ESPN Magazine has come up with its list of Top 10 sports documentaries. It includes Hoop Dreams, When We Were Kings and Murderball to name a few. The whole list is published over at the Stranger than Fiction blog. What are yours?

There will be no 2010 CineVegas Film Festival. Festival President Robin Greenspun and Artistic Director Trevor Groth announced today that the event will be canceled due to the economic downturn. "Given the current economic climate and the pressures it has created, we made the difficult decision to put CineVegas on hiatus for the coming year," Greenspun said in a statement. "CineVegas has become such a well respected film festival, and rather than allow the economy to affect its level of quality we have opted to put the event on hold." (via indieWIRE)

Showtime has picked up a documentary which covers New Jersey hair metal rockers Bon Jovi during the band's 2008 tour, called When We Were Beautiful. We think Jon was more beautiful with that '80s hair, but we'll take this all the same. The doc will debut on Saturday, Oct. 24. (via TV Week)

The San Francisco Film Society announced a partnership with film fundraising website IndieGoGo (indiegogo.com) to provide independent filmmakers access to a greater range of fundraising opportunities. SFFS and IndieGoGo will provide filmmakers a single-platform solution integrating fiscal sponsorship with audience-building and crowd-funding efforts, thus streamlining filmmakers' efforts to raise money and build audiences.

A documentary fan who simply states, "I love documentaries and I love making slideshows set to music" married his two passions together with a fun slideshow set to a Neutral Milk Hotel instrumental track and posted it on his blog. The video features 240 docs he's watched (in order) since he started subscribing to Netflix at the end of 2004 (see, the catalog goes deep). Check it out:

In the days since filmmaker Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland in connection with his 1977 conviction of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles, California, the blogosphere has been electrified with debate about the 76-year-old director's fate. On the one hand, over 100 filmmakers have signed a petition calling for Polanski's release, while Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times documents the sturm und drang from the conservative front, as well as from normally liberal outlets such as The Huffington Post. SpoutBlog's Christopher Campbell rounds up a wide range of opinions from the film world, including The Hot Blog's David Poland, who, in three posts, argues for Polanski's extradition.

And why the arrest now? Stephen Shaefer of the Boston Herald speculates that it was partly due to Marina's Zenovich's Emmy Award-winning Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired , in which former prosecutor David Wells admits on camera to coaching Judge Laurence Rittenbrand about sentencing guidelines, which compelled Polanski's legal team to file a motion to dismiss the case.

But not so fast: Wells yesterday admitted to The Daily Beast's Marcia Clark (the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial) that he had lied in the documentary: "I lied. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did. The director of the documentary told me it would never air in the States. I thought it made a better story if I said I'd told the judge what to do."  Ouch.

Curiouser and curiouser...The New York Post reports that filmmaker Brett Ratner (Rush Hour; The X-Men: The Last Stand) would be producing a sequel to Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which EW.com reports that Zenovich will be directing.

Tune in on Friday, when we report from the screening and Q&A at UCLA-which should be the biggest happening in Westwood since Michael Jackson's death . In the meantime, for a Documentary magazine article on the film, click here.

The Way We Get By, from director Aron Gaudet and producer Gita Pullapilly, has garnered a raft of festival awards this year, including a Special Jury Award at SXSW and an Audience Award at Full Frame. Its latest stop on its festival and self-distribution circuit is Washington, DC, for a special screening Wednesday, September 30, at the North Orientation Theater in the US Capitol.

The film, which profiles a group of senior citizens of Bangor, Maine who have been faithfully greeting soldiers at a tiny Bangor airport as they return home from their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, will screen before an audience of VIPs such as Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden; Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins; Maine Representatives Michael Michaud and Chellie Pingree; and representatives from USO and the Points of Light Institute.

