by Peter Knegt

Overture Films and Paramount Vantage have announced that Michael Moore's new documentary feature will be released domestically on October 2, 2009. The as-yet-untitled film will explore the root causes of the global economic meltdown and take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as "the biggest robbery in the history of this country"--the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

"The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth," Moore said in a statement. "They wanted more--a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie."

Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett, Overture's CEO and COO respectively, previously worked with Moore when they oversaw the release of Bowling for Columbine at MGM/United Artists.

"Everyone can relate to this subject matter and all have been affected," said McGurk and Rosett in a statement. "We think there should be plenty of people interested in hearing Michael's take on how exactly we got here and what we can do to move forward."

Moore's new documentary, his first since 2007's Sicko, was first announced by Overture and Paramount Vantage International in May 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival and production began shortly afterward.

John Lesher, President of Paramount Film Group, added: "Michael is a master at capturing the most timely and critical issues shaping our world today. His unique, thought-provoking method of filmmaking is sure to bring dynamic insights into the state of the global economy that will have mass appeal to audiences worldwide." The release date is a year and a day after the United States Senate voted to hand Wall Street a $700 billion bailout.

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

Keep up with Michael Moore at his website www.michaelmoore.com

Related Links:
See filmmaker Michael Moore talk about a plan to get more documentaries into movie theaters at the IDA's DocuDay 2008 event.

See filmmaker Michael Moore and producer Meghan O'Hara talk about their Oscar-nominated film Sicko at the IDA's DocuDay 2008 event.

SnagFilms Founding CEO Rick Allen wrote about the project on The Huffington Post.

Sadly, just as Christmas and Hanukkah for far too many have become associated with nothing so much as shopping and parties, Memorial Day for some has been bleached of meaning, merely the first of summer's three long weekends, kicked off by the Indy 500. When that checkered flag drops at the Brickyard, the season of Hollywood blockbusters will have already commenced, with Avatars battling Monsters vs. Aliens for box office supremacy. But it is up to each of us to engage in the bigger battle, for mindshare and individual action -- and Memorial Day is a great first beachhead...

...That's why SnagFilms is presenting a slate of films this Memorial Day weekend that enable us all to honor the fallen, and to reflect on our own duties of remembrance and conduct. As always, the non-fiction films we offer are free to view online, and you can easily "snag" any widget from the SnagFilms site to create a "virtual movie theater" on your own website, blog, or page on Facebook, MySpace or other social network...

You can see all of the Memorial Day-focused films, grab the widget for your own site and more on SnagFilms.

Also, read about our special alliance with SnagFilms here.

In honor of the release, indieWIRE re-posted a first person account by Ostergaard (originally from the UK newspaper The Guardian) about his journey creating the movie.

He writes:

Burma VJ was supposed to be a modest little film: a half-hour, low-key yet intimate portrait of Joshua, a 26-year-old Burmese video journalist, or VJ. Joshua had decided to do his bit for a better Burma by taking his video camera, usually concealed, on to the streets of Rangoon to document what he could of everyday life. When we started work on the project, in early 2007, the footage Joshua was able to show us was, frankly, totally uneventful: little reports on street kids, life in his village, the miserable state of the railways...

...I felt his charismatic commentary, coupled with this footage, would open a tiny peephole on to this isolated, almost forgotten country...Instead, we ended up crashing right through the main gate.

Read the full account on INDIEwire here.

Check out the trailer on our site and get more information about the movie on the official Burma VJ website.

Twitter is the most powerful, bang-for-the-buck tool available to filmmakers, period. In fact it’s the most powerful tool for marketing anything that I’ve seen in years. If you’re not using it to promote your film and your career, you are leaving money, power and fame on the table! No joke.

If you still don’t quite “get” Twitter, and think it’s a silly fad, or that it’s just for telling strangers that you’re thirsty, prepare to be converted!

What You Used To Have To Do

In the recent past, to gain access to your interested audience, you had to get them to “opt in” to your mailing list somehow. To do that, you’d need to pay a web designer, pay a web developer, pay monthly for web hosting, pay monthly for an email management software… and spend god-knows-how-long in design meetings and calls, writing copy for all the web pages, proofing, and then writing compelling newsletters every week.

That process takes as long to get through as that run-on sentence. Now, along comes Twitter, and suddenly you can create a list of hundreds or thousands of “opt-in” followers whom you can access 24 hrs a day. You can reach them with nimble and timely messaging, and you can create warm, trusting 2-way relationships with them.

Before you know it, your target audience actually becomes your marketing department!

