Fighting for Freedom: Exploring Vachon's "Killer Life" (including an excerpt from her new book)

With some 38 films under her belt in a film business that continues to change, leading independent film producer and Killer Films partner Christine Vachon is pondering the future. In A Killer Life, her essential new memoir (written with Austin Bunn), Vachon bolsters the role of the producer as the driving force of independent film, particularly in a star-driven system that is increasingly tough on the sorts of movies she continues to make. "At this point, I want to reclaim the business for myself," Vachon writes (in an excerpt published by indieWIRE below), "I want to say producers are the ones who find the material, make the challenges for actors, create career pinnacles and opportunities to do meaningful work." But she wonders, "Why are we always at the mercy of this star system? Why can't the stars be at ours?"
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From "Don't Look Back" to "After Innocence": A New Book Explores Documentary Filmmaking with Directors, Cinematographers, Editors

A lot has been written about documentary film in years past, but a smart new book by Megan Cunningham lets the filmmakers themselves do the talking in an open, freewheeling format that seems to mimic the organic nature of direct cinema itself. "The Art of the Documentary," published by New Riders Press, offers 368 pages of enlightening conversations with a diverse group of accomplished directors, cinematographers and editors, at a paperback list price of $44.99.
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