It's the dream of every social-issue documentarian: to inspire a happy, ongoing epilogue to one's work, whether through dialogue or action, or improved conditions or relations, or funding for the cause. Mai Iskander's Garbage Dreams, which follows three teenage boys involved with the Spirit of Youth Association, the Cairo-based organization of Zaballeen (Arabic for "Garbage People") as they embark on a journey to turn their century-old recycling trade into a 21st century job, has been the toast of the festival circuit, landing, among other kudos, the 2009 Al Gore REEL Current Award at the Nashville Film Festival, and screening to great acclaim at IDA's DocuWeeks. But this past week at the International Sustainability Conference in Cairo, Islander and her film hit the jackpot: Following a screening of Garbage Dreams, Melanie Walker of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $1 million grant in support of the Spirit of Youth Association.
"This year, since we heard about this film, we invited Mai to come screen the film [Garbage Dreams] for us at our foundation," Walker explained to the audience. "It [Garbage Dreams] is very eye-opening. Because you can hear about it, but then you see it and it becomes very much more real and you can start to think about ways to try to help and be involved. We are privileged to have had that opportunity. . . Our goal is to try empower groups such as these and others around the world."
Ezzat Naem Guindy, executive director of the Spirit of Youth Association, responded, "We are honored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for honoring us as Zaballeen. . . We will use these funds to build the capacity of our team, the capacity of our people, and to spread income generating projects and awareness such as the source segregation campaign . . . So that Garbage Dreams becomes a reality."
The Spirit of Youth Association runs the community-based Recycling School for Zaballeen youth; spreads the concept of waste segregation, recycling and renewable energies; and advocates for the garbage collectors community, in particular their integration into the formal sector of Cairo's solid waste management.
For an interview with Mai Iskander in conjunction with DocuWeeks, click here.
Wildlife fan? Nat Geo's got a project that's right up your alley! As reported in RealScreen, National Geographic Society and National Geographic Channels have announced the undertaking of the largest global television event and cross-platform initiative in the institution's history. Entitled Greatest Migrations, the project includes a seven-hour television mini-series, a 300+ page book, a children's book, iPhone apps, a lecture series and screenings, exhbits, and a series of National Geographic Expedition trips, among other elements. From RealScreen:
"The scope of this project draws upon all of the Society's passion for the natural world," said Michael Rosenfeld, president of National Geographic Television, in a statement. "We are using every resource at our disposal to produce and distribute this spectacular content in a coordinated effort across all media platforms. Many of the planet's great migrations are at risk, so the series is going to illuminate the fragile existence of these great animal movements and inspire a worldwide movement to protect them."
The editors of Newsweek, Maziar, and his bride Paola Gourley would like to thank the thousands of friends, colleagues and well-wishers around the world whose support over the last few months has helped to make this moment possible. Your efforts have been invaluable, and the family is deeply grateful. They ask only that they be allowed some time alone together now after their long and trying separation.
Claims of posing, false captioning, and faking regularly appear in much the same way as they appeared in the 1930s. Clearly, Photoshop is not the cause of these controversies. They predate Photoshop and other modern means of altering photographs by more than a half century. But they allow us to ask an important question. What can we of the Great Recession learn from the photographs of the Great Depression?
ESPN is rolling out the beginning of its ambitious "30 for 30" series--in which the network enlisted 30 filmmakers to make 30 docs about sports to celebrate, yep, 30 years of covering sports.
The series started this month with Kings Ransom (by Peter Berg) about Wayne Gretzky's career with the Los Angeles Kings and featured a film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson about the Baltimore Colts' shocking move in 1984. A doc about Muhammad Ali by Albert and David Maysles premiered tonight. And there's still 26 to go! (If you missed some premieres, don't sweat it, they're repeating on ESPN's various nets for some time.)
The concept came from popular ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, who explains the beginning in one of his usually-entertaining way. "It started out as a one-paragraph e-mail in 2007. And only because I love documentaries.," he writes. "The goal of a well-written piece and a well-done documentary is fundamentally the same: you pick a story that hasn’t been fully explored yet, you throw yourself into it and you make it sing."
Real Screen checked in with ESPN Films exec director Connor Schell to see how it's going. Schell couldn't have been happier about the sucess so far. Seems even couch potatoes can get into the sports thing with these films. From the interview:
They were made for both [sport and documentary fans]. I think we program for sports fans and we try to tell sports stories in all sorts of ways and the documentary form is just another great way to reach them and tell compelling stories. If some of these films reach a different audience and bring them to our network, that's fantastic, but first and foremost we want to just tell great sport stories and let an audience enjoy them.
We couldn't agree more. And with docs about sport analyist Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, to horse racing, to O.J. Simpson's infamous white Bronco car chase and more on tap, we'll be watching.
The International Documentary Association is proud to annouce the following information about the IDA Documentary Awards 2009.
The event will take place on Friday, December 4, 2009 at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. Purchase your tickets now!
On that evening, the IDA will award its prestigious 2009 Career Achievement Award to legendary and innovative filmmaker Errol Morris. Given to a filmmaker who has made a major impact on the documentary genre through a long and distinguished body of work, the IDA Career Achievement Award has previously been awarded to Sheila Nevins, Michael Apted, Ken Burns, Albert Maysles, Haskell Wexler, Michael Moore, and last year’s recipient, Werner Herzog. Part detective, part philosopher, part poet, part iconoclast, Errol Morris is one of the most important and influential non-fiction filmmakers of his generation. His movies have achieved great critical success, and he has received a Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. His artistic journey has resulted in such landmark works as The Thin Blue Line, Standard Operating Procedure and Academy Award Winner The Fog of War.
