Friday, May 30th from 9:00 – 6:30 pm at Bentley College, Waltham, MA.

As a participant of this exciting event, I’m writing to encourage you to
attend the Making Media Now conference, a full day of programming and
events dedicated to “The Art & Business of Filmmaking.” Held this year on
Friday, May 30th at Bentley College, Making Media Now will continue its
tradition of bringing film industry professionals, independent filmmakers,
and special guests from around the country together for an intensive day
of cutting-edge learning, networking, and opportunity.

Panels will feature topics such as:

• Financing Documentaries: What Does the Future Hold?
• Finding Work in the Massachusetts Film Industry
• Story Structure Case Study with the Doc Doctor
• Marketing Film for Engagement & Impact,
• Equity Film Financing
• Music for Film 2.0
• Incorporating Animation into your Feature Film or Documentary
• The Future of Documentary in the Age of Internet Video
• Perfecting Your Pitch

PLUS:
• Trade show with vendor demonstrations — come visit the DER table!!
• Free 15-minute one-on-one consultations with experts (sign-up that
day, first come, first serve):
• Legal Issues
• Tax Incentives
• Story Structure/Trailer advice
• POV Representative
• ITVS Representative
• Technology Consulting
• Animator
• Catered lunch w/ keynote speaker (to be announced)
• Pitch Session - three projects will have the chance to practice
their pitch to a panel of industry experts! (visit the FC website to
apply to be one of the three filmmakers chosen to pitch)

National industry guests so far include:

• Ellen Stanley, VP Communications, National Geographic
• Cynthia Lopez, Vice President of POV
• Suzanne Lyons, Snowfall Films
• Dan Cogan, Impact Partners
• Kathryn Washington, ITVS
• Fernanda Rossi, The Doc Doctor
• Ryan Harrington, Gucci-Tribeca Fund
• Bonnie Abaunza, Participant Media
• Slava Rubin, indiegogo.com
• Roland Tec, Pinkplot Productions
• Scott Kirsner, Author & Boston Globe writer
and more to be announced!

The price between April 26th – May 9th is $125; and after May 9th, $150.
Price includes luncheon and snacks. We have a discounted rate for students
with valid IDs.

Registration is available now at www.filmmakerscollab.org. