Docs Rock is a joint effort combining the LAUSD, the IDA and the Department of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles. The object of this unique curriculum is to provide students with an opportunity to study and create documentary films. The curriculum has been granted admission status for the University of California Admission Standards.

See pictures from last year's event here.

Also, the shorts are now available on the IDA website. Click on the titles below to see them.

After 10:00: The LA City curfew ordinances, requiring teenagers off the streets by 10:00 P.M., is a source of great consternation for the teenagers of San Pedro, where the ordinance is enforced with great vigor. This documentary examines both sides of the issue and attempts to explain the views of many involved in this contentious issue.

Community Voices: This portrait of the Northwest Neighborhood council looks at the influence, plans and accomplishments of this civic-minded group. The film shows how the group had benefited the community and the new improvements they plan to start, including a controversial park project.

Living History: Civil War re-enactments are an unusual hobby, especially in California where no significant battles of the War Between the States ever took place. Nevertheless, men, women and children dress up in period costume and re-enact this period of American history in amazing detail. This film examines the people involved in re-enactments and studies their motivation for this most unusual historical hobby.

Metamorphosis: The raging tragedy in Darfur has had a major impact on San Pedro student Tim Do. Mr. Do, viewed by his peers in a variety of diverse ways, shares with us his insights about the urgency of helping others and the things that motivate him to aid people who don’t even know he exists. But, he knows them.

To Be Or Not To Be: This piece examines the world of the paranormal. Amateur ghost investigators take the film crew on a hunt for spirits, while church points of view about ghosts and goblins are examined in a truthful and frank discussion with a community priest. This film seeks to examine the phenomenon that keeps us all wondering.

To attend the screening or get more information about Doc Rocks, email Tony Saavedra at ACS4731@lausd.net or check out the Docs Rock Facebook page.

Stacy Peralta's Crips and Bloods: Made in America, which airs May 12 on PBS' Independent Lens, seems like a radical departure for a filmmaker who's known for exploring skateboarding and surfing subcultures. Peralta, director of Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants, takes leave of his comfy white environs to explore the life and mostly death stories of the Crips and Bloods, Los Angeles' most notorious gangs. Peralta brings a historical perspective to the issue, revealing the early alienation among the Black community--particularly young Black men who weren't allowed to join traditional organizations such as the Boy Scouts, leading them to form their own "social clubs," bereft of adult guidance and structure.

For better or for worse--mostly worse--the clubs became a source of fraternal and familial support as economic conditions declined, fathers deserted families and social networks disappeared, forming the fabric of disillusionment fed by constant police oppression, leading to the Watts riots in 1965 and the Rodney King riots in 1992. Peralta explores the evolution from the Black Power movement of the 1960s and early '70s to today's self-destruction of Black males through the decades-long "war" between the Bloods and Crips-two main rival gangs that have claimed approximately 15,000 lives to date, and the fighting continues.

Documentary caught up with Peralta via e-mail.

This seems like a big change of subject from that of your previous films.  Why Crips and Bloods?

Stacy Peralta: I was born and raised in LA and have been aware of gang violence my entire life. In fact, I experienced gang violence at my high school in West LA--they shut it down for two days in my senior year as a result of things getting out of control. As a documentary filmmaker, I was eager to understand why this problem has been going on, unsolved, for over four decades. 

Clearly, as an educated white male of some affluence, you come from a different world than the Crips and Bloods. Did you have any issues being perceived as an "outsider?"

I thought I was going to be perceived as an outsider, but that did not happen. I was received with consideration. Many asked me why I was making the film, and they thanked me for doing it, thanked me for coming to their community and asked me not to disappear when the film was complete. I did not expect this kind of reception, but I certainly welcomed it.

Did you show the film to the gang members who participated in your project? If so, what was their reaction?

Yes, I did, and their reactions have been very strong and positive. Many have told me that prior to seeing the film, they had no idea of their own history. Many have said they want their family members to see the film, and so on.

It seems as though the LAPD and the politicians at large have been less responsive to the killings, given that they've been "black-on-black." Did you consider finding someone who would speak to this issue? It seems more would get done if the crimes were "black-on-white." Based on your findings, would you agree with this hypothesis?

Yes. I actually have interview material of various individuals stating this very idea, but I could not find an appropriate place in the film to drop it in. It's a huge subject unto itself, and it would have taken a lot of time to discuss it.

Resolving the Crips and Bloods wars is a Herculean task that requires major funding. But there seems to be a disconnect between the Crips and Bloods, who seem oblivious that they are instruments of their own destruction--saving the police the effort. Why are they not able to pull together and save themselves?

Your question is posed by someone who has clearly had the opportunity of being properly educated, thus allowing you to reason and think with perspective. Most of these young men have not graduated from high school; most have been born not only into broken families but to teenage parents; very few have ever held real jobs or had access to real jobs; and all of them have grown up in communities where acts of violence are an everyday occurrence. 

I understand the gang problem runs deeper than the Bloods and Crips. Why did you skirt the subject of the interracial gang problem between blacks and Latinos, which has overtaken the rivalry between the Bloods and Crips?

I didn't skirt it. There are many films to be made on this subject. I chose to focus on the Crips and Bloods.

Were there any surprises during the shooting or post-production that changed the direction of Made in America?

We kept running into history, and as a result there is more history in the film than I had originally intended.

Made in America is going to air on PBS' Independent Lens. How did that come about? Did you choose them or were you approached by PBS?

We chose to go with Independent Lens because they really know how to handle films such as ours. They do it like no one else, and we are really glad to be in business with them.

This was a bold film that required a deep understanding and awareness of a much-maligned and feared subculture. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

I make films about subjects that I personally want to view and know more about.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America airs May 12 on PBS' Independent Lens.

Filmmaker and former Documentary editor Kathleen Fairweather is based in Austin, Texas. She can be reached at kfairweather@verizon.net.

Hiding in plain sight, the clandestine videographers of Burma VJ risk their lives to capture all-too-real and terrible footage: the severe repression of Burma's populace by the Southeast Asian country's 47-year-old military junta (officially renamed Myanmar in 1988 by the regime).

In August 2007, scores of Buddhist monks led peaceful protests in the capital city of Pyinmana; in reprisal, many were beaten, maimed and/or killed by government authorities. A Japanese photographer was also shot and killed; an image of that shocking moment made front pages worldwide. Unconfirmed numbers of Burmese were imprisoned. All this happened at street level, remarkably captured by a team of citizen journalists, armed with nothing more than Sony mini-cams and digital tape.

Danish director Anders Østergaard was approached to shoot a documentary in Burma, but he quickly realized the drama would be about getting the story, rather than about Burma itself. "We knew if we flew in ourselves, the film would be about problems we had in shooting; it would be about the crew somehow," Østergaard explains. "Once we realized that there were people inside, I thought they could get footage we would never get, and all their stories and circumstances would make for an interesting story and angle to the country."          

He soon learned how interesting and important that story would be. Sponsored by several Scandinavian aid groups, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) trains and equips citizen journalists to shoot within Burma, which is effectively closed to Western news organizations. There is no independent or free press in Burma; the government controls all media. The DVB distributes its videos to news organizations like CNN and the BBC, and posts material on its website (www.dvb.no/).

Østergaard initially met the DVB crew and the film's protagonist, Joshua (a pseudonym), before the 2007 uprising, when the group was on a training session in Bangkok, Thailand. At that time, Burma was quiet and totally suppressed. "We were thinking we might make a half-hour human interest story about Joshua or about life in his village or the general living conditions of Burma," recalls the director. "But there was a complete turnaround, and the story heated up when the spontaneous uprising by Buddhist monks began with marches through city streets." The DVB's videographers were in the center of the action, putting their lives at risk to capture footage that could potentially change the course of the nation.

At that key moment, a major twist appeared that seemed to derail the project: For his own safety, Joshua fled to Thailand. Although frustrated by his exit from the scene, Østergaard was able to use that distance dramatically, by dynamically structuring the film around Joshua's attempts to keep in touch with colleagues. Security concerns, and aesthetic problems connected to that, became the filmmakers' major challenges. 

"How we could get people to get in touch with these characters without seeing their faces was problem number one," explains Østergaard. Joshua's face and those of other VJs are always obscured; Joshua is often shot in relief or from behind as he converses or e-mails with the others from his secret safe house in Thailand. "The telephone conversations turned out to be quite dramatic, even intimate somehow," Østergaard continues. "I like how we dissolved the group into this collective psyche; the group is working together, calling each another, criss-crossing, merging into one protagonist."

Events unfold via a mix of vérité footage and re-enactments of Joshua's conversations with his compatriots. He also serves as narrator. Østergaard explains he prefers to use a character's voice for narration, as it draws in the audience. "You have a higher identification, not some abstract voice teaching you how things are. Characters are allowed to somehow color their language, to use broader expressions or verbal expressions, which will give you a better understanding; as the storyteller you need this color, this liberty." Rather than an objective and dry voiceover track, Joshua's narrative conveys facts and emotions at the same time as Burma VJ's hybrid of the political and the personal unfolds.

"There are so many levels going on," says David Courier, programmer at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Prize; the film also earned the Joris Ivens and Movies that Matter Awards at IDFA. "The film plays like a thriller; it's an edge-of-your seat kind of story," he continues. "The fact that these people are putting their lives on the line to expose abuses in their country, risking their lives to get the truth out, which could save other lives, is incredibly emotional in a way, and downright scary to watch."  

According to Courier, the film tells an important story, and in comparison to Tibet's 50-year struggle for freedom, one that audiences may not know. Østergaard finds that people do have an idea of Burma's travails and "a vague memory of Aung San Suu Kyi, the lady with flowers in her hair, fighting the generals," he notes, adding that the film is definitely bringing the struggle to the world's stage, a political role for the filmmakers that is daunting.

Although he fears for reprisals against the three VJs imprisoned by the military dictators, the DVB recognizes it as a necessary risk, as the exposure gained from the film multiplies what they accomplished and has inspired others to videotape events such as the devastating Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and the government's inadequate efforts to aid its people.

Audience response to the film has been emotional, enthusiastic and overwhelming, according to Østergaard. Wherever the film plays, the Burmese fight for freedom resonates. "Because of the direct nature of this footage, you don't need a lot of cultural codes to break it or understand it," the director explains. "It goes straight into the heart somehow."

Burma VJ will be screening as part of DocuDays LA on Saturday, March 6 at 7:45 p.m. at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills and DocuDays NY on Sunday, March 7 at 2:45 p.m. at the Paley Center for Media.

Kathy A. McDonald is a Los Angeles-based writer and an IDA member.

A food-styling singing cowboy, a surfing Internet entrepreneur, a treasure-hunting used car salesman, a Mormon Bishop, and a pack-rat of epic proportions walk into a documentary...

Far from a joke, but well conscious of its own wry humor, first-time director Darius Marder's Loot, which airs May 20 on HBO, is a magically meditative vérité journey with three men: an amateur treasure hunter (Lance Larson) and two American World War II veterans (Darrel and Andy, the Mormon Bishop and the pack-rat, respectively), both of whom stashed separate treasures in far-away places, long since forgotten, before returning home at war's end. While ostensibly about the two parallel hunts for these treasures over half a century after their burials, Loot is actually an investigation into the hunts themselves, and their poignant rewards are unearthed in the form of torturous memories, mystifying synchronicities, rich character studies, seemingly banal moments at places like Denny's, and America's naturally deteriorating understanding of World War II and the Depression.

Documentary spoke with Marder by phone and discovered a rigorous craftsman guided by an abiding appreciation for "the magic of life."

Documentary: What's the story behind how you came to this story?

Darius Marder: Well, it's funny, I'm actually taking a walk in the park right now, which is where I met the guy who connected me with the story [Dan Campbell, the executive producer of Loot.]. It was at a time in my life when I was dreaming about film, but I was in the grind. I was a chef at the time, doing food-styling. I just had this realization that it wasn't going to happen if I kept doing that work. And so I quit everything.

I walked out into Central Park, and a guy sat down next to me and we started to have a conversation as we were watching our kids in the sandbox. He said, "I've always thought that this would make a great film..." And he starts to describe Lance [the main character of Loot], who knows this mostly blind veteran, and they want to find the treasure that the guy left in World War II. And I just thought, "Wow. This is perfect." I looked into his eyes and said, "I want to make that film." And he said, "Well, cool. I'll produce it...Have you made a film before?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Perfect." He didn't even know what being a producer meant. I think he knows now that he basically pays for it. We flew out a couple days later, committed whole hog and never looked back.

D: I think there's a kind of analogous harmony between you coming into the story the way you did and the way that you tell the story; they're both very intuitive, shared processes. The film itself seems to be a metaphor for vérité documentary filmmaking.

As a storyteller, you seem able to process these experiences that your intuition is leading you toward and then construct a film out of them through which an audience can then access those experiences. How conscious was that process?

DM: From the beginning, I obviously didn't know what was going to happen in the story, but that's where it lives for me...What I thought about a lot during the process was, "What is this to hold a camera up to this experience?" Well, it's really not holding a camera up to this experience. On some level, you are engaging in a process. It's kind of like physicists know that when they observe an atom that the atom actually molecularly changes.

And I really did try to experience that from a place of intuition and faith, trying to stay in tune with the depth of the situation--not the surface reality, but something else that was going on in the moments as they unfolded and not try to suffocate those with my own agenda.

D: Part of the struggle, then, is that the more experience you have as a filmmaker, the harder it is to stay in touch with that naïveté that is so integral to the process. You were very conscious of that, it seems. And Lance, as a character, seems to embody it--he calls himself a "rainbow-chaser."

DM: Absolutely. He's not intellectualizing the process, even though the film has a lot of intellectual ideas. He tends to move through the process from a place that comes from his heart, which is often a naïve and sometimes denial space, but not usually calculating and not a place of some vast experience that would corrupt the process.

I was just talking to a group of UCLA students and I didn't really have any answers, but I did feel this overwhelming sense that we were all at the same place: I had just made a film and they were about to make a film. Every time you finish a film, hopefully you're at square one again. Hopefully, you enter the next one not thinking you know very much. I do think that's the kiss of death: thinking that you are in some way in charge, and thinking that you are wise.

I edited as I went, and I shot also. I found that doing all of those things was really important for me. Cutting as I went informed the degree of sensitivity I had when I shot.

It often really helped me back off from the story. The process of editing didn't really make me want to manipulate more. It made me trust more.

D: What was your creative process with regard to the archival footage?

DM: I really struggled with this because the war is an important aspect of the film, but the last thing I wanted was a historical kind of documentary. I didn't want it to be an examination of history. History isn't something that was; history is.

I went to the National Archives in Washington and I was so blown away by the footage I found. It really is a treasure hunt because it's not easy to find things. You're looking through cards and things are labeled strangely--if I wanted to find "American GI torturing Japanese man," that might come under the heading, "What's in my duffel bag?" So you really have to get in there and look.

I didn't have any money, so I just brought my camera with me and shot it right off the flatbed. I didn't change any colors or do anything to it. It was exactly that sepia tone.

One of the things that was so surprising for me about it was that the footage is so cinematic. Again, getting away from that word "document," because these guys that were filming the war were not documenting the war. Everybody wants to tell a story. For me, it's the essence of everything that life is about: a good story. I feel like it's at the heart of who we are. These guys that went and filmed this, they wanted a story, too. They wanted to be making movies. They didn't want to document.

I found stuff that was so exactly what I needed that I couldn't use it. It was so cinematic and so horrifying and too close.

D: You said in your director's statement that you had these long months where you didn't think you had a movie. How did you deal with that?

DM: It was a really dark process. I went through a phase where every time I entered the office, I - [laughs] I never told anyone this - I would say "Hi" to everyone. I would walk in and say, "Hey guys, how are ya? How is everyone? Great, good to see you. So listen people, we're gonna be working on..." And I would go through that. I did it every day for a little stretch. [laughs] It was so goddamn lonely.

One of the interesting things about this process was that that moment in the field [the climax of the film] happened pretty early on in the [shooting] process. And that moment, not just when you see it in the film, but that whole experience was so profound and so unbelievable, I always knew I had to fulfill that. I had to create a movie that supported that scene.

D: It seems that your film is partly about people who didn't experience the war trying to understand all the stuff that's beneath the surface that you can't directly present in your film because you didn't directly experience it.

DM: Absolutely. [The war] is integral to the film itself, so I think that gave me a lot of permission to enter into it. My grandfather escaped from Austria when he was young. There was a lot of consciousness about the war from the Jewish perspective, and so I was really interested in coming at it from a completely opposite place. This was about the American experience of the war and how it is now. The document of the war is just as important as Lance's reaction to the war because he represents us--the current American mindset, which is at times apathetic. I could feel myself a part of that, not like Lance, but there's an apathy here that has to be here because we haven't been through that. And it wasn't just the war, it was the war and the Depression, and they were both wars of sorts.

And this is really the last moment. Loot obviously couldn't have happened any later, even a few weeks later it wouldn't have worked because the characters were dying. But it is an amazing time to reflect on it now.

D: Part of the beauty of your film to me is that, while it has this kind of veneer of life unfolding and all of the banality and subtle humor that entails, there's still this symphony of coincidence going on that's exhilarating. So while these veterans have these memories and experiences that we as an audience feel the remoteness of and can't identify with, they have a connection to Lance that is totally mystifying.

DM: At the risk of sounding flaky or creepy, I feel like frequently in my life I am guided by synchronicity more than anything else. So often, synchronous events show you that you're on the right path and doing something relevant.

My next project is a film that follows this one guy in Vegas, a father of five beginning to prepare for the end of the world in 2012. He has these four Native American cousins whose father's in jail for murder and he's going to pick them up. They kind of revere him like Peter Pan, a savior. We're going to go on a tour to look for a Cold War era missile silo for him to purchase in order to protect those he loves from the apocalypse.

It's another film of Americana and denial and all these good things. And again, it's gonna be another wonderful leap of faith.

Taylor Segrest is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He is a principal of Cinelixir, a consultancy for independent filmmakers, and co-founder of DocAngeles: The Los Angeles International Documentary Film Festival, to be launched in the Fall of 2010.  Segrest is a contributing editor to Documentary.

"If you are Latino you are American. You are 10-15,000 years of America!" said legendary playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez in his opening keynote address at "NALIP 10: A Decade of Influence," the National Association of Latino Independent Producers 10th annual conference. Just as Newport Beach draped its manicured downtown with banners for the Newport Beach Film Festival, over 600 Latino filmmakers, writers, actors and industry executives gathered from April 16 to 19 in the heart of Fashion Island to celebrate a conclave of Hispanic film wizards. Attendance ranged from acclaimed Hollywood figures such as writer Peter Murrieta (The Wizards of Waverly Place) and director/choreographer Kenny Ortega (High School Musical), to less known independent filmmakers, some of whom are starting to make headlines, such as documentary filmmaker Hugo Perez (Summer Sun Winter Moon) and the new promise in Latino sci-fi, Alex Rivera (Sleep Dealer).

NALIP founder and board member Moctezuma Esparza (Walkout) reminded the audience that in the US, 28 percent of people under 30, as well as 25 percent of kindergarten children, are Latino, as he presented the "Dedication to Diversity and Commitment to Latino Media" award to Home Box Office, Inc. "HBO, unlike the rest of Hollywood," said Esparza, "has an authentic will to listen and act and create representations of all US people. HBO has reached out to our community!"

His words were backed by the announcement of the new 2009 HBO/NALIP Documentary Filmmaker Cash Award, a grant that will give one Latino doc maker $10,000 for a work-in-progress. Through this cash award, HBO wants to focus on the Latino experience, and support the growth of social commentary by Latino documentarians. The award information will be published early May on NALIP's site (www.nalip.org); application deadline is June 19.

Esparza then introduced Luis Valdez, founder of the modern Chicano theater El Teatro Campesino and writer/director of Zoot Suit and La Bamba, as "a visionary who lived his ideas." Valdez' keynote address was a eulogy to the Hispanic heritage reminiscent of the civil rights era speeches. He captured the audience's sentiment that a decade of influence has not been enough for the Latino filmmaking community to establish solid roots in the media landscape in the US, in terms of both holding key executive positions and succeeding in disseminating tailored media content.

In the best spirit of oral storytelling, Valdez told the Latino equivalent of Rosa Parks' story. "I was born on a migrant labor camp. When I was a teenager, my cousin had a friend, Cessi, who went to the Navy during World War II. One day Cessi came back home to Delano on leave and went to the Delano Theater to watch a movie. He sat in the middle section, in the orchestra. Soon he was asked to leave the orchestra. The manager called the cops and had them take him to the police station." After two hours of intimidation, they had to let him go, because there was no law in California that said you could not sit in the middle in a theater. And all the pachucos-the ones who probably inspired his Zoot Suit play and film-gathered at the police station were delighted. "Next weekend, guess what? Everybody sat in the middle!" he said. Years later, Valdez found out that "the dude who desegregated the theater in Delano had become the apostle of non-violence." His name was Cesar Chavez.

Valdez became an organizer with Chavez. "I was arrested, jailed, and all this made me a Hollywood director." But he reserved the producer credit for Chavez. "Cesar Chavez was a producer. As makers of films, we're no different than the farmers picking up the fruit that God creates!"

Claiming back the term "Hispanic-American"-"What does Latino mean?" he questioned. "Should we be an adjective?"-Valdez encouraged the audience to document their Hispanic-American heritage. "We need to tell the American story, we need to recapture our own history, on PBS and elsewhere, on HBO." He then told in detail the story of Juan de Oñate, the founder of New Mexico. "This story beats Pocahontas! It is an amazing story; think of the sexual scenes we can have, the bloodshed!" In a note of humor, Valdez admitted that one of the problems when attempting to tell Chavez' story is, "The man was a saint! There were no microphones under the bed, nothing squeaky, not as appealing, no violence! But Juan de Oñate? That [film] should have been made a long time ago!"

Supporting Valdez' take on the need for widening the Latino presence in media, Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News columnist and co-host of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" show, in leading the panel "Conversations with PBS President & CEO Paula Kerger," questioned the PBS head boldly about some crude facts: Only five percent of PBS staff is Latino, and while Los Angeles-based PBS Station KCET's audience is 60 percent Latino, only one of its 30 board members is Latino. Kerger admitted this is a challenge, and said that PBS is making an effort in widening their employee diversity, and that last year 48 percent of the new employees hired were people of color.

Media players from 20 US states, as well as from Puerto Rico, Canada, Dominican Republic and Mexico, converged at the conference, and about half of the filmmakers were documentarians. "Our ambition," said NALIP's executive director, Kathryn Galán, "and one in which I believe we succeeded, was to encourage a higher level of professionalism and to program panels that each had takeaways, action steps or reporting on trends." The conference program included six panels devoted to documentary filmmaking, with panelists representing Sundance Documentary Fund, Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), HBO and others.

Saturday's keynote speaker was Herb Scannell, co-founder and president of Next New Networks, a next-generation new media company. During his tenure as president of Nickelodeon, Scannell, very keen on his Puerto Rican roots, was responsible for developing popular shows such as Dora the Explorer, The Brothers Garcia and Taina that targeted the Latino demographic and expanded the reach of the Spanish language.  "Diversity is a plus," he said in closing. "My hope is that 10 years from now we move from a ‘decade of influence' to a decade of power, of real power."

One of the highlights of the conference was the screening Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer (distributed by Maya Releasing) on the same day of its national theatrical opening. In 1997, Rivera came up with a labor solution for the US: a physical wall built along the Mexican border. The migrants would come to the border towns to work as cybraceros in futuristic maquiladoras, where they would perform manual jobs through a remote-controlled system, a kind of Wii that would drain their physical energy in the same way it does now. Concluding the Q&A, Rivera declared, "This film is a documentary!"

Next day, Rivera led the panel "Fire Eaters & Pink Hair Strippers," on the new media revolution. Manuel García-Durán of mio.tv presented his three-month-old, advertising-supported, online-content company, "founded to fill the void of entertainment and digital experiences addressing the next-generation, acculturated, bilingual Latino community." In its free Web platform, mio.tv will start to air a new series, executive-produced by Antonio Banderas, based on the French hit Caméra Café: 35 three-and-a-half-minute episodes about life in an office, from the point of view of a camera hidden in the coffee machine.

Durán, former chairman of Telefónica Media, Antena 3 and founding member of terra.com, defined the term "communitainment" as "the ability for you and your friends to create your own kind of entertainment by interacting online." After Durán screened a few videoclips of mio.tv's online comedy offer, IDA Board Member Beth Bird pointed out that broadcasting the same old TV shows through the Internet will not entice younger audiences; the new generation of users needs to be able to interact with what they are watching online. Durán said that mio.tv will be signing a deal with Skype soon-so that "you can even call your friends' mobile or landlines directly through mio.tv while you're watching." Currently, registered members can vote on their favorite videos, embed them on their personal sites and in blogs, and stay connected to mio.tv with voice and messaging.

Running concurrently with the conference, the Latino Media Market provides, according to its description, "a unique venue for project writers and producers to meet targeted executives and mentors for concrete deals, options, licenses and advancements." Producer Shawna Baca, who participated in the market with her documentary project On The Pow Wow Trail, remarked, "NALIP kept me busy meeting with executives in the doc world, which is a fairly new category for me. They took good care of me and even teamed me up with a roommate who is a documentary filmmaker as well. I think my best meeting and pitch was in our room sharing our doc stories and connecting with each other."

Indeed, the conference has become like an extended family fiesta with piñatas full of surprises for Latinos in the Industry. Among the six awards granted by NALIP, the 2009 NALIP Estela Award for Documentary Filmmaking was given to filmmaker and writer Hugo Perez, whose work often focuses on his Cuban heritage. "No group has supported me as wholeheartedly in my filmmaking career as NALIP," said Perez to Documentary magazine. "I feel that, like my family, they are always shouting out, 'Ese es mi hijo!' [That's my boy!]."

Chelo Alvarez-Stehle is a journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. A contributor to Spain's El Mundo daily, she has also published in Japan and the US. As a member of NALIP, she participated in the 2008 Latino Producers Academy with her current documentary project Sands of Silence: A Personal Journey into the Trafficking of Women. www.sosdocumentary.org  

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) made it a crime to unscramble the encryption on a DVD for any reason whatsoever. Documentary filmmakers who wanted to copy public domain material on a DVD or to copy a small portion of a DVD to use as fair use were faced with a dilemma: Either use other, generally inferior, sources for the work they wished to use or face criminal prosecution for unscrambling the codes on a DVD.

The IDA has asked the Copyright Office to approve an exemption for documentary filmmakers who are working on a documentary and wish to decode a DVD to access public domain material or for the purpose of accessing material to use in their documentary pursuant to fair use. The request was filed in November 2008. The hearing was held May 7, 2009, in Washington, DC.

The IDA is represented by Michael Donaldson, past president of IDA and formerly general counsel to IDA. Working as co-counsel with Donaldson are Chris Perez and Ashlee Lin, members of the University of Southern California Intellectual Property Clinic, under the supervision of Professor Jack Lerner. Gordon Quinn, creative director of Chicago-based Kartemquin Educational Films, and his longtime colleague, Jim Morrissette, will provide written and oral testimony as part of a coalition of filmmakers and film organizations. In addition to IDA and Kartemquin, the coalition includes Film Independent, Independent Feature Project, National Alliance for Arts and Media Culture and University Film and Video Association, as well as filmmakers Robert Bahar, Kirby Dick, Arthur Dong, Jeffrey Levy Hinte, David Novack and Morgan Spurlock.

A lengthy brief in opposition to IDA's request has been filed by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and Time Warner. The thrust of the MPAA argument is that if any use group is allowed to rip DVDs, even for limited fair use purposes, rampant piracy will result. IDA noted that MPAA made exactly the same argument three years ago when film criticism professors made a request for exemption. The Copyright Office granted the request. Not one incident of piracy has resulted from that exemption.

After the hearing, the Copyright Office will consider all the evidence, make further inquiry of the parties, and issue their recommendation to the Librarian of Congress, who must sign the exemption. In the past, the Librarian has adopted the recommendations of the Copyright Office without change. A final decision is expected in the fall of 2009. If adopted, the exemption will be valid for three years, after which time, the request has to be renewed, reargued, and decided anew by the Copyright Office. 

Donaldson notes that "The heavy lifting on this request was done by USC law students Perez and Lin. They did virtually all of the drafting of the request, the follow-up brief, and the written testimony that will be provided in Washington. Their contributions were amazing in the quantity and quality of their work."

All members of the IDA team expressed optimism about the strength of their arguments, but recognized the formidable opposition being laid down by the MPAA. 

This May, HBO launches The Alzheimer's Project, an ambitious, multi-platform effort to bring a wider understanding of Alzheimer's disease to the American public. The project consists of a four-part documentary series, 15 short supplemental films, a robust website (www.hbo.com/alzheimers) , a companion book and a nationwide, community-based information and outreach campaign. 

The Alzheimer's Project is a follow-up to HBO's Emmy Award-winning The Addiction Project (2007). Much of the Addiction team is back for this latest collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including executive producer Sheila Nevins and series producer John Hoffman. Maria Shriver joins as an executive producer.

Hoffman says that when the Addiction series was done, "We at HBO were so pleased that it had served a purpose for the community that's involved with addiction, and that we had established such a great rapport with the NIH. To have them as a collaborator is such an unusual occurrence, and we felt we should we explore this relationship a little bit further and look at another public health issue that we could play a role in."

HBO and the National Institute on Aging (a division of NIH) landed on the topic of Alzheimer's because it affects such a large number of people, including a considerable group beyond those who are afflicted with the disease. It is estimated that family and friends act as caretakers for 70 percent of those who have Alzheimer's. The disease is the second most feared illness after cancer, and may currently affect as many as five million Americans. That number will only increase as the baby-boomer generation ages.

The same survey that revealed people's deep fears of Alzheimer's also showed that many are unaware of the advances going on in science indicating that there may be things that we can do to help our brains age in a more healthy way and possibly mitigate the chances of developing the disease. "I had no knowledge of this enormous amount of information that's emerging about the connection between cardiovascular health and brain health," Hoffman notes. "Hope is the most important word that's part of this project."

The quartet of documentaries in the series uses a variety of approaches to illuminate the different aspects of the disease. The Memory Loss Tapes, directed by Shari Cookson and Nick Doob, is an intimate, 90-minute vérité documentary about seven patients, each in an advancing stage of dementia. Momentum in Science is two-part, state-of-the-science report that takes viewers inside the laboratories and clinics of 25 leading scientists and physicians. Bill Couturié crafts five family portraits that illustrate caring for different stages of Alzheimer's disease in Caregivers. Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? with Maria Shriver is aimed at helping children and young adults understand Alzheimer's. The film is inspired by Shriver's book, What's Happening to Grandpa?, and her own experience with her father, Sargent Shriver, who suffers from the disease.

"In a sense, Memory Loss Tapes and Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? are there to lay out the problem," Hoffman points out. "Momentum in Science and Caregivers in many ways offer solutions. So problem and solution is really what we were very clear that we were setting out to present."

In The Memory Loss Tapes, we meet each subject just once for a brief episode, and each segment presents a patient who demonstrates a further progression of the illness. The separate pieces build on one another in such a way that by the time we get to the seventh and final patient, we feel as though we have been through the entire spectrum of the disease with him.

"In the beginning, Sheila said she wanted a film about what it is to lose your mind," says Doob. "That was our operating principle-that sort of losing who you are, your sense of yourself."

In the earlier part of the film, those who have less advanced stages of the disease are able tell their own stories. Fannie Davis mourns her loss of independence when her driver's license is taken away because she can't remember certain aspects of how to drive. Joe Potocny, who was diagnosed two years ago, keeps a "Living with Alzheimer's" blog. Eventually, the point of view within each episode shifts to that of the caregiver because those who have the disease either aren't aware of it or can no longer express themselves.

Cookson and Doob spent a lot of time on the phone with their subjects and their families before shooting, and shot the film with a small HD camera and miniscule crew. The idea was to just blend in and be a part of the moments as they happened. This results in access to extraordinary moments, such as when 78-year-old Woody Geist reunites with the Grunions, his a capella singing group. Despite suffering from Alzheimer's for 14 years and often not recognizing his own family members, he still remembers the Grunion's song lyrics as he sings along with them.

"I was touched and moved not only by what had left people, but what remained," remarks Cookson. "There's some sort of essence of a person that holds on. I was really inspired by how these families coped with it-just being in the present with them, finding a way to still have a relationship with their loved one."

People often forget that when families are dealing with Alzheimer's, there may be children who are struggling to understand what is happening to a grandparent or older relative. Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?, directed by Eamon Harrington and John Watkin, uses vignettes and interviews with kids to help them deal with issues such as fear of the disease, preserving memories and coping with patient's mood swings and unexpected behavior. 

Hoffman credits Nevins with the idea to make a piece for the series focused on children. "When we do these public health campaigns, we really try to address the needs of different audiences," says Hoffman. "It was a very inspired idea to think we should speak to children; it's not the obvious thing to do."

For those who are interested in understanding more about the pathology of Alzheimer's and current advances in research, Momentum in Science delivers a comprehensive look at the genetics, neuroscience, prevention and treatment of the disease. By the time you're done watching, you'll be an expert on everything from beta-amyloid to the latest developments in brain imaging...or at least understand enough to know why they are important.

Producers Hoffman and Susan Froemke prepared extensively for their interview sessions with the scientists and physicians by deliberately crafting questions that would garner responses with varying levels of sophistication. That way they'd have choices in the edit room that would allow them to strike just the right balance between general explanation and technical jargon.

"That was our need if this was going to be successful-not to lose you the viewer," explains Hoffman. "To pare the material down and make sure that we are not challenging you in a way that is just too tiring, too taxing, and that we are not requiring so much concentration that we lose you and you say, ‘This is more scientific than I was interested in. I'm not connecting with it; it doesn't feel like it relates to me.'"

Froemke and Hoffman were on the road for six months and shot 500 hours of material. Winnowing down the footage to two hours was a huge challenge. They eventually organized the film into chapters, at Nevins' suggestion. Hoffman says Nevins has an astounding editorial mind, and it was very helpful to have someone look at the project with fresh eyes during the process of putting it together. 

After spending this much time on the project, Hoffman's friends joke that he's ready to get his medical license, but the producer has more than just a professional interest in the subject matter. His father passed away ten years ago after a protracted fight with Alzheimer's, and Hoffman had a deep-set fear of developing the disease himself. After immersing himself in the latest research during the course of making The Alzheimer's Project, he is much more hopeful.

"What surprised me was that because my father had it, it's not a given that that is my fate," Hoffman says. "I had a much bleaker view of the genetics of Alzheimer's than research has proven. Frankly, with all this new information, I was amazed to find myself swimming in a calming pool of scientific discovery and optimism. I hope that other people will have that same experience."

In addition to its May 10th premiere on HBO, The Alzheimer's Project will stream all four films for the general public on May 8 at www.hbo.com/alzheimers. 

Tamara Krinsky is associate editor of Documentary.

It's obligatory (and necessary) to accompany any event one launches in New York with lots of bells and whistles. And fabulous parties, as well, needless to say. One needs to do something extraordinary to get people's attention--and keep it. Then, once the event is over, one needs to spend pretty much the entire year leading up to the next one figuring out how it's going to be even more dazzling, more relevant, better attended with even more generosity from major sponsors.

Tribeca Film Enterprises, established in 2002 by Robert DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, is the multi-platform media company in which the film festival, a cinema complex, a nonprofit film institute and a film center reside. (There is a Web presence for a sister film festival in Doha, Qatar, that will debut this fall but, mysteriously, no information seems to be forthcoming about that right now.) Despite the ever-shifting sands that occur with a good deal of regularity at any large media company (and this year, they saw plenty of that), TFE did put on a pretty good festival this year. 

