Director Kirby Dick's The Invisible War is one of the five films vying for an Oscar this year.
With the Oscars just under a week away now, media attention on the nominated docs has been ramping up. This week WNYC host Brian Lehrer interviewed all five of the filmmakers behind the nominated films; you can find a link to all of the shows here. Ed Gonzales of Slate Magazine also provided a breakdown of the nominees and picked a favorite to win. Over at the Huffington Post, entertainment editors Michael Hogan and Christopher Rosen considered all of the nominees (although Rosen admitted that he had not seen any of them). Writing for the Tribeca Institute’s blog, Joe Reid gave readers a round-up of the Oscar-nominated doc shorts. At Vanity Fair, Alyssa Bereznak spoke with THE INVISIBLE WAR director Kirby Dick, while Sharon Waxman did the same for The Wrap. At the New York Times Carpetbagger blog, Larry Rohter took a look at the debate brewing over whether 5 BROKEN CAMERAS should be considered a Palestinian or an Israeli movie.
A number of interviews with directors also hit the web this week. Patrick Brzeski of The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Joshua Oppenheimer, director of THE ACT OF KILLING. (Oppenheimer this week also left the Berlin International Film Festival with the audience award for his film.) Christopher Campbell of the Documentary Channel blog interviewed Chris James Thompson, director of THE JEFFREY DAHMER FILES, and also Lee Hirsch, director of the film BULLY. At Filmmaker Magazine, Sarah Salovaara also spoke with Hirsch, posing him five questions. At The Awl, Rick Paulus talked with filmmaker Spencer McCall about his film THE INSTITUTE, a look at the cryptic game The Jejune Institute. At Screen Daily, Andreas Wiseman interviewed Ken Loach about his new film THE SPIRIT OF ‘45, which recently screened at the Berlinale. Filmmaker Bonnie Boswell spoke with Maria Goodavage of the Independent Lens blog on her upcoming film THE POWERBROKER: WHITNEY YOUNG’S FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS. And finally, Sam Clements of Vice spoke with THE HOUSE I LIVE IN director Eugene Jarecki.
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Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, directors of the film LEVIATHAN, are set to be honored at True/False this year.
This week the True/False Film Fest, set to run Feb. 28 – March 3 in Columbia, Missouri, announced the lineup for this year’s incarnation of the festival. Adam Benzine of Realscreen reported the news. The festival this week also announced that directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel would receive the True Vision Award for their body of work. The festival also said its True Life Fund would recognize Sebastian Junger’s doc WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE & TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON.
Across the Atlantic, the Berlin International Film Festival kicked off on Feb. 7 and is slated to conclude on Feb. 17. On his What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos provided an overview of the docs screening at the Berlinale this year. Adam Dawtrey of Variety took a look at the business side of the festival. And Tom Christie, writing for Indiewire, had a review of THE ACT OF KILLING from director Joshua Oppenheimer.
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THESE BIRDS WALK from filmmakers Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq was one of the feature docs selected to screen at SXSW this year.
The South by Southwest Film Festival this week announced the lineup of its feature films, both documentary and narrative. At Realscreen, Kelly Anderson took a look at some of the docs that made the cut, as did Basil Tsiokos on his What (Not) to Doc blog.
Sundance news continued to make its way out of Park City this week as well. Writing for Indiewire, Jon Fougner examined the Sundance Institute’s Artists Services Program, which provides filmmakers with different means of getting their work to audiences. The hive mind of Indiewire’s Criticwire Network anointed AFTER TILLER by Lana Wilson and Martha Shane as the most highly rated feature doc to come out of Sundance. And Julie Fischer of MIT’s Open Doc Lab reviewed GOOGLE AND THE WORLD BRAIN by Ben Lewis.
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BLOOD BROTHER by Steve Hoover was the big winner at this year's Sundance festival.
Steve Hoover’s film BLOOD BROTHER, about American Rocky Braat who dedicates his life to working with HIV positive children living in an orphanage in India, was the big award winner at Sundance this year, taking home both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award Prize for a U.S. documentary. The Grand Jury Prize for world cinema went to Kalyanee Mam for her film A RIVER CHANGES COURSE, about several families in Cambodia. You can find a full list of Sundance award winners here. Adam Benzine of Realscreen also had an awards recap, as did Bryan Alexander of USA Today. Benzine also provided a comprehensive recap of documentary news that came out of the festival.
Perhaps the biggest news to come out of the festival was that docs were selling well. The folks at Indiewire took on the task of rounding up all the acquisitions deals that were inked during Sundance (the list includes both docs and narratives). Daniel Miller and Tatiana Siegel of The Hollywood Reporter reported that a minimum of four docs sold for at least $1 million: PUSSY RIOT–A PUNK PRAYER by directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin; THE SUMMIT by Nick Ryan, TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM by Morgan Neville; and BLACKFISH by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Josh L. Dickey and Jeff Sneider of Variety also reported that the high price tags commanded by many films may have frozen out smaller indie distributors.
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The film DIRTY WARS by director Richard Rowley was one of several docs to screen at Sundance thus far.
The week documentary news was dominated by the start of the Sundance Film Festival, which began Thursday, Jan. 17. On Sundance’s blog, Eric Hynes and other writers recapped Day Two of the festival, with a strong focus on docs. On the POV blog, Tom Roston interviewed two of the festival’s senior programmers, David Courier and Caroline Libresco. Roston also highlighted a few films screening at the festival, FIRE IN THE BLOOD by Dylan Mohan Gray; THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DICK CHENEY by R.J. Cutler; and WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON by Sebastian Junger. The Hetherington doc was also profiled by Stuart Hughes of the BBC.
Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan also provided his own overview of the docs set to screen at Sundance, while Karen Kemmerle of the Tribeca Future of Film blog highlighted some Twitter feeds worth following during the festival. Mark Olsen had coverage of the film AFTER TILLER by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, while Eric Kohn wrote up BLACKFISH for Indiewire. At The Hollywood Reporter, John DeFore reviewed Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill’s film DIRTY WARS. Shiela Nevins of HBO spoke with Brooks Barnes of the New York Times about the film LIFE ACCORDING TO SAM.
There was also an abundance of interviews with Sundance filmmakers being churned out this week. The Filmmaker Magazine blog had one with CRASH REEL director Lucy Walker, while Jim Allen of the website talked with musician Dave Grohl, director of the doc SOUND CITY. At Realscreen, Adam Benzine had an interview with director R.J. Cutler, while Kelly Anderson chatted with Morgan Neville, director of TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM. And Slovej Schou spoke with STORIES WE TELL director Sarah Polley for Entertainment Weekly.
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