For free!

But What IS It?

Twitter is a tool that lets people follow the “tweets” of others, and lets others follow your tweets. A tweet is anything you write that is under 140 characters; like a question, a remark about something you’re seeing, or a link to an interesting article.

When you follow someone, every time they tweet, it appears on your page. Once you’re following dozens or hundreds of people, your page is continuously updating with interesting thoughts, quotes and links.

How To Start?

It’s easy to get started in the Twittersphere!

1. People relate to people, not titles
2. This exercise’s goal is to enhance your whole career, not just the fortunes of one film
3. If you sell the film, there could be rights issues with using the title
Congratulations, you now have your Twitter account. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Now, if you wish, Twitter will search your email contacts to see if anyone you know has a Twitter account so you can follow them. I recommend doing it. It’s not specifically relevant to finding niche audience for your current film, but it is relevant to connecting with people who are fans of YOU.

You can then follow instructions to set up your mobile phone. In Parts II and III, I’ll share how I use an iPhone app to use Twitter via my phone.

You! Who?

Now click on “Settings” on the menu bar at the top, and fill in ALL your info. Statistics show that people with a picture get many more followers, as do people with a bio, as do those who include their website. The more specific information you include about you, the more successful you will be on Twitter!

For your bio, you only get 160 characters (that includes spaces!) so you’ve gotta be pithy. Remember the goal of this enterprise: to find and connect with people who will be attracted to your film and to you.

So, with that in mind, describe at least a couple of different facets of you that cut across the professional and personal. For example, my bio reads: “Empowerer of independent filmmakers. Eternal learner. Chocolate: yes. Chili powder: no.”

Get it? If your film is a documentary about endangered tigers, but you also are an expert knitter, mention it! Sharing people’s contradictions is part of what makes relating enjoyable. Overcome your fear that you’ll seem weird, and flaunt it! If you can add a conversation starter, even better!

Now, Tweet!

Go ahead - you can always delete. But what to tweet? Remember, you’re trying to be interesting to your target audience (fans of your film and of you). So using that as your guide, I recommend Guy Kawasaki’s advice: Always Be Linking. Find a favorite blog that relates to your film, or to filmmaking in general, and post a link to it.

Search For Fun And Profit

Now, for the meat: accumulating followers in your niche audience. Do this with the Search function (in the box at the right). Search for terms that relate to the theme of your film. You’ll find all the instances that people are mentioning those terms in their tweets. Guess what? There’s a good chance they’re interested in your film’s core themes!

Follow them. In the culture of Twitter, most people will follow you back. Many people feel that it’s just rude not to. Before you know it, you’ll be following and followed by hundreds of people in your target market.

Learn And Do

Spend some time with all the functionalities of Twitter. Read others’ tweets. Get the hang of it. Learn. And you’ll grow into a pro. Of course, follow me, too! I look forward to getting to know you.

Soon I’ll elaborate on this discussion, with 3rd party apps, communication, and strategies for building your follower list.

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/adamchapnick.

This article was originally posted by Adam Chapnick on blog.diydistribution.com.

"We found the people driving along the roads, going into bars, going into different locations," explains Lynch of the experience that had a loose plan and just allowed the subjects to tell their story.

New episodes will premiere every three days over one year. You can sign up on the site for a reminder. You know, we're gonna.

Lynch hopes viewers take the following away from the Interview Project: "[It's] a chance to meet these people. It's something that's human and you can't stay away from it."

For more information go here.

News tidbits from the doc world this week:

Reviews and press have been glowing for the extremely personal doc, Farrah's Story, which airs on Friday, May 15 from 9-11 PM ET on NBC. The doc examines the Charlie's Angels star's battle with cancer and was filmed with her own home video recorder. But an ugly lawsuit has just popped up by a producer claiming rights to the project. (via Yahoo! News)

Good Hair, a look at African American hair culture staring Chris Rock, has been picked up by Roadside Attractions and Liddell Entertainment after winning the Special Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary during its Sundance premiere this year. (via indieWIRE)

Shadow Distribution has acquired North American distribution rights for I Bring What I Love: Youssou Ndour, a doc which follows the highest selling African musical artist of all time Youssou Ndour as he releases a deeply personal and religious album called Egypt. (via indieWIRE)

Terry Gilliam is getting back on that horse. Nine years after the disastrous events of trying to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote led to the tough-to-see doc Lost in La Mancha, he's teamed with Oscar-winning British producer Jeremy Thomas for another go. Yeah, good luck with that. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

In the wake of wildly popular Planet Earth, Discovery Channel is planning another high-def documentary nature series that is sure to put your Blu-Ray player to good use. First up is the seven-part Wild Planet: North America (working title). (via The Hollywood Reporter)

On May 8, 2009, The Copyright Office completed testimonies in support of International Documentary Association’s (IDA) request to exempt documentary filmmakers from the criminal provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The request would allow IDA members to break the encryption on DVDs for the purpose of making fair use of material on the DVD in a specific documentary in which substantial production has taken place. IDA was represented by its former President, Michael C. Donaldson, and the USC Intellectual Property Legal Clinic.

Kartemquin Films Creative Director Gordon Quinn and his longtime colleague, Jim Morrissette, spoke on behalf of a coalition of filmmakers and film organizations that support the proposed exemption. The hearings took place over the course of four days. IDA’s discussion was held on May 7. The hearing was open to the press.

The MPAA used a camcorder to support their point that the exemption was not necessary. Jim Morrissette made an eloquent presentation, which demonstrated that only a direct copying from a DVD filled the need of the documentary filmmaker.

The Copyright Office posed questions challenging the MPAA and questions directed to filmmakers’ position. There will almost certainly be additional written questions issued by The Copyright Office.

Donaldson and the USC IP Clinic, led by Professor Jack Lerner, will be responsible for answering these questions. Donaldson pointed out that USC law students Chris Perez and Ashlee Lin did most of the work in drafting the necessary documentation and preparing the witnesses. After considering the responses of all the parties, The Copyright Office will make its recommendation in the Fall. The Library of Congress has, historically, accepted the recommendation of The Copyright Office. The decision is due October 28 but it can be extended, if necessary.

Documentary filmmakers depend on fair use and public domain works to craft their films and fulfill an important cultural role. Yet their ability to make these uses is being suppressed by the DMCA’s prohibition on circumvention.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures, including the encryption technology commonly employed on DVDs. Because of this prohibition, many documentary filmmakers who want to make fair use of material, or use public domain material, cannot do so because they can only obtain that material from DVDs—but they are concerned about whether circumventing this technology is illegal.

Every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office conducts a rulemaking process to assess whether this ban on circumvention interferes with no infringing uses of copyrighted materials. If the Copyright Office finds that legal uses of a particular class of works are being thwarted by the DMCA, it grants a three-year exemption from DMCA liability for that class of works. The exemption that this coalition of filmmakers and filmmaker groups seeks will restore their ability to make fair use and to use public domain works in the digital age.

The organizations and filmmakers who have joined together on this issue largely represent the cornerstones of the documentary filmmaking community in the U.S. Collectively, this group has garnered Peabody Awards, Academy Award nominations, National Board of Review honors, Sundance Film Festival Awards, MacArthur Foundation recognition for excellence and some of the most honorable international distinctions in film over the past 50 years.

The coalition includes:

International Documentary Association
Kartemquin Educational Films
Film Independent
Independent Feature Project
National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
University Film and Video Association
Robert Bahar
Kirby Dick
Arthur Dong
Jeffrey Levy- Hinte
David Novack
Morgan Spurlock

by Eugene Hernandez

Kirby Dick's new documentary, Outrage, continued to skirt controversy and stir debate in its opening weekend in U.S. theaters, particularly among some media circles. As the film opened, NPR trimmed its review of the film, cutting mentions of the American political figures depicted in the movie. Critic Nathan Lee subsequently removed his byline from the article in protest and lodged a comment on the NPR site, which was also quickly removed by NPR executives.

This came amidst a simmering debate about Dick's decision to pursue and name politicians believed to be closeted homosexuals in the film, specifically those whose public voting record counters the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans. And it seems to support charges by Dick, made in the film, that the mainstream media has a history of handling stories of politicians same-sex orientations with kid gloves.

Citing a policy of protecting the privacy of public figures, an NPR superior cut the names of current Florida governor Charlie Crist and former Senator Larry Craig from the review after writer Nathan Lee and his assigning editor at NPR had agreed on the text of the piece. However, a photo of Larry Craig accompanies the review and says that the former Senator is a subject of the documentary. It also hints strongly at the inclusion of Crist in the doc.

Lee was not told of the NPR policy about public figures when he was assigned to review the new film.

"NPR has a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures and of not airing or publishing rumors, allegations and reports about their private lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so," Dick Meyer, NPR’s executive director of Digital, told indieWIRE late Sunday night. "This may be considered old-fashioned by some, but it is a policy we value and respect. We neglected to inform the author of the Outrage review about this policy when the piece was commissioned, a simple oversight we regret."

"Only an overriding public need to know can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy," the NPR policy, posted on its website.

"The interesting thing is that all this stuff has been out there," explained Eamonn Bowles, head of the film’s distributor, Magnolia Pictures, in a conversation with indieWIRE today. He noted that the gay press has been covering these stories for years, but the mainstream media has refused. He added that, while the movie has generated a lot of attention from the press, some mainstream outlets, including two national networks, have declined to cover the allegations in the film.

"It's not about outing," Bowles noted today, reiterating a point being made continuously by filmmaker Kirby Dick (see related indieWIRE interview), "It's about hypocrisy, people are saying one thing and doing another."

"The entire point of Outrage is that there is an 'overriding public need to know' about the kinds of men profiled in Outrage,' film critic Nathan Lee told indieWIRE on Sunday, "Let's say Charlie Crist had a record of voting for vigorous anti-immigration policies, and then it was rumored that he employed illegal immigrants. The press would have absolutely no qualms investigating him to the hilt in the public interest of exposing hypocrisy. Why should it be any different in the case of possibly gay public figures who vote against the civil rights of gay people, or, in the case of HIV/AIDS funding, their very life and death?"

At the end of the revised review, NPR added a disclaimer to the piece, "Given the nature of this film's media critique and the NPR editorial policy described above, the writer has asked that his byline be removed from this review."

Upset that his review of Outrage was re-cut after he and his editor had agreed on the text, Lee posted a comment at the end of the article on the NPR website. "I asked that my name be removed in protest of NPR's policy of not 'naming names' of closeted or rumored-about politicians - even those who actively suppress gay rights, and thus whose sexual identities are of significant importance to the press," Lee wrote in his comment, posted on Friday night.

It was subsequently removed by NPR superiors.

"I took my name off the review as a matter of principle both as a journalist and an out gay man," Nathan Lee told indieWIRE on Sunday. "Readers of the review should know the reason WHY the name has been redacted, which NPR is not allowing me to do on the comment section, and has made unclear in the disclaimer emended to the review. It has been suggested by one commenter on the site that the author is, in fact, closeted! I felt it important to clarify why the review stands as it does."

"I personally disagree with NPR’s policy - there is no other area of 'privacy' that elicits such extreme tact," Lee continued in his comment that was excised from the NPR website. "And also feel that it is a professional affront to my responsibility as a critic to discuss the content of a work of art, and an impingement of my first amendment right to free speech and the press."

This news item is brought to you by a special partnership between the IDA and indieWire and Snagfilms. For more on Outrage and Kirby Dick's thoughts on the media's reaction to the film, see documentary.com's article on the film: click here. 

For more on Outrage: 
-See documentary.com's article on Outrage, featuring Kirby Dick's thoughts on the media's reaction to the film
-Read Movieline's article about NPR's past history of speculating on the sexuality of public figures — seems it's ok when it's an entertainer...

What do former New York City mayor Ed Koch, Florida governor Charlie Crist, retired Idaho Senator Larry Craig and Republican Congressman David Dreier have in common? All are "outed’ in Kirby Dick’s new film Outrage, which was just released by Magnolia Pictures on May 8.

Outrage shines a light on those politicians who have repeatedly voted against gay civil rights legislation, yet who are allegedly gay themselves. More than just a film about who’s hiding in the closet, the documentary is about hypocrisy and how it distorts the political process. In what seems to be an attempt to distance themselves from any sort of homosexual identification, the politicians profiled in the film repeatedly vote against funding for AIDS research, gay marriage rights and adoption by gay parents. By exploring this territory, what could have just been a lascivious curiosity of a film becomes a documentary with meaning and depth that goes beyond just a tale of who supposedly did what with whom.

Says the Academy Award-nominated Mr. Dick, “One of the things that attracted me to the film was the whole ethics of outing. What we do in our film is we don’t out closeted politicians. We report on the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who vote anti-gay. I feel that that’s not only something that one has a right to do, but I think it’s the responsibility of journalists – and in this case, of the documentary filmmaker. Because if you don’t report on hypocrisy, then it just continues.”

His feelings are in sync with those of Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass), who states, “"There is a right to privacy, there's no right to hypocrisy." Frank is one of the few gay Congressmen who came out of the closet of his own accord while still in office. His appearance in Outrage, along with those of former NJ governor James McGreevey and former Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, helps audiences to understand the personal costs of staying in the closet.

by Peter Knegt

The 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival handed out their awards in Toronto tonight, at a ceremony hosted by the CBC's Jian Ghomeshi (of this fame). Simon El Habre's The One Man Village and Hubert Davis's Invisible City were the recipients of the fest's two big prizes, with Village taking the Best International Feature Award and City winning the Best Canadian Feature Award. In all ten awards, including those for Festival films in competition and those recognizing emerging and established filmmakers, were presented and over $60,000 in cash prizes was handed out.

The One Man Village, produced in Lebanon, looks at the last inhabitant of a Lebanese village that was destroyed and deserted after the civil war. Hot Docs' jury stated: "Exceptional clarity in the filmic storytelling of a simple man in the Lebanese highlands, told with great empathy and even more skill. This film is an enchanting and gripping film and at once a pleasant and powerful experience." The Best International Feature Award is sponsored by A&E and comes with a $10,000 cash prize, courtesy of Hot Docs.

Invisible City, co-produced by the National Board of Canada, follows the lives of two black teenagers over three years as they navigate issues of race, crime and notions of manhood in Toronto’s Regent Park community. Said the jury: "The Award goes to a film that weds form and content with extraordinary grace and intelligence. It is no small feat to maintain a focus on the raw material of real human experience while honouring the documentary as a cinematic art form. Because it does all these things, and because it maintains the dignity of its subjects' lives while asking difficult questions about the conditions under which those lives are lived, the jury has chosen Hubert Davis's Invisible City as the best Canadian feature." The Best Canadian Feature Award is sponsored by the Documentary Organization of Canada and the Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation and comes with a $15,000 cash prize courtesy of the Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation.

Special Jury Prize winners in both categories were Peter Kerekes' Czech Republic-Slovakis co-production Cooking History, which won for International Feature and Kevin McMahon’s Waterlife, which took the jury prize for a Canadian Feature.

Additionally, the Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF)--which runs concurrent with Hot Docs--announced first-ever Canwest-Hot Docs TDF Pitch Prize, awarded to the best Canadian pitch presented during the Forum. International commissioning editors at the TDF table voted by secret ballot on the seven Canadian projects presented, ultimately awarding the $40,000 prize to Toronto's White Pine Pictures for their project The Team. The award was presented at the TDF closing reception by Sarah Jane Flynn, Canwest’s director of factual content, to The Team's team, executive producer Peter Raymont and director Patrick Reed. The award funds will be used for the film’s production.

Other winners at the Hot Docs' ceremony included Bartek Konopka’s Rabbit a la Berlin, which won Best Mid-Length Documentary, Kara Blake's The Delian Mode, which won best Short Documentary, and Chung-ryoul Lee, director of Old Partner, who won the HBO Emerging Artist Award. "This film has the charm of the classic fairy tale," the jury said of Partner. "Conveying the universal rhythms of life, death and rebirth with simplicity and dignity. In the story of a farmer, his wife, and the ox they depend on, the filmmaker has found a universal tale told in the most intimate fashion."

The Don Haig Award, presented annually to an emerging Canadian documentary filmmaker, was awarded to Montreal's Brett Gaylor (RiP! A Remix Manifesto). The Don Haig Jury also named Montreal's Tracey Deer (Club Native) a runner up for the Award. Each filmmaker received a $10,000 cash prize. Meanwhile, The Lindalee Tracey Award, which honours "an emerging Canadian filmmaker with a passionate point of view, a strong sense of social justice and a sense of humour," was presented to two filmmakers: Montreal's Laura Bari and Ottawa's Will Inrig. Each filmmaker received a cash prize of $3000 from the Lindalee Tracey Long-Term Fund and $1500 in film stock, courtesy of Kodak Canada.

The Hot Docs Board of Directors presented this year's Outstanding Achievement Award to Alanis Obomsawin, who’s latest film, Professor Norman Cornett--Since When Do We Divorce The Right Answer From An Honest Answer? is its world premiere later this evening.

The Hot Docs Festival Jury consisted of:

Canadian Features: Nahid Persson Sarvestani, filmmaker; Sky Sitney, director of programming, SILVERDOCS; Geoff Pevere, columnist, The Toronto Star.

International Features: John Greyson, filmmaker; Cara Mertes, director of the Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute; Esther van Messel, CEO, First Hand Films.

Short and Mid-Length Films: Sara Diamond, president, Ontario College of Art and Design; Marie-Anne Raulet, director, Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal; Jean Marie Téno, filmmaker.

An additional award, the Hot Docs Audience Award, along with Hot Docs top ten audience favorites, will be announced on Monday, May 11.

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