As everyone who cares about these things knows by now, the Tribeca Film Festival got off to a shaky start in 2002--inflated ticket prices, badly-planned logistics, poor communication, shoddy liaising with attending press, etc.--after a heartfelt and hopeful welcome from the city for which it was created. But at eight years old, this two-week event (April 22 - May 3) is starting to come into its own, growing into its role as a major cultural presence, truly beginning to serve the community beyond the festival itself by nurturing a little bit of the talent that comes here to make art in an art-loving city. They're accomplishing this by providing more and more channels of funding and other in-kind support, including taking advantage of the enormous resource of talented filmmakers and producers that call New York home to mentor up-and-comers.

With a scaled-back program of international films and a, thankfully, very conservative output of printed information (TFF's website is one of the best, most efficient and helpful sites out there), the festival poured its money into the public meeting spots and the special events and parties that were staged throughout the latter part of April in downtown Manhattan, bringing a celeb-heavy presence to the proceedings. (Which is great; I just wish the festival would stop feeling compelled to put them on film juries.) 

TFF is about getting people in seats for screenings, obviously, but it's also very much about getting them out into the city, eating, shopping, touring, partaking of the Manhattan experience. The theaters are sufficient, nothing special, but every "extra-curricular" event I attended was done exceedingly well, creating a truly celebratory atmosphere. I especially enjoyed the Drive-In at the World Financial Center; on a hot night by the river,  I saw rapper P-Star give the crowd of thousands a fantastic performance both before and after Gabriel Noble's excellent film about her called P-Star Rising screened to an enthusiastic audience of about 5,000 people..

To debut work in New York City is a big deal for any artist. Each filmmaker I spoke with--from Beadie Finzi, director of the crowd-pleasing, Heineken Audience Award-nominated Only When I Dance, to effusive Argentine-Canadian Laura Bari, there with her exquisite piece called Antoine, to Marshall Curry, winner of the TFF Documentary Feature Competition this year for his superb and elegantly edited Racing Dreams-were thrilled and elated to be able to show off their latest works here.

The Tribeca Film Festival is not really a doc-centric festival; however, this year's selection of 32 nonfiction feature docs and 14 shorts showed off a fairly strong representation, albeit with some puzzling choices. For there are still some kinks in the programming department with a stable of programmers vying for spots for their favorites, all overseen by director of programming David Kwok. It's apparent that this festival needs to answer to a broader constituency that goes beyond the film world and apparently considers an array of other factors besides the most vital imperative of championing great work, something which programmers have the luxury to concentrate on at more traditional film festivals (one hopes).

So, despite a lack of a true center--there's still no "there" there and it still doesn't take place in Tribeca--the festival means to stay the course and will continue to treat the local community and international visitors to a great film event in the spring in the greatest city on earth.

Here are the documentary prize-winners announced at a ceremony hosted by DeNiro and Rosenthal on Friday, May 1:

Marshall Curry's Racing Dreams took Tribeca's Best Documentary Feature prize. Other nonfiction standouts were Yoav Shamir's Defamation (Hashmatsa), receiving a Special Jury Mention, and Danae Elon's Partly Private, which received a Best New York Documentary nod. Ian Olds won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker prize for his film Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, while the Best Documentary Short prize went to Matthew Faust's home, with Special Mention going to Liz Chae'sThe Last Mermaids.

Pamela Cohn is a New York-based independent media producer, documentary film consultant and freelance writer. She writes a well-regarded blog on nonfiction filmmaking called Still in Motion.

EPSN has snatched up the TV rights to Lost Son of Havana, the doc about Cuban pitcher Luis Tiant's return to Cuba after 46 years of exile and 19 seasons playing professional baseball for the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. The film will be shown in both English (on ESPN) and Spanish (ESPN Deportes) in August 2009. (via indieWIRE)

Zeitgeist has picked up Jennifer Baichwal's Act of God, an opening night film at this year's Hot Docs in Toronto. Zeitgeist and Baichwal worked together two years ago on Manufactured Landscapes. Act of God is set for release this fall. Baichwal has also signed on for adaptation of Margaret Atwood's book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. (via All These Wonderful Things)

Working Title is in the pole position for a feature-length doc about Brazilian Formula One racing world champion Ayrton Senna, who died at age 34 in a crash while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. Asif Kapadia will direct. (via Variety)

In case you missed the premiere of Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi this week at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, HBO has you covered. HBO Documentary Films has acquired the U.S. rights to the special and will air it this summer. (via WorldScreen.com)

Racing Dreams, Marshall Curry's latest documentary following his multi-award-winning 2005 film Street Fight, captured the Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film follows the fortunes and struggles of three young go-kart racers competing for the national championship. Racing Dreams is currently in the number one spot for the Audience Award at Tribeca, which will be decided Saturday, May 2. Street Fight won the 2005 Audience Award at Tribeca.

A Special Jury Mention went to Yoav Shamir's Defamation, which looks at the realities of anti-Semitism today, while Ian Olds earned the Best New Documentary Filmmaker award for Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, about an Afghani fixer who was captured and killed by the Taliban in 2007.

Rounding out the doc awards, Danae Elon's Partly Private won the Best New York Documentary award, while Best Documentary Short honors went to Matthew Faust's home, with Special Jury Mention going to Liz Chae's The Last Mermaids.