DISPATCH FROM TORONTO | Documentary Filmmaking and "The Long Haul"

Termed "the longitudinal documentary" by Hot Docs Director of Programming Sean Farnel, films that follow a character or story over an extended period of time are increasingly problematic these days. Deals with distributors or television networks put pressure on the time a doc has to finish, often limiting the diachronic scope of the project. Three feature films screening at the 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival: Jens Hoffman's "20 Seconds of Joy," Greg Kohs' "Song Sung Blue," and Nik Sheehan's "Flicker," exemplfy this increasingly rare form in documentary filmmaking.
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DISPATCH FROM TORONTO | Hometown "Demi-Gods of Metal" Kick Off Toronto's Hot Docs Fest

The 15th edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival started off with a (head) bang in Toronto Thursday night, showcasing the Canadian premiere of Sacha Gervasi's "Anvil! The Story of Anvil." Taking the stage of the historic Winter Garden to introduce the film, Hot Docs' Executive Director Chris McDonald proudly declared the festival "the finest collection of documentaries anywhere." With 174 films from 36 countries screening over 11 days, Hot Docs has grown into the largest documentary festival in North America, blasting out of the shadow of the Toronto International Film Festival to become a major industry event in its own right. The festival now welcomes some 2,000 delegates and 80,000 filmgoers, double the numbers from just three years ago.
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DISPATCH FROM TEL AVIV | Doc Aviv's 10th Anniversary Presents a Strong Israeli Scene

The appearance of Shimon Peres on stage for the opening night of Doc Aviv's 10th anniversary was an early indicator that the Israeli documentary scene deserves attention. The 84-year-old former Prime Minister, who now serves in the more ceremonial role of President, addressed the packed house at Tel Aviv's Performing Arts Center. Often such an occasion is susceptible to formulaic remarks. Think of the political welcome letters that preface most festival catalogues. But Peres surprised this jaded festival goer with his eloquent perspective on the role of documentary film. Speaking in Hebrew (translated on headsets for international guests), he observed that memory has a tendency to focus on the best of times, whereas the documentary camera can keep a more accurate record of the things we might prefer to forget. He wryly noted that Israel supplies so much drama that it's an ideal home for documentary makers.
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DISPATCH FROM NORTH CAROLINA | Full Frame Forges Ahead Without Its Charismatic Founder at the Helm

When the 11th edition of the Full Frame Film Festival unspooled in Durham, North Carolina last Thursday, many were watching to see if the festival would be fundamentally changed by the departure of founder and artistic director Nancy Buirski, long the festival's heart and soul. Buirski, who stayed on as advisor and sidebar curator after a leadership swtich, was still a looming and smiling presence in Durham this year, but the venerable nonfiction film event that she began carried on without her leadership, much the same as it had in previous years.
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DISPATCH FROM MISSOURI | Snapshots From the 5th True/False Film Festival

Just days before the opening night of the fifth annual True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO, fest organizers made good on a plan to launch a new permanent home for their event. The annual festival, described by many fans as a sort of Telluride for documentaries, was born at the eight year-old storefront Ragtag Cinema in downtown Columbia. This year the event moved into the brand new Ragtag, housed in a 10,000 square foot former soda bottling facility that now contains two movie theaters, a bar, bakery, offices, soon a video store. The site was an immediate hub of activity for the increasingly popular festival and sent a signal that the fest is settling in for the long haul.
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DISPATCH FROM AWARDS SEASON | Docs in the Spotlight: Oscar Nominee Michael Moore Calls for Distribution Reform

Oscar nominee Michael Moore stirred members of the doc community on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, laying out a plan to create a new theatrical distribution outlet for non-fiction film. On stage at the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Moore rallied attendees at the annual International Documentary Association (IDA) celebration for feature and short film doc Oscar nominees. "We have to correct this situation with documentary films," Moore said of the challenges that have recently faced theatrically distributed documentaries. "This cannot go on any longer."
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DISPATCH FROM AMSTERDAM | "Stranded" in the Wild With No Help; and Taking on the Establishment in "Flynt"

Days after its world premiere screening in the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's ornate and cavernous main venue at the Cinema Tuschinski in the city center, fest-goers were still talking about Uruguayan director Gonzalo Arijon's "Stranded." Though the film, at least for now, comes in at a lengthy 130 minutes and is in Spanish (with subtitles), the audience remained riveted by the story about the survivors of a plane crash in the South American Andes 35 years ago. The film, which had its world premiere at IDFA, profiles the survivors today, who subsisted the ten weeks in the freezing weather by consuming the remains of those who died after the plane went down.
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DISPATCH FROM AMSTERDAM | Daughter's Personal Search for Her Father Exposes Maysles Family Rift

A provocative new first person documentary by a member of the Maysles family has stirred audiences at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in recent days and it will likely garner more attention as the filmmakers seek wider awareness for the project. Among the hot tickets in The Netherlands has been "Wild Blue Yonder," the directorial debut of Celia Maysles, daughter of the late David Maysles and niece of Albert Maysles. Sifting through the list of IDFA's three hundred-plus titles this year reveals a roster of films about war, the environment, love, cult of personality and drugs, and the almighty name of Maysles also grabbed a significant share of buzz on the first weekend of the festival in Amsterdam.
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DISPATCH FROM AMSTERDAM | Doc's Past, Present, & Future as IDFA Marks 20 Years

Even with a jammed program of some 300 documentaries screening through Saturday here in The Netherlands, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) was able to take a step back to look at the big picture during the fest's first weekend. At a nearly four-hour anniversary lustrum celebrating and exploring the past, present and future of documentary, IDFA presented a unique doc vaudeville-style show that included live music, discussions, film clips, lectures, a comedian, and even a cartoonist celebrating its 20th year. Over the course of the afternoon, attendees were provoked by conflicting messages about the role of the non fiction film and lead through range of topics, including war, social engagement, and truth in mass media and non fiction film.
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IDFA '07 | "Operation Homecoming" to Open 20th Int'l Doc Fest in Amsterdam

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will open on November 22nd with Richard Robbins' "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience," based on the letters, poems, essays and diary entries of American soldiers in Iraq. IDFA, considered the world's leading documentary festival, will open this year at the Pathe Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam and continue through December 2nd in the European city. With text read by Beau Bridges and Robert Duvall, as well as some of the soldiers themselves, the "Operation Homecoming" will screen in the festival's Joris Ivens Competition.
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DOC COLUMN | Doc Filmmakers Guide to the IFP Market

Approaching its 29th incarnation, running from September 16 -19 in downtown New York, the Independent Feature Project's IFP Market has become an important stop for documentary films. Unlike a festival, the Market is intended to give buyers and festival programmers a peek at new work. Through closed screenings, networking meetings like "speed dating" as well as buyer-requested one-on-ones, and a host of typical parties and social opportunities, to the uninitiated, the Market can be, as IFP executive director Michelle Byrd called it, "mystifying."
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FESTIVALS | Silverdocs Goes Deeper into Democracy and Documentary

Think deeper. Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Documentary Festival, held from June 12-17, invited guests to ponder faith, music, democracy and war, in their program of 100 films from 42 countries, in addition to explorations in documentary craft and the future of the business of documentary through their special events and conference panels. It's a lofty goal to ask film goers to "think deeper" but this years' fest did indeed provoke lively conversations and set a high bar for intellectually engaging festival attendees.
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DISPATCH FROM TORONTO: Hot Docs Fest Comes of Age

Weather can be as important to film festivals as it is to weddings... especially in Toronto. Particularly so for a festival like the Hot Docs where the distance between the Bloor and Royal cinemas can seem like a million miles on a cold, rainy (or even snowy) Toronto spring day. Hair gets ruined. And clothes get wet, making for an uncomfortable experience sitting in a movie theater for two or more hours. However this year, brides and festival-goers alike were bathed in sunshine for the majority of the 11- day documentary event. Hot Docs ran from April 19-29, and concluded Saturday after more than $50,000 in awards was dished out the night before. Amongst this year's recipients of CDN$5000 each were Best Canadian Feature winner "The Body Builder and I," filmmaker Bryan Friedman's account of his complex relationship with his aging bodybuilder father and Best International Feature "Losers and Winners" (Germany) a doc about the cultural impact of a German smelting plant located in China as it is disassembled, by filmmakers Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken.
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DISPATCH FROM NORTH CAROLINA | At a Weekend Doc Fest, Full Frame Celebrates 10 Years