Host, More Honorees, and Nominees will be announced soon.
Listen up, the IDA is proud to host a screening of Neil Young Trunk Show, the next great concert film that dares to capture rocker Neil Young on and off stage. The Wed. Nov 4, 10:30 pm screening takes place at the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood as part of the AFI FEST 2009. The screening (as are all AFI FEST 2009 screenings) is free.
After months of battling, Dole Food Company, Inc. has announced that it is dismissing its defamation lawsuit against filmmakers Fredrik Gertten, Margarete Jangard and WG Film AB in the Los Angeles Superior Court, relating to the film "Bananas!*." Read about some of the drama here. Dole stated that it made its decision “in light of the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden, although it continues to believe in the merits of its case.” (from indieWIRE)
Hot on the heels of the release of their most recent movie, The Yes Men Fix the World (and a much-publicized stunt involving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), the activists-pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, (known collectively as The Yes Men) are receiving their own channel on Babelgum. The channel will feature behind-the-scenes planning of The Yes Men's pranks and media post-mortems for past stunts not seen in their films, The Yes Men and The Yes Men Save the World. Check it out here: www.babelgum.com/yesmen.B-Side Entertainment announced that it has acquired Alex Vlack and Damani Baker's portrait of soul legend Bill Withers Still Bill, which will be released via the distributor's Theatrical-on-Demand program where individuals and organizations can host a screening of any size, in any location, at any time. Still Bill's website will allow audiences to sign up to host their own screening of the film. (via indieWIRE)
Can we pick 'em or what? A Walk To Beautiful, which won the 2007 IDA Award for Feature Documentary also walked away with an Emmy last month for Outstanding Informational Programming -- Long Form thanks to an airing on NOVA. The filmmakers said thanks with the following release: "Thanks to many of you for watching the film at its initial small screenings, and then at the film festivals - first one then two then 30 and growing - then in theaters during our feature release, additional requested screenings across the country and internationally, and then on television when it was broadcast (in shorter form) on NOVA, and to those of you who supported our efforts in other important ways behind the scenes. Winning the Emmy Award is a huge achievement particularly considering this was produced without major broadcaster support until late in the process and took four years to produce." Missed the movie? Pick up a DVD at http://www.walktobeautiful.com.
Well, if you are Marina Zenovich, director of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, and a panelist on The Digital Documentarian at the Digital Hollywood Fall conference (presented by the IDA), you hit film festival pay dirt and get the distribution deal of a lifetime at Sundance Film Festival. Marina has international distribution with The Weinstein Company, a limited domestic theatrical release by THINKfilms and cable distribution on HBO. Other documentary filmmakers also screening at Sundance that year, including fellow panelist Rebecca Yeldham, producer of Anvil! The Story of Anvil were green with envy at the time as they waited for their own lucrative distribution deals that never materialized. But what I learned sitting and listening to the panel, which also included Matt Tyrnauer (director, Valentino: The Last Emperor), Courtney Sexton (Participant Media) and Scott Hamilton Kennedy (director, The Garden) and moderated by IDA President Eddie Schmidt, is that what seems like pay dirt at the time can actually come with a huge down side: Marina no longer owns the rights to her film. She has no “say so” how the film is marketed or distributed nor can she profit from its future sales.
All of the panelists agreed, including Marina, a filmmaker should never, when at all possible, give up that much control of their film. Rebecca Yeldham, Anvil’s producer, finally did get calls about distributing her film but she felt that the offers were too low and decided go with her gut instinct not to sell the film. She instead decided to self distribute, using social media networks and some very famous fans of the film to promote Anvil which led to screenings with live performances from the band around the country and a band appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Eventually, she sold the DVD and television rights to VH1. Scott Hamilton Kennedy got a distribution deal through Oscilloscope Pictures, which is partly owned by Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Scott was able to maintain some of the rights to his film to The Garden and can sell DVDs of his film from his website and at screenings and yes…pocketing those profits!
Besides talk of money, rights and ups and downs of the business, we attendees got to watch clips of their completed films and works in progress in addition to hearing some great stories about how these films got made. The best stories came from Matt Tyrnauer, director of Valentino, who was advised early on that his crew must all look like male models because the fashion designer, Valentino, must always be surrounded by beautiful things! Furthermore, the crew had a strict dress code, I believe he the mentioned both blazers and slacks. Can you imagine?
More importantly, Matt discussed the equipment and format he shot on and how digital media has revolutionized the art of documentary filmmaking something which all of the panelists agreed on. Can you imagine trying to shoot intimate discussions between a designer and his lover with a 35mm camera? How many cameras would you need for coverage? What could you miss while changing the mag? I could go on but the idea is that digital technology and the web is revolutionizing how we are conceptualizing, executing, promoting and distributing our films and making the once overwhelming task of documentary filmmaking and distribution accessible to all.
Federal Judge Dale Fischer on Monday denied a request for an injunction to block the release of the documentary, which is going wide this week, The Wrap reported. Plaintiff Regina Kimbell is seeking to block the film's release as part of a $5 million lawsuit she filed on Oct. 5.
Kimbell claims there are similarities between Good Hair and her film, My Nappy Roots: A Journey Through Black Hair-itage, which she also claims Chris Rock screened on the set of his TV show Everyboody Hates Chris in 2007. Rock co-produced, co-wrote, narrates and appears in Good Hair, which focuses on African-American hair culture.
“We always knew that it would be tough getting the judge to grant a request for a preliminary injunction," said Kimbell's attorney, Reginald K. Brown. "We are looking forward to going to trial."
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: