A Look Back at 2014 and Forward to 2015: An Interview with Thom Powers


Here’s my annual chat with Thom Powers—documentary programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and SundanceNOW Doc Club, and artistic director of DOC NYC and the Stranger Than Fiction series—about the big documentary stories of 2014, and what we have to look forward to in 2015. Click here for our conversation from last year.

Rahul Chadha: What do you think was the one most important development in the doc world in 2014?

Thom Powers: I think the biggest thing that happened was the release of CITIZENFOUR. I can’t think of another documentary that has had as much far ranging impact as that film. Not just the release of the film, but also the work that Laura Poitras did leading up to it, dating back to the initial revelation of Edward Snowden in 2013.

Chadha: When I was thinking about the big doc stories of this year, the two docs I thought about were CITIZENFOUR and BLACKFISH, just because I feel BLACKFISH is the rare film in which the “impact” it’s had is easily quantifiable—there’s been a lot of reporting on how terribly SeaWorld is doing now, and it’s always attributed to BLACKFISH.

Powers: In that respect, I’d also point to THE INVISIBLE WAR, Kirby Dick’s film, which is repeatedly invoked by politicians trying to pass legislation around sexual assaults in the military. I’ll be very interested to see the follow-up to the film, THE HUNTING GROUND, that’s going to be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. To your point, I think it does reflect a degree to which documentaries are playing a critical role at the center of culture.

Chadha: This year DOC NYC scheduled a whole day of panels dedicated to short content. We talked a little about short content last year, I was wondering if you could update your ideas about the topic.

Powers: I think it’s a growing area. A key player has been The New York Times, with their Op-Docs section that serves as a forum for independent filmmakers. But the regular New York Times video team produces short form video content of a high caliber every week. In the last year ESPN has expanded its short content. At the 2014 TIFF Doc Conference in September we had speakers from both of those companies—Jason Spingarn-Koff from the New York Times Op-Docs and Dan Silver from ESPN, and also an emerging player, Jed Weintrob, who oversees short form content for Conde Nast publications. In December, Conde Nast got a position on Apple TV under the banner “The Scene,” where that short form content is being platformed. That’s to say nothing of all the short form content that’s on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. What’s significant here is that five years ago, for a doc maker to produce a short film, there were very few outlets. HBO has a special knack for acquiring Oscar nominated shorts. But there weren’t too many other places to get your money back. Now, there are a lot more opportunities to get paid to do a short. And you see a lot of filmmakers repurposing some of their content from feature-length films into a short form.

Chadha: One of the interesting things about all of the outlets you mentioned is that they’re cross-media platforms—the Times and Conde Nast come out of the print world and ESPN and Al Jazeera America have cable TV outlets. They’re analogues to a traditional distributor—a large part of what they bring is marketing heft.

Powers: The New York Times, ESPN, Conde Nast and HBO for that matter, are all brands  that have millions of eyeballs being driven to them naturally. It’s a different thing all together to place content on those sites as opposed to on a filmmakers own website.

Chadha: Sundance documentary head Tabitha Jackson gave a speech at DOC NYC this year calling for the strengthening of the artistic bent of documentary film that was widely discussed. What did you make of her speech? Continue reading…


Monday Memo: CITIZENFOUR, LIFE ITSELF Placed on Oscar Shortlist


THE SALT OF THE EARTH was among the films named to the Oscar shortlist for docs this week.

This week the shortlist for the 2015 Oscar doc race was released. At Realscreen, Adam Benzine had a rundown of the films on the list, as did Germain Lussier of Slash Film and Christopher Campbell of Nonfics.com. At Decider, Olivia Armstrong had a list of the shortlisted docs available for online screening. Gregg Kilday of The Hollywood Reporter wondered if Laura Poitras’ film CITIZENFOUR could become the first doc to earn consideration for the best picture award. Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply took a look at the shortlisted films at the New York Times.

The Sundance Film Festival announced its U.S. and world competition docs this week. Writing for Realscreen, Adam Benzine had coverage of the announcement.

