5 BROKEN CAMERAS by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi was one of 15 films shortlisted for the Oscar doc award this week.
Doc news this week was dominated by the release of the names of the fifteen documentary features named to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Oscar award shortlist. Peter Knegt of Indiewire tallied the list, and soon enough people from around the doc world were weighing on on who made the list, and who might have been left off. An added layer of interest was added as this was the first doc shortlist announced since the documentary branch of the Academy changed its rules, ostensibly to help films made with a theatrical release in mind.
At the What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos pointed to capsule reviews that he had done of most of the shortlisted films. Writing for the New York Times, Melena Ryzek weighed in on the list, as did Dan Schnidel at Screenpicks. At the Documentary Channel blog, Christopher Campbell assessed whether the doc rule changes had worked, while Tom Roston also reviewed the list. The DocGeeks blog did us the favor of rounding up available trailers for the films on the shortlist, while the team at Realscreen gathered interviews it had conducted with seven of the shortlisted filmmakers over the past year.
In other Oscar news, Kay Shackleton reported that documentary filmmaker pioneer D.A. Pennebaker was given an honorary Oscar award on Dec. 2 at the 2012 Governors Awards. Huffington Post writer Allan M. Jalon got a chance to speak with the living legend on his career and recent award. Thomas White also covered the awards for the International Documentary Association (IDA) website.
Continue reading…
I try to maintain a policy of not speaking publicly about films I don’t program. However, because Caveh Zahedi has accused me in a YouTube video of “blacklisting” his film The Sheik and I, I want to clarify certain facts before further misinformation gets out of hand.
Here is the background:
Prior to the SXSW film festival, Caveh Zahedi asked for my opinion of his film The Sheik & I. I wrote him a private letter detailing my grave reservations about the film and what I considered the disregard that he showed for the people filmed – in many cases without their consent – and the possible repercussions for their safety. I advised him not to show the film at SXSW in its current state. I shared that letter with SXSW programmer Janet Pierson, so that she wouldn’t be taken by surprise if Zahedi followed through on my advice; and because I thought the issues were serious enough to warrant further consideration on her part. That is the only occasion when I initiated any correspondence with a festival programmer about the film. As we know, that email didn’t change the course for SXSW. I also wrote to three journalists after they had written positively about the film to provide additional context. None of that correspondence resulted in any change of their positions.
Zahedi uses the term “blacklist” evoking the era of Joe McCarthy when filmmakers had their livelihoods threatened. That’s a far cry from this situation. On the contrary, it’s important to note that I curated his earlier film I Am a Sex Addict for SundanceNOW’s Doc Club for February 2013.
I’m hardly the only person who had problems with The Sheik and I. I’d point you to this substantial review out of SXSW in Collider.
Other critics have been more favorable and other festivals have embraced it. But Zahedi can’t seem to accept that he’s made a film with a mixed response.
This incident has been thoroughly raked over by other journalists including Violet Lucca of Film Comment who spent a lot of time looking into it in the spring before deciding it wasn’t really a story.
It’s ironic that Zahedi stands on the ground of free speech, yet wants to smear me for exercising mine.
– Thom Powers
The Sundance Institute this week announced the lineup for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, actually taking two days to announce the full list of films that will be screening in Park City, Utah, early next year. At first blush, the doc that seems to be getting the most attention is PUSSY RIOT – A PUNK PRAYER, about the Russian dissident punk band. At Realscreen, coverage came courtesy of Kelly Anderson, who wrote a piece about docs in competition and another about a few spotlight films heading to the festival. At Indiewire, Jay Fernandez’s coverage was split into two pieces as well, one on the U.S. docs in competition and another on the world docs. The DocGeeks blog also had a piece on the out-of-competition films at Sundance, as well as the projects being shown as part of the New Frontier program.
The doc awards machine continued to trundle on, with Realscreen’s Kevin Ritchie reporting that David France’s HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE won best docmentary at the Gotham Awards, while the Jared Leto-helmed film ARTIFACT took home the audience award. Writing at the Documentary Channel blog, Christopher Campbell said ARTIFACT’s win propelled the film to his must-see docs list for the year.
Continue reading…
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) ended on Nov. 25, but the festival announced its award winners a few days earlier, with director Alan Berliner winning the award for best feature-length documentary for his latest film FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED. Adam Benzine of Realscreen wrote a piece on all of the winners, as did Rosemarie Hugill of the DocGeeks blog.
Programmer Basil Tsiokos was also at IDFA, turning out copy for Indiewire over the course of the festival. You can read his post highlighting ten films on his must-see list here, and take a look at seven projects at IDFA Forum worth keeping an eye on here, which includes POV series producer Yance Ford’s project STRONG ISLAND. Rose Vincelli of Filmmaker Magazine also had a write up on the IDFA Forum, as did Realscreen’s Adam Benzine. And STF Artistic Director Thom Powersdug up an article about the Forum that he penned for the Boston Globe almost 10 years ago for those interested in seeing how things have changed since then. The True/False Festival blog took a look at Victork Kossakovsky’s Top Ten films that screened at IDFA. Also, Nienke Huitenga reported on the Interactive Doc Conference at IDFA for the festival’s website, while Mandy Rose also had a comprehensive rundown of the Interactive Conference events for the i-Docs blog.
Continue reading…
The film RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA won the Audience Award at this year’s DOC NYC Festival.
The third annual DOC NYC ended its run on Thursday, with the festival’s award winners named just prior to a screening held that night of the new film THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE by directors Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. Writing for Movies.com, Christopher Campbell noted three films that screened at the festival made his must-see list for the year. And in his weekly Docutopia blog post, Anthony Kaufman took a look at some of the films at DOC NYC that investigate the notion of innocence lost. Kaufman also reflected on Jamie Meltzer’s film INFORMANT, which won the festival’s Viewfinders Grand Jury Prize.
Continue reading…
