The International Documentary Association (IDA) this week named the nominees for its documentary awards. At Nonfics.com, Christopher Campbell noted that Jason Osder’s LET THE FIRE BURN lead nominees in major categories, while Steve Pond had coverage at The Wrap. Adam Benzine had the news at Realscreen, while Anne Thompson did the same at Indiewire. In a blog post, POV also noted their nomination for the best continuing series award.
The film THESE BIRDS WALK from directors Bassam Tariq and Omar Mullick opened in theaters on Friday, winning a Critics Pick from New York Times writer Nicolas Rapold and a solid review from Scott Tobias at The Dissolve. Robert Greene wrote his own review for Hammer to Nail, as did Omer M. Mozaffar at RogerEbert.com. In a post at Indiewire, the pair wrote a piece sharing their ideas on how to make a documentary that evades social issue cliches. Tariq and Mullick were also featured on the latest episode of Adam Schartoff’s Filmwax podcast, while Tom Roston posed five questions for the pair in a post at the POV blog. Christopher Campbell and Daniel Walber also discussed the film in the latest episode of their podcast The Realness.
The folks at the True/False blog drew attention to a recently uploaded YouTube video documenting the festivals’ panel on doc criticism from earlier this year. The video’s posting seemed to provoke a response from Sam Adams of Indiewire, who wrote a piece asking if critics really understood documentary films.
This week Stranger Than Fiction is playing host to a screening of CALVET from director Dominic Allen on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. at the IFC Center in Manhattan. Film subject Jean-Marc Calvet will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening. For more information or to purchase tickets please go here.
At his What (Not) to Doc blog, programmer Basil Tsiokos provided overviews of several sections of the upcoming DOC NYC Festival, including the American Perspective section, the Metropolis section, the Viewfinders section, the Special Events section, the Galas section and the International Perspectives section.
Tsiokos also, somewhat belatedly, recapped his experience at the Toronto International Film Festival in three posts, with part one here, part two here and part three here.
Netflix made waves this week, with Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times reporting that the company was in the final stages of negotiating exclusive rights to Jehane Noujaim’s film THE SQUARE.
The Chicago Humanities Festival uploaded a video of filmmaker Gordon Quinn discussing the ethics of documentary filmmaking.
Back at Indiewire, Nora Chute covered the Film Independent Forum’s panel on how to fund a doc.
In a post at The Knowledge Online, Ben Unwin made a plea for doc filmmakers to take footage backup duties seriously.
In distro news, Icarus Films announced that FAR FROM VIETNAM would be available on DVD and VOD starting on Dec. 10.
Shannon Carroll recapped a #docchat focusing on lessons learned during long-term documentaries in a post at the POV blog. Fellow contributor Heather McIntosh wrote up the recent film THE TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI in a separate post, while Fernanda Rossi shared details of her work on the film BEHIND THE BLUE VEIL in yet another piece.
At the i-Docs site, Jess Linington spoke with Avni Nijhawan on her interactive project FEARLESS, which focuses on sexual harassment in India.
The film MEDORA from directors Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart, which follows the varsity basketball team in Medora, North Dakota, hits the Village East Cinema on November 8. You can find information on screenings here.
In a piece for Filmmaker Magazine, Sarah Salovaara spoke with Barbara Kopple on her latest film, RUNNING FROM CRAZY.
Over at Nonfics.com, Landon Palmer reviewed Sophie Fiennes’ film THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO CINEMA, which documents the theories of philosopher Slavoj Žižek. And in a post at the SundanceNOW log, Anthony Kaufman examined recent films focusing on Žižek and fellow intellect Noam Chomsky.
Writing for Indiewire, Anthony Kaufman wondered why some film festivals reject good films.
Rober Feder reported that Steve James and Gordon Quinn had been named winners of the 2014 Studs Terkel Community Media Awards.
In a piece for The Guardian, Steve Rose questioned whether “protest films” had any measurable effect on society.
Back at Filmmaker Magazine, Sarah Salovaara profiled the filmmaker customer relations managment (CRM) tool Artful.ly, which comes courtesy of Fractured Atlas. Salovaara also turned out another piece on CLICK HERE, a project that aims to follow filmmakers taking projects through the production process.
At Nonfics.com, Christopher Campbell listed his picks for films reaching homes via a number of methods, with CUTIE AND THE BOXER and FOREIGN PARTS getting shout outs. Campbell also had a recap of the box office tally from the previous week, with BAD GRANDPA leading the pack. And finally, Campbell had a list of the films hitting theaters this week.
Lauren Wissot covered the 22nd Annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in a piece written for Filmmaker Magazine.
At the Center for Media and Social Impact, Stephanie Brown drew attention to Nick Michael’s thesis, which examines the idea of gatekeepers in the era of self-publishing.
Back at Nonfics.com, Christopher Campbell highlighted some feature docs that received Oscar noms and are deserving of longer lasting recognition.
Jonathan Gottschall of Fast Company wrote a piece on the next wave of narrative and the problems with interactivity.
David Leitner examined the NLE software Autodesk Smoke in a piece for Filmmaker Magazine.
In a piece for Nonfics.com, Robert Greene added the film HOW TO LIVE IN THE GERMAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC to his new canon of nonfiction cinema.
In a video interview up at MIT’s Open Doc Lab, Judith Aston discussed business models for interactive docs.
Indiwire writers Steven Greene and Eric Kohn published an updated list of the year’s best documentaries to date, with THE ACT OF KILLING remaining in the pole position.
That’s it for this week. Please e-mail any tips or recommendations for the Memo here, or send them via Twitter to @GuerrillaFace. Thanks, and have a great week everyone!