Monday Memo: MOMA’s Documentary Fortnight Underway


The film PINE RIDGE from director Anna Eborn was among the films selected to play at the Documentary Fortnight program this year.

The Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight program began on Friday. Writing at his What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos provided an overview of the program. At Twitch, Christopher Bourne wrote up some capsule reviews for some Doc Fortnight films.

Ben Beaumont-Thomas of the Guardian reported on THE ACT OF KILLING’s win at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for best documentary. Writing for Filmmaker Magazine, Scott Macaulay reported that director Joshua Oppenheimer’s speech appeared to have been edited to eliminate criticism of the British and U.S. governments in a video posted by the BAFTAs.

In an open letter posted on Facebook, filmmaker Dawn Porter criticized the decision by Washington, D.C., PBS station WETA not to air her film SPIES OF MISSISSIPPI on Monday, Feb. 10 at 10 p.m. Peter Hart of the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) blog had additional reporting on the incident.

This week Stranger Than Fiction is hosting a screening of the classic D.A. Pennebaker film MONTEREY POP at the IFC Center in Manhattan on Tuesday, February 18 at 8 p.m. The film immortalized the now-famous Monterey International Pop Festival held in the summer of 1967. Following the screening D.A. Pennebaker will be in attendance, along with a number of crew members on the film, including Albert Maysles. For more information or to buy tickets please go here.

Continue reading…


Monday Memo: The Act of Killing Drops a Bundle on BitTorrent


THE ACT OF KILLING distributor Drafthouse Films released a promotional bundle for the film via BitTorrent this week.

The New Year holiday has left us with another light news week. Perhaps the most interesting news was that distributor Drafthouse Films released a “bundle” of content related to THE ACT OF KILLING via BitTorrent, a medium most closely associated with pirating. The bundle dropped at the same time the film was being released on iTunes. Realscreen’s Adam Benzine covered the development, as did Paula Bernstein of Indiewire. And Anthony Ha of TechCrunch also had the news.

Indiewire rounded up all of their doc advice from last year in one incredibly helpful post that you can check out here.

Melena Ryzik of the New York Times took note of the fact that both PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER and THE SQUARE had been banned in the respective countries in which they had been shot, while also landing on the Oscar shortlist for docs. Vanessa Thorpe of The Guardian mentioned PUSSY RIOT in a piece noting the political nature of those getting on the shortlist. Jezebel’s Rebecca Rose had details on a screening of PUSSY RIOT intended to take place in Russia that was scuttled by the government there.

Continue reading…