Ten years ago when the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, then called Doubletake, had its freshman outing few could have predicted not only how much the festival would grow, but how much the documentary form would grow along with it. For ten years, the festival has served as an incubator and a barometer, both nurturing documentaries and documentary filmmakers and serving as a gauge for the state of documentary. To judge by this years 123 offerings culled from over 1100 submissions, the documentary has never been in finer shape; with more diversity of stories and filmmakers, higher quality of craft, and greater stylistic expression than ever before.
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DISPATCH FROM GREECE | At a Doc Fest in Thessaloniki: Euro Premieres, "Troubled Innocence" and Fostering A Community

Sitting in a smoky cafe outside the John Cassavetes theater, filmmaker (and fest honoree) Steven Bognar is holding forth on the differences between Greek and North American audiences. "Greeks are not afraid to ask confrontational questions. This gives a Q&A a sense of uncertainty that's really healthy. You get the same few questions at every fest and then suddenly . . . something new!"
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DISPATCH FROM MISSOURI: True/False Serves Up Plenty of Surprises

It's 10 AM on a Saturday morning with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark, but that didn't stop a full house of people filing into The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri for a screening of Marco Williams' newest film "Banished." Fresh from the Sundance premiere, Williams announced that he was actually more nervous for this particular screening because several of the film's subjects were in the audience and seeing it for the first time, and afterward they would take the stage and discuss it with Marco for the first time. The probing film looks at the modern ramifications of ethnic cleansing in American towns and reparations to descendants of African Americans who were forced from their land in the early part of the last century. Afterwards, witnessing their pride for participating in such an important film with a consummate professional like Williams was one of those rare festival moments that makes braving the obstacles to get to the theater well worthwhile.
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In Missouri, T/F Fest Set for Fourth Annual Doc Fest

Boasting a new crop of documentaries that are fresh from recent festivals like Sundance and Toronto, as well as others that are, in the words of organizers, "appearing mysteriously before their official premieres elsewhere," the 2007 True/False Film Festival opens Thursday (March 1) in Columbia, MO at five venues around the Midwest college town. David Sington's "In The Shadow of The Moon," the new space travel documentary that debuted last month at the Sundance Film Festival, will open the festival at the local Missouri Theater, kicking off a weekend of screenings, panels, parties and special events celebrating non-fiction films and filmmaking. The event will close on Sunday night with a sneak preview screening of Tamas Bojtor and Sybil Dessau's "American Shopper," a new film about the sport of "aisling" that was made in Columbia, Missouri.
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DOCS MONTHLY | February Film Series: Museums Breathe New Life into Documentaries

For those who long ago gave up on finding diverse programming at your local multiplex, a trip to the nearest arthouse cinema is usually the solution to finding unique film fare - especially for fans of documentaries. But when the mood calls for something a bit more esoteric, art museums are increasingly filling a niche, with February offering some especially good film programs throughout the country. Notable among these include series at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, and of course the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City.
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IDFA '06: On the Brink of Change, 19th Annual Amsterdam Doc Fest Wraps; "The Monastery" and "We Are Together" Win Top Prizes

A favorite of many attendees at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) this year, Pernille Rose Gronkjaer's "The Monastery: Mr. Vig & the Nun" won the award for best documentary in the festival's Joris Ivens Competition. IDFA awarded a 12,500 euro prize to the Danish documentary, with Alexander Rastorguev, Vitaly Mansky and Susanna Baranzhieva's "Tender's Heat Wild Wild Beach" singled out for a special jury prize at the festival on Saturday night in The Netherlands. A trio of Danish documentaries were honored as the festival came to a close in Amsterdam. Considered the most important doc festival in the world, the event is preparing to celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 2007, but is facing a number of changes, including a venue shift and key personnel departures.
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DISPATCH FROM IDFA | New DocAgora Considers Distribution and Digital Media at 1st Event

The first annual DocAgora forum convened Thursday morning at theInternational Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Conceived by organizers Peter Wintonick, Amit Breuer, Fleur Knopperts and Joan Morselt as a compact one-day conference on creating, funding and distributing docs in the age of digital media. The event drew more than a hundred industry professionals and filmmakers, all curious about new directions in nonfiction mediamaking.
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