The Way We Get By, of which IDA is a fiscal sponsor, profiles three of the greeters, who, in providing this service for the past five years, have found a purpose in their lives amid their personal struggles with aging, disease, loneliness, memories of war, and personal loss.  The film will air nationally on PBS's P.O.V. series on Veteran's Day, November 11. In addition, through a special partnership with Bay Area Video Coalition, ITVS and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, an interactive, online site, "Returning Home," will be launched on Veterans Day. "Returning Home" will ensure that American soldiers, both newly returned and those whose service ended many years ago, are not forgotten, and that there is a place to share thoughts and memories, as well as a place to find support among a community that began to take shape among senior citizens in Bangor, Maine. This companion site to The Way We Get By continues the mission of the Maine Troop Greeters, taking these gestures internationally.

"This is a very personal story to me," said Aron Gaudet, in a statement. "Witnessing firsthand how my mother's life changed in such positive ways [His mother, Joan Gaudet, is one of the troop greeters in the film.], while at the same time touching the lives of troops from all over the country, convinced me this was a story that could inspire people. I knew it could be a way to show the everyday struggles of senior citizens and an inspirational story of how these three seniors use a simple handshake to change their lives, and the lives of the 900,000-plus troops they've greeted."

For more information about The Way We Get By, click here.

Capitalism: A Love Story ran on just four screens (it's going wide this weekend, starting Oct. 2) and made $240,000. Do a little math and that's an average of $60,000 per screen, which makes it the movie with the highest per-screen average this year.

To put it in perspective, the No. 1 movie at the box office, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (which, don't worry, isn't a doc) made averaged $8,000 per screen.

On top of the weekend dough, add about $9,000 per screen, per day since Capitalism's opening on Wednesday, Sept. 24 (indieWIRE runs those numbers in relation to others, right here) and the total take so far is a little over $300,000.

When Capitalism goes into wide release this week it will run on about 1,000 screens. While you're waiting for that, read all about the film in our Documentary magazine piece: "Love and Luchre: Michael Moore Follows the Money."

It Might Get Loud, Davis Guggenheim's docu-primer on how to be a guitar hero, as conveyed by three certified masters (U2's The Edge, The White Stripes' Jack White and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page), passed the seven-figure mark in box office gross, becoming the seventh doc to do so in 2009. The current U2 blockbuster tour may well have inspired fans to flock to the cinema to watch The Edge trade licks and riffs with his fellow axmen.

The final quarter of 2009 could play itself out as the Battle of the Michaels, with Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story having opened strongly in four theaters this past weekend (it currently has the highest per-screen average of any film this year, about $60,000), the Michael Jackson valediction, This Is It, destined to scorch the box office in its limited run, and the Next Michael Jordan, Lebron James, stoking the press junket circuit with the upcoming More Than A Game, about his national champion high school basketball team.

Here is the latest list of the top-ten grossing docs of 2009:

1) Earth                                               $32,011,576

2) Food, Inc.                                         $ 4,306,466

3) The September Issue                        $ 2,502,000

4) Waltz with Bashir                              $ 2,283,849

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

6) Every Little Step                                $ 1,719,364

7) It Might Get Loud                              $ 1,133,000

8) Tyson                                              $    887,918

9) Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg                    $    790,402

10) The Cove                                       $    770,419

Source: www.boxofficemojo.com

The Documentary Channel® (DOC) announced an exclusive agreement with 7th Art Releasing to televise a collection of 10 flicks from the 7th Art library. The package includes an eclectic assortment of film festival favorites including Word Wars, The Happy Hooker: Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary and What Remains of Us.
In a statement, Udy Epstein, principal of 7th Art Releasing, said, “It's great to bring some of 7th Art's favorite films to The Documentary Channel where good docs are always appreciated and promoted through traditional and new media.  We value greatly the channel's dedication to documentaries.  And our filmmakers love the exposure." The 7th Art Releasing film package will premiere on DOC beginning in November 2009, with specific titles and telecast schedules to be announced at a later date.

