other Truths from the Hollywood Trenches for AMC.

By the end of January 2006, Rice and Sams had hammered out a proposal, while Rice continued to write letters and call Obama's US Senate office, to no avail. Realizing she needed a new plan of attack, she turned to her politically active friends Stuart Blumberg and Norton, partners (along with William Migliore) in Class 5, which has produced films like Down in the Valley, The Painted Veil and the upcoming Leaves of Grass. They were on board and in April Rice and Norton were on a train to Washington, DC to meet with Gibbs, Senator Obama's head of communications at the time, and Obama's press secretary, Tommy Vietor. By May 2006, the filmmakers had received the go-ahead to begin shooting.

At the start, Sams and Rice shot about once a month, approaching the project like a political diary, a day in the life of a US Senator. But they did travel with Obama to Africa in August 2006, where his visit included going to a clinic in Nyangoma-Kogelo near where his father grew up. They also shot him watching the 2006 mid-term elections, which is one of the opening scenes in the documentary, where Rice's brother Andrew won a seat as an Oklahoma State Senator.

"It was while shooting during the promotional tour for his new book, The Audacity of Hope, when we started to sense something was up," says Rice. "His appearances were drawing huge crowds of people, many of whom were wearing ‘Obama Run' pins."

Obama announced his candidacy for US President on February 10, 2007, and a few weeks later, the filmmakers showed up at campaign headquarters in Chicago to shoot some wide shots of the war room. But Gibbs informed them that they may not be able to shoot anymore.

The key to their access was definitely their early start and making a good impression, and also due to Senior Campaign Strategist David Axelrod. "Once we won him over, he was great, and to his credit he never wavered," says Sams. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, also came on board. "We were shooting nine months before [Obama] announced, but we were always nervous about losing our access and somebody coming in and taking over," Rice notes. 

Certainly access ebbed and flowed, and due to budgetary and logistical issues, Rice and Sams had to make the most of their days shooting. "We had to choose what we really wanted to shoot and go from there," says Sams. "We weren't privy to his schedule enough in advance either, so we tried to listen and figure out what was coming up."

From the beginning, the filmmakers knew that this was going to be a small production and that they would serve as crew. "We had to do it this way to save money and make it intimate because there was no way, security-wise, that different camera people could show up," Sams maintains.

The filmmakers moved to Iowa and stayed there through the Caucus, which Obama won in January, and several of their filmmaker friends arrived to shoot some of the action. "We stayed in these little dorm rooms at a local college to save money and to be close enough to get to Obama's offices for the staff calls every night," says Sams.  

"We figured if we hung around long enough they would forget about us," Rice maintains. "And they did. And even though the campaign staff was trained to never speak to the press, we reminded them that we weren't press, so they eventually let down their guard." 

"This wasn't about a lot of ego or us being filmmakers," adds Sams. "We just tried to be there and be quiet and just keep showing up. But we definitely worked very hard to put ourselves in a situation where accidents could happen." 

One of those magic moments happened during a rally on the day Obama's grandmother died, and it's a rare showing of emotion that only Rice and a few others captured. "It's misty and chilly and the press are in the back on risers while I'm shooting with my tiny camera along with other still photographers in the photo buffer--and a tear comes down his cheek," Rice relates. "I get back on the bus and I'm waiting for the rest of the press to talk about this moment--and nobody does. They didn't get it because they were either too far back or the angle wasn't right." 

Remaining focused on the shot was often hard when it would have been easy to get swept up in the moment, like on election night. Their last day of shooting was with President Obama in the Oval Office.

"All throughout the film, the joke was Obama saying to us, ‘Oh, you guys are still around,'" Rice notes. "But on this last day, maybe because we had believed in him so early on and stuck with him, he just asked us what we wanted to shoot." 

By then, he'd also seen a cut of the film. "He really liked it but said, ‘I think it's great when Ronnie [Cho] and Mike [Blake, on the campaign staff; he is currently Associate Director for the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.] cried; you should put in more of them, and less of me.'"

After all the time spent around him, they never caught him smoking, but Sams was most surprised at Obama's consistency in demeanor: "He was calm and controlled and he's a very centered person and able to keep his cool." 

She was impressed with Michelle, too. "She's a great mother and is truly his partner in life. She doesn't sublimate her personality to his."

With 700 hours of footage, editing the film was a challenge--partly, Rice said, because we already knew the ending so it became how to keep the audience engaged. While they had talked with several editors in March 2007,  the top choice was Sam Pollard (4 Little Girls, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and Eyes on the Prize). But he wasn't interested because he didn't think Obama had a chance to win. His viewpoint changed, however, and in June 2007, he began screening footage, eventually cutting chronologically so the filmmakers could see it all play out again before they started discarding.

The filmmakers didn't spend time trying to find a distributor; HBO bought the film, practically sight unseen. "They saw it as a moment in history and they're the only ones who have it," says Sams.

Coming a few months shy of his first year in office, the timing for the documentary couldn't be better. It's a reminder of his enormous achievement and how much hope echoed from Grant Park in Chicago and throughout the country on election night, one that captivated and enthralled a nation. Screenings will be held in New York, Atlanta and in Chicago at the Cadillac Theater on October 30, prior to the premiere on November 3. The DVD will come out in January.

"I'm so happy with this film and so proud of it," says Rice. "I remember when my brother died and so many people came up to me and told me that something good would come of this pain. I realized my good is this film.

"It was so fulfilling making this film," Rice continues. "But I remember walking home after we finished post; I was fighting off tears, and I went through a real depression. It was hard watching all of their stories go on without us. But now that it's going to air on HBO--a filmmaker's dream--I'm ready to celebrate."

Shelley Gabert is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer covering entertainment, travel and culture.

Good Hair, the Chris Rock-driven exploration into the African-American community's longtime fixation on all things tonsorial, opened at $1,117,000-an impressive per-screen average of over $6,000. For the record, Jeff Stilson directed that Rock doc, just as Davis Guggenheim helmed what was annoyingly referred to as "that Al Gore documentary." And the latest Davis Guggenheim documentary, It Might Get Loud, is showing signs of slowing in its second month of release, picking up a little over $100,000 in the past week as it creeps up on Every Little Step and Valentino: The Last Emperor. 

And the Michael Moore juggernaut continues to surge. Right now, only Earth stands in the way. Of course, there's that other Michael, who, in a scant two-week-long theatrical run starting October 28, might well surpass both Earth and Capitalism. No mean feat for The dearly departed Gloved One.

1) Earth                                               $32,011,576

2) Capitalism: A Love Story                   $  9,095,000

3) Food, Inc.                                        $ 4,380,706

4) The September Issue                        $ 3,184,000

5) Waltz with Bashir                              $ 2,283,849

6) Valentino: The Last Emperor:            $ 1,755,134

7) Every Little Step                               $ 1,725,141

8) It Might Get Loud                              $ 1,345,000

9) Good Hair                                        $ 1,117,000

10) Tyson                                            $    887,918

Source:www.boxofficemojo.com (as of October 12, 2009)