STF spring season closing night: TIBET IN SONG

• by Raphaela Neihausen, June 05, 2009
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STF’s spring season ended with Ngawang Choephel’s incredible film TIBET IN SONG.  For the second time in STF history, the film inspired a thundering standing-ovation (the first time being at the Spring 08 screening of THE AGRONOMIST when Jean Dominique’s widow Michele Montas came to the stage).  To learn more about the film and future screenings, you can visit: http://www.tibetinsong.com.

Thanks everyone for another great season of STF! A special thanks to the 50 STF passholders who broke our previous record for number of season passholders.  And thank you to 99 Below for all your yummy STF drink specials.  See you in the fall!

Some fun photos from that evening’s reception at 99 Below:

Kelly Hefner from WEtv was a college classmate of Ngawang’s and helped work on his release. 

Ngawang in conversation with filmmaker Hemal Trivedi and musical composer James Preston Jr.

FIlmmakers Ruth Somalo and Rob Hatch-Miller.

Filmmakers Amelia Hanibelsz and Melissa Hibbard.

Photographer Chris Hondros and editor Carla Ruff.

Two happy STF revelers with impressive facial stylings.

Filmmakers Hemal Trivedi and Paul Devlin.

A very dapper Simon Leuthi sampling our chocolate from STF sponsor sweetriot.

Related Film/Screening:
TIBET IN SONG by Ngawang Choephel

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THE GLASS HOUSE at STF

• by Raphaela Neihausen, May 31, 2009
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Director Hamid Rahmanian and producer Melissa Hibbard presented their film THE GLASS HOUSE to a sold-out crowd at STF last Tuesday.  The film had its North American debut at Sundance earlier this year and explores the lives of marginalized young women in modern Tehran who cohabitate in a day center.  Battling numerous obstacles including abuse, drug addiction, and general oppression, these women face the challenges with dignity and grace.  One of my favorite quotes of the night was during the Q&A when Hamid was asked how the women felt upon seeing the finished film.  Hamid said they didn’t think it was “dramatic enough”.  Life in Tehran!

Some pictures from the night:

Jennifer Fox (director of FLYING: CONFESSIONS OF A FREE WOMAN) and Jennifer Dworkin (director of LOVE & DIANE).

Visiting Spanish filmmaker Diego Mas Trelles.

Writer Ann Marlowe and Iranian artist Raha Raissnia.

Director of TILL YOU’RE TOLD TO STOP Ruth Somalo and yours truly Raphaela Neihausen.

Related Film/Screening:
THE GLASS HOUSE by Hamid Rahmanian

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Cannes: “Documentary: The New Journalism” Panel

• by Raphaela Neihausen, May 26, 2009
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A week ago in Cannes, the American Pavilion hosted a panel called “Documentary: The New Journalism”.  In a world where print journalism is collapsing and long-lead stories are becoming a luxury of the past, what role can documentaries play in providing an alternative to traditional journalism? The panel was moderated by Thom Powers and included distributor Richard Lorber (Alive Mind), filmmaker Anne Aghion (MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER – playing at Cannes) and David Fenkel (Oscilloscope Laboratories). 

The panel started off on a lighter note with Thom Powers reassuring the audience that there would be “no genital mutilation on our panel this morning” (a reference to Lars Von Trier’s ANTI-CHRIST that premiered the prior night) “and if it were to happen – true to documentary, it would be real”.  On a more serious note, Powers then went on to trace recent developments in journalism.  He observed that as one media form truncates, we see a different form of media move-in and expand: namely that of documentary filmmakers.  He posited that documentarians can follow a story longer than deadline-driven journalists to get at a more nuanced truth.

Aghion confirmed that hypothesis.  Prior to spending nearly 10 years filming in Rwanda, she worked at mainstream news organizations.  She left those traditional posts frustrated by the pressure of working under daily deadlines.  “I wanted to slow down and look at the world differently and make less mistakes in how I was portraying the world.” Before she began filming in Rwanda, she visited the country four times and spent several months getting to know her characters.  In her films she tries to convey “what it feels like to be there” and does not feel pressure to fill her films with hard facts.  “Too much information detracts from connecting on an emotional basis.”

Alive Mind and Oscilloscope Laboratories are both actively distributing a wide range of documentaries.  At Alive Mind, Lorber specifically selects “transformative films” where poetics and content are equally on par.  His acquired films include THEATER OF WAR, INTANGIBLE ASSET #82, and many others.  At Oscilloscope Laboratories (a company owned by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch), Fenkel similarly selects docs that have a “positive message for the world” - be it environmental or political.  In both companies, new distribution models combining theatrical, DVD and digital help these films reach new audiences. 