At The Hollywood Reporter, Rebecca Ford reported on the winners of the International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards, as did Manori Ravindran of Realscreen.

Continue reading…


Monday Memo: Spirit Awards Noms Go To STRAY DOG, CITIZENFOUR


STRAY DOG from director Debra Granik was among the films nominated for a Spirit Award this week.

This week the Film Independent Spirit Awards announced their nominations for best documentary, with nods going to STRAY DOG and CITIZENFOUR, among other films. Kevin Ritchie of Realscreen reported on the development, as did Christopher Campbell of Nonfics.com.

Also at Realscreen, Manori Ravindran reported on films up for awards at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Ravindran also had two reports on the IDFA forum, you can read part one here, and part two here. Writing for the POV blog, Kel O’Neill had his own report of the IDFA DocLab interactive conference.

Writing for Ion Cinema, Jordan M. Smith had a report on docs in production that are also Sundance hopefuls. Smith also had a roundup of doc awards nominees and winners.

Continue reading…


Monday Memo: CAIRO DRIVE Takes Home DOC NYC Prize


CAIRO DRIVE from director Sherief Elkatsha took home a prize at this year's DOC NYC festival.

This week DOC NYC finished out it’s fifth year. Writing for Indiewire, Ben Travers reported that CAIRO DRIVE, HOMME LESS and MIRROR IMAGE took home DOC NYC’s jury awards this year, while THE HAND THAT FEEDS won the festival’s audience award. Manori Ravindran of Realscreen also had coverage of the awards. Also at Indiewire, Anthony Kaufman took note of DOC NYC’s emergence as a major documentary showcase. At the POV blog, Tom Roston covered Sundance Institute doc head Tabitha Jackson’s DOC NYC keynote address calling for increased focus on artistic practice in documentary, while Scott Macaulay covered the speech for Filmmaker Magazine.  Paula Bernstein interviewed Jackson following her address. Writing for Nonfics.com, Daniel Walber shared six discoveries from the festival. VOD platform VHX shared a slideshow presented at the festival. Finally, Indiewire compiled all of their coverage on one DOC NYC news page, containing a host of links to recaps of panels and other events (definitely worth a browse.)

At Realscreen, Kevin Ritchie reported on this year’s winners of the BRITDOC Impact Awards. The POV blog also recapped the winners. In a piece for Indiewire, director Joshua Oppenheimer shared his thoughts on the role of the documentary filmmaker and the idea of impact.

At the What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos provided an overview of the International Documentary FIlm Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in two parts: part one and part two. Writing for Realscreen, Manori Ravindran covered an IDFA panel on the issues faced by female directors and other women in the doc world. Ravindran also spoke with festival head Ally Derks about the event. At the POV blog, Kel O’Neill spoke with IDFA DocLab head Casper Sonnen. Also, The D-Word documentary forum has a dedicated thread to the festival (registration and professional status required). And Inoo Kang spoke with Eline Jongsma about her immersive documentary project EMPIRE.

Continue reading…


Monday Memo: Cinema Eye Honors Announces Awards Nominees


CITIZENFOUR from director Laura Poitras earned several nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors awards.

This week the Cinema Eye Honors announced the nominees for its awards. Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio had coverage at Indiewire’s Thompson on Hollywood blog, as did Manori Ravindran at Realscreen. Indiewire’s Shipra Gupta also had coverage, as did Pete Bland of the Columbia Daily Tribune.

The DOC NYC festival kicked off this week. At Eye For Film, Anne-Katrin interviewed DOC NYC programmer Basil Tsiokos in two parts: part one here and part two here. At the New York Times Stephen Holden provided an overview of the festival, while Kevin Ritchie profiled it for Realscreen. At the POV blog, Tom Roston named his must-see films of the festival, while Lauren Wissot did the same at Filmmaker Magazine.

This week the doc community lost Kartemquin Films founding partner Jerry Blumenthal. At the Kartemquin website Tim Horsburgh shared an encomium for Blumenthal, while Manori Ravindran wrote on his passing for Realscreen.

Continue reading…