Time to Pay Up
The free ride at Variety is coming to an end. As reported on Nikkie Finke and confirmed by PaidContent.org, Variety.com is planning on putting most of its online content behind a paywall next year. The site had done away with its paid-subscription model in early 2007 in order to grow their unique users and go the ad-supported route. Will be interesting to see what that means for those who frequently cite the trades (like us!)...it's no fun to post a link to something readers can't actually access. 

Life on Showtime is Dead
Luckily, This American Life still remains free on the radio...though you won't be able to watch it on Showtime anymore. As reported by FishbowlNY, At a Behind the Scenes event hosted at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y, Life host Ira Glass revealed that the Emmy-nominated and IDA award-winning series will not be continuing.

"Most journalism is about things that already happened, as it turns out," Glass said with a laugh. "But with television, you want to capture it while it's happening. Honestly, what the f**k -- you understand reality shows because it's so hard to make things happen."

This is It Trailer
We'll leave you with some eye candy: the trailer for Michael Jackson's This is It, the film compiled from rehearsal footage from Michael Jackson's tour. Love him or hate him, you have to admit it: the man was damn talented. The film will be released by Sony on October 28 for just two weeks.    
Trailer trivia: At about 1:45 into the trailer, you'll hear a quick quote from Orianthi Panagaris, the young female guitar player who landed the coveted gig on the tour. Panagaris made an appearance at DocuWeeks when she came out to support the film Rock Prophecies and its subject, legendary rock photographer Robert Knight (read IDA's event coverage here).

Michael Moore is in love. It's an aching, make-you-do-crazy-things kind of love, including borrowing a Brinks truck and wrapping Wall Street in crime scene tape, attempting to make citizen's arrests of bankers, criss-crossing the country to woo his intended and even soliciting the advice of several priests and a bishop. He's got it bad.

This is all in an effort to convince the object of his desire that she's been misled and is shacking up with the wrong guy. Who is this muse who's stirred his soul and compelled him to make his latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, which opens today (September 23) in Los Angeles and New York, followed by a nationwide release October 2? "I love America," Moore declared, following a recent pre-release screening in Los Angeles.

It's clear from the movie that he's optimistic about his chances of courting the country and rescuing it from the clutches of the corporations and their bought-and-paid-for political spokesmodels and pundits. "The American people will do the right thing if given the information," he said.

Moore hopes his film will be a catalyst for the changes he thinks are necessary to get the country back on track. Not only does he want to get people into the theaters to see his film, he wants them to get involved "in this great country," he explained. "Democracy is not a spectator sport."

Some people might assume that this 127-minute motion picture journey is an anti-capitalism screed inspired by Karl Marx, but as usual, Moore draws heavily on that other Marx--Groucho--to drive home his points about the failings of our system. After commandeering a Brinks truck, he rolls into Wall Street to cordon off one of the temples of the moneychangers with yellow crime scene tape. He's there to make citizens' arrests and get the people's billions back from those we "rescued" with an unprecedented, ask-no-questions series of loans after they tanked the world's economies.

Moore talks to former Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, who now chairs the Congressional Oversight Committee, which is charged with figuring out where that money went. "The Treasury Department still will not tell her what the banks are doing with our money, or what they've done with it; there's no accountability whatsoever," Moore told the LA audience.

Moore is incensed by the contrast between the way banks treat someone seeking a loan and how they've been protected and been allowed to blithely ignore the public's interest in keeping track of our money. "If you ever try to get a loan, there's all the paperwork you've got to fill out, every personal question they ask you and all this back-up proof of what you're going to do with that loan from the bank," he bemoaned. "The wringer they put the average person through to get a measly ten or 20 thousand dollars...If you're a bank and you want bailout money, it's a two-page form with mostly white space, and three questions."

Making the film, Moore discovered some unexpected glimmers of hope. Approached by a New York City cop while he was stringing the crime scene tape around Wall Street, the filmmaker muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the officer to hear, that he'd be gone in a few minutes and that this was just a stunt for his movie. Hoping this would buy him a few minutes to get the shot and avoid arrest, he was shocked to hear the cop say, "Take all the time you need." Apparently, the police pension fund was decimated by the collapse of the stock market.