David Fenkel of Oscilloscope Laboratories

Richard Lorber of Alive Mind

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Postscript to the STF Peter Davis Tribute

• by Raphaela Neihausen, May 22, 2009
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Written by Hugo Perez
(Photo of Hugo Perez and Peter Davis)

Last night, STF hosted a tribute to Peter Davis, a filmmaker and a gentleman, a scholar and writer best known in documentary circles for his classic HEARTS AND MINDS that earned him the 1975 Oscar for Best Documentary.  Much less known today is his landmark television series MIDDLETOWN, a series of six verité documentaries which aspired to create a portrait of life in America by telling stories that reflected 6 different aspects of American life: Getting a Living; Making a Home; Training the Young; Using Leisure; Engaging in Religious Practice; and Engaging in Community Activities.  The series was shot entirely in Muncie, Indiana from 1979 to 1982 with a team that included Peter Davis as Executive Producer and Director, Ricky Leacock as a Director, now A-List Hollywood DP John Lindley, editor Tom Haneke and others.  Originally aired in 1982, the MIDDLETOWN series has become increasingly hard to see.** Doc geeks like myself have only had the chance to see the films from the series on blurry VHS copies passed around from doc enthusiast to doc enthusiast like Russian Samizdat literature.  (One hopes that a company like Criterion might someday step in to make the films available as a DVD box-set.)

All of this is a long way of saying that those who attended the Peter Davis Tribute last night were lucky to have a truly rare chance to see Davis film “Second Time Around” on the big screen.  An intimate portrait of divorcees David and Elaine, “Second Time Around” follows the couple in the weeks before they marry each other, an emotional rollercoaster as they face the pragmatic, financial, and personal hurdles they’ll have to clear to make a true partnership work.  Masterfully shot by John Lindley and edited by Tom Haneke, Davis film is a textbook example of how to make a great verité film. 

L to R: Members of the MIDDLETOWN series team: Susan Baum, Terry Simon, Peter Davis, Hugo Perez (guest host of STF), and E.J. Vaughn

The screening led to a lively discussion between Davis and an audience that included filmmakers Nick Broomfield, Susan Meiselas, Bill Jersey, and members of the MIDDLETOWN team Tom Haneke, Terry Simon, Susan Baum, and E.J. Vaughn.  Davis discussed the production of MIDDLETOWN for most of the Q&A; the challenges he faced not just in funding and producing the series, but also in shepherding the films (5 of the 6 anyway) to their broadcast on a nervous PBS.  Just as our time at the IFC was running out, Davis threw down the proverbial gauntlet by voicing the opinion that many filmmakers today are relying too heavily on the artifice of re-enacting or recreating scenes.  To paraphrase Davis, some filmmakers today are taking real people and turning them into actors, a process that he feels diminishes the power of the stories told.  In the last few minutes before we were forced to give up the theater, the Q&A became a genuine debate about the limits to how much a documentary filmmaker could or should “stage-manage” reality for their film. The discussion ended before we could go very far down the road of answering this question, but all of those present are certainly better off for Peter Davis’ visit with us. 

For those with educational or institutional budgets, the MIDDLETOWN series is distributed by Icarus Films.

L to R: STF regulars Alejandro Martinez, Erin Marie Osner, and Evan Schlossberg at the post-film reception at 99 Below. 

Related Film/Screening:
PETER DAVIS TRIBUTE by Peter Davis

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Cannes: Documentary Powerhouse Brunch

• by Raphaela Neihausen, May 18, 2009
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For a second year, the Marche Du Film hosted a Documentary Brunch to bring together the documentary community attending the Cannes Film Festival.  The brunch was presented along with the National Film Board of Canada and attended by over 125 filmmakers and industry professionals from around the world.  In honor of the 70th anniversary of the National Film Board of Canada, the NFB shared a clip of their latest film CAPTURING REALITY: THE ART OF DOCUMENTARY.  (Photo: Tom Perlmutter - Government Film Commissioner and Chairperson of the National Film Board of Canada, with Louise Blais - Director of Canadian Cultural Center.)

A few snapshots from brunch:

Swiss Documentary filmmaker Christian Frei, renowned for WAR PHOTOGRAPHER (2002 Academy Award Nominee) and THE GIANT BUDDHAS (2005).  His new documentary to be released in the summer is SPACE TOURISTS (about billionaires traveling to outer space for fun).

Nancy Gerstman (co-founder and co-president of New York-based distribution company Zeitgeist Films) and Marian Masone (Director of Festival and Associate Director of Programming for New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center).

Christian Vesper - head of acquisitions for the Sundance Channel since 2002 (now part of IFC/Sundance Channel since 2007).  He and his team acquire ~250 features and documentaries a year for the two networks. 

Distribution consultant Peter Broderick joined by Ally Derks - director of the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) and of the Jean Vrijman Fund that supports international filmmakers from developing countries.

Filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno, whose films include CHEF! (1999), A TRIP TO THE COUNTRY (2000), THE COLONIAL MISUNDERSTANDING (2004), LE MARIAGE D’ALEX (2002) and LIEUX SAINTS (2009).

Filmmaker Ron Mann, whose documentaries focus on alternative and dissent culture and include IMAGINE THE SOUND (1981), POETRY IN MOTION (1982), COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL (1988), TWIST (1991), DREAM TOWER (1994), GRASS (1999), GO FURTHER (2003) and his latest KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS (2009).

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