I congratulate the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival on its successful 12th edition held this past weekend in Durham, NC. This year marks the first for Sadie Tillery (pictured with me) as the new Director of Programming. Her team faced multiple challenges ranging from the dismal economy to college basketball distracting local audiences. Despite those hazards, the theaters were full – even for the Sunday morning show of the Slovak doc BLIND LOVES, paired with the magnificent Danish short 12 NOTES DOWN (winner of Full Frame’s short prize). Basil Tsiokos has a full report on IndieWire.
Twelve years ago, when Full Frame was founded by Nancy Buirski, the idea of championing documentaries was still novel in North America. Hot Docs was only a few years old. Since then, the field has grown a lot more crowded with the rise of True/False, SXSW, Tribeca, LAFF, and Silverdocs. Yet Full Frame still provides a unique experience. For filmmakers who tend to dwell in coastal cities, the fest gives them a rare chance to connect with southern audiences (and a taste of authentic pulled pork bbq). The pleasant spring weather and close proximity of theaters create ideal conditions for meeting fellow doc lovers. The democratic atmosphere allows students to mingle among legends like D.A. Pennebaker and Barbara Kopple.
On March 29, 2009, the 
Co-hosts Thom Powers and AJ Schnack helpfully pose on either end so that photo editors can crop them out to focus on MAN ON WIRE’s Philippe Petit; Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed.
STF’s spring season kicks off with THE ENGLISH SURGEON. Posing after the Q&A: Thom Powers in his best English tweed (by way of a Vietnamese tailor); director Geoffrey Smith; and Henry Marsh, the surgeon who describes himself as a narcissist but comes off as an altruist – proving they’re not incompatible.
What Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and Andy Warhol’s Factory were to the international jet-set of the 1960s, Larry Levinson’s infamous sex-club Plato’s Hideaway was to working class New York in the late seventies and early eighties. Jon Hart and Matthew Kauffman’s documentary 
A brief surf of cable news shows and their speaking-points, sound-byte oriented talking-head experts might lead one to ask where public intellectual discourse has gone in our media saturated 21st century world. This week’s STF presentation ARGUING THE WORLD is a swansong to the golden age of New York public intellectual life through a portrait of several of its most influential participants: Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and neo-con godfather Irving Kristol. New York doc veterans Director Joseph Dorman and Editor Jonathan Oppenheim joined the STF audience for a discussion of the circumstances that made the City College of the 1930s the cradle of public intellectual discourse for the remainder of the 20th Century, and how the changing nature of our society and media-scape perhaps no longer allow for public intellectuals to have the prominence and influence that they once did. As is traditional, the conversation continued at STF hangout 99 Below where Dorman and Oppenheim were joined by a slew of familiar faces from the New York documentary scene: Jean Tsien, Jenni Livingston, Pola Rapaport, Martina Radwan, and others. Several hours later, fueled by good conversation and perhaps the special pear schnapps STF drink special, one left thinking that perhaps the prognosis for intellectual discourse was not as bleak as one thought.