Once again, it's clear that Moore's brand of provocation is not about that dreaded "ism" we were schooled to abhor. It's about populism in the vein of such Depression Era luminaries as Will Rogers, Frank Capra and John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath, as opposed to the John Wayne collaborations), with a dose of some Preston Sturges' screwball comedy touches.

This was the era of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is credited with rescuing capitalism by restoring the people's confidence and creating a bulwark of regulations that would keep the system from self-destructing. He also worked to create the safety net of programs that would offer citizens some assurance of a better life. But what most have forgotten is that FDR wanted to take this even further with a second Bill of Rights--an "economic bill of rights" that would guarantee:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;

The right to a good education."

Moore's archive researchers dug up a long lost piece of film showing an aging Roosevelt introducing this proclamation to the American people, which was tacked on to his final State of the Union address, which he delivered January 11, 1945. Roosevelt was ailing and too weak to make the trek to Capitol Hill, so he spoke to the people by radio, but had a film crew standing by to record the ending. The President was preparing the country for the opportunities of a post-war world, and he believed, "All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won, we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens."

Moore contrasts this noble, sweeping vision with the onslaught of the Reagan Revolution, which was hellbent on dismantling the hard-won strictures of the Roosevelt era. While many are unwilling to speak ill of the dead, especially an icon like Reagan, Moore traces his transformation from B-movie hero and spokesman for General Electric into a semi-mythic figure whose public persona of decent, middle-American values was in marked contrast to his policies, which systematically undermined the protections wrought by Roosevelt and put us on the collision course that led to the recent economic collapse.

Defined benefit pension plans became 401Ks with no guarantees. Students had to borrow from banks to go to college. Unions were denigrated and broken, and jobs went overseas.  Real wages stagnated, and we became addicted to credit in order to keep up.

Being an equal opportunity skewerer, Moore gives Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush a drubbing for their roles in continuing to unravel the economic system. He doesn't spare the current occupant of the White House, who has appointed people Moore believes are the architects of the debacle to positions where they are responsible for cleaning up the mess.

"It's so bothersome that Geithner, Summers and Rubin are in charge," said Moore.  "Obama probably didn't understand what a derivative was, either, and was told that, ‘Well, these are smart guys; let's bring them in. They know what to do.' It's disheartening to see these three men in charge of our economy now."

To show us the human cost of these policies, Moore takes us inside the lives of people whose homes are being foreclosed. We see one family burning their furniture to earn a clean-up fee of $1,000 from the bank. It's heartbreaking, and you wonder where the mainstream media have been for the last couple of years. Instead of covering protests against health care reform, why aren't they embedded with those who are losing their homes because they've been crushed by a mountain of medical bills?

"Actually, the number one reason for people being foreclosed upon is because they don't have health insurance, and they've been paying medical bills and now they can't pay their mortgages," Moore maintained, citing a study authored by Elizabeth Warren when she was at Harvard. "Instead we hear, ‘This whole mess was caused by people who were living beyond their means and taking out these loans they shouldn't have been taking out and blah, blah, blah."

Moore is encouraged by the response he's received at screenings at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals and at venues across the country. He's also buoyed by the enthusiastic backing of Overture Films and Paramount Vantage, which are releasing Capitalism: A Love Story. "I'm going to have a larger opening than I've had for any film," said Moore.

Chris McGurk, CEO of Overture, has been a fan of Moore's ever since he saw Roger and Me 20 years ago. Several years later, while at MGM, he had the chance to buy Bowling for Columbine after seeing it at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. McGurk isn't afraid of the fact that Moore has a social agenda. "He's an incredibly bold filmmaker who asks the right questions, no matter what side of the issue you are on," McGurk said in a telephone conversation. Winning Academy Awards, garnering great reviews and selling a mountain of tickets and DVDs doesn't hurt either. 

According to McGurk, the secret to Moore's success is, "He tackles these documentaries in the way the best filmmakers tackle their non-documentaries--he's all about story and character. He latches on to people and ideas and weaves a story around them that is riveting." 

For Moore, success will be people getting involved in the political process after watching his film. "In these times now, we can't just be sitting back," Moore declared at the Los Angeles screening. But he's not starting a new organization. "There are already organizations that are fighting back, but they're small and they need mass support. Let's act like the majority. We have the power, right?"

If you do, you'll help Moore win back the love of his life--America. ;

Michael Rose is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker.

Following high-profile premieres in Venice and Toronto and a flurry of special screenings across the country, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story hits Los Angeles and New York City theaters September 23 through Overture Films and Paramount Vantage.

Here's the opener of a Documentary online article by Michael Rose that includes thoughts and musings from Moore and from Overture Films CEO Chris McGurk:

Michael Moore is in love. It's an aching, make-you-do-crazy-things kind of love, including borrowing a Brinks truck and wrapping Wall Street in crime scene tape, attempting to make citizen's arrests of bankers, criss-crossing the country to woo his intended and even soliciting the advice of several priests and a bishop. He's got it bad.

For the rest of the article, click here.

PBS took six News & Documentary Emmy Awards at the ceremony in New York City last night, with honors going to FRONTLINE, P.O.V., NOVA and Bill Moyers Journal. HBO added to its trophy case of Creative Arts and Primetime Emmys, with four, including two to the Academy Award-winning Taxi to the Dark Side. The leading multi-award winning program was Travel Channel's Wild China, with three awards.

For the complete list of winners, click here.

OUTSTANDING CONTINUING COVERAGE OF A NEWS STORY‑‑LONG FORM

FRONTLINE: Bush's War (PBS)
Executive Producer: David Fanning
Producer/Director: Michael Kirk
Producer/Reporter: Jim Gilmore
Co‑Producer: Mike Wiser

OUTSTANDING INFORMATIONAL PROGRAMMING ‑- LONG FORM

NOVA: A Walk to Beautiful(PBS)
Executive Producer / Producer: Steve Engel
Senior Executive Producer: Paula Apsell
Senior Series Producer: Melanie Wallace Producer/Director: Mary Olive Smith
Co‑Producer: Allison Shigo
Director: Amy Bucher

OUTSTANDING HISTORICAL PROGRAMMING ‑-LONG FORM

Cinemax Reel Life: Nanking(HBO)
Producer/Director: Bill Guttentag
Producers: Michael Jacobs, Ted Leonsis
Co‑Producer: Violet Du Feng
Director: Dan Sturman

OUTSTANDING INTERVIEW

P.O.V.: Inheritance (PBS)

Producer/Director: James Moll
Producer: Christopher Pavlick
Executive Producers: Chris Malachowsky, Ryan Malachowsky, Simon Kilmurry

OUTSTANDING ARTS & CULTURE PROGRAMMING

HBO Documentary Films: The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale (HBO)
Executive Producers: Diana Holtzberg, Sheila Nevins
Supervising Producer: Sara Bernstein
Producer/Director: Jeff Stimmel

OUTSTANDING SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND NATURE PROGRAMMING

National Geographic Channel Presents: Five Years on Mars
Executive Producer: Howard Swartz
Producer/Director: Mark Davis
Senior Vice President, Production: Michael Cascio

BEST DOCUMENTARY

HBO Documentary Films: Taxi to the Dark Side (HBO
Executive Producers: Sidney Blumenthal, Don Glascoff, Robert Johnson, Jedd Wider, Todd Wider
Producer/Director: Alex Gibney
Producers: Eva Orner, Susannah Shipman
Co‑Producers: Blair Foster, Sloane Klevin

NEW APPROACHES TO NEWS & DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMMING: DOCUMENTARIES

The Boys of Christ Child House (Freep.com/Detroit Free Press)
Producer/Senior Videographer: Brian Kaufman
Lead Photojournalist: Kathleen Galligan
Photojournalist: Regina Boone
Executive Producer: Kathy Kieliszewski
Reporter: Robin Erb
Video Executive Producer: Craig Porter
Managing Editor, Digital Media: Nancy Andrews
Web Producer: James Thomas

NEW APPROACHES TO NEWS & DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMMING: ARTS, LIFESTYLE & CULTURE

Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica (Livehopelove.com)
Executive Producer: Jon Sawyer
Co‑Producers: Nathalie Applewhite, Stephen Sapienza
Correspondent: Kwame Dawes
Videojournalist: Doug Gritzmacher
Photojournalist: Joshua Cogan
Interactive Producer: Josh Goldblum

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: WRITING

Bill Moyers Journal: Essays ‑ Gilded Age, It Was Oil, Memorial Day (PBS)
Writers: Bill Moyers, Michael Winship

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: RESEARCH

HBO Documentary Films: Taxi to the Dark Side (HBO
Researchers: Salimah El Amin, Blair Foster

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: CINEMATOGRAPHY‑‑NATURE DOCUMENTARIES

Wild China: Heart of the Dragon (Travel Channel)
Camerapersons: John Aitchison, Mike Lemmon, Justin Maguire, Gavin Newman

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: CINEMATOGRAPHY

FRONTLINE: The War Briefing
Cameraperson: Timothy Grucza

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: EDITING

Wild China: Shangri-La (Travel Channel)
Editors: Andy Netley, Steve Olive

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: GRAPHIC DESIGN & ART DIRECTION

Illicit: The Dark Trade (PBS)
Art Director: Ricardo Andrade
Visual Effects Supervisor: Elizabeth Andrade
Animators: Wen Zhong Yuan, James Nidel
3D Animator: Chris Jennings

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: MUSIC & SOUND

Wild China: Heart of the Dragon (Travel Channel)
Composer: Barnaby Taylor

James Longley, the Academy Award-nominated director of Iraq in Fragments and Sari's Mother, was named one of 24 MacArthur Fellows by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation yesterday. The Fellows will each receive a unrestricted grant of $500,000, amortized over the next five years. What's more, the grant requires no proposal, no application, no reporting, no stipulations--just the freedom and opportunity to continue to make a difference.  The rest of us can keep on dreaming--and fundraising...

"For nearly three decades, the MacArthur Fellows Program has highlighted the importance of creativity and risk-taking in addressing pressing needs and challenges around the globe," said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci in a statement "Through these Fellowships, we celebrate and support exceptional men and women of all ages and in all fields who dream, explore, take risks, invent, and build in new and unexpected ways in the interest of shaping a better future for us all."

Longley, who had been in Iran the past couple of years making a film about a junior high school in the village of Pul, witnessed the post-election uprisings in June (for more, click here.). For both Iraq in Fragments and Sari's Mother, Longley directed, produced, shot, edited and composed the score. His previous film, Gaza Strip (2001) captures life in that occupied Israeli territory, five months after the 2000 Intifada and around the election of Prime Minster Ariel Sharon. Of that film, he wrote, "My idea of a good documentary is a film that captures the most essential aspects of its subject, a film that shows rather than tells. I wanted to make a film that would convey not only the hard facts of life inside the Gaza Strip, but also the emotions, sensations and driving desires of the people I filmed. I made the film to fill a gap in our knowledge and a blind spot in our thinking about this conflict, but more than anything this film is an attempt to record the humanity of the people I met there, the thing that is impossible to tell in words."

Longley studied film at both Wesleyan University and All-Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. His student documentary, Portrait of Boy with Dog, about a boy in a Moscow orphanage, earned a Student Academy Award in 1994. For more information about the filmmaker, click here.

Longley is the eighth documentary filmmaker to earn a MacArthur Genius Grant. The others include Edet Belzberg, Jon Else, Louis Massiah, Errol Morris, Stanley Nelson,  Marcel Ophuls and Frederick Wiseman. For more information about the Fellows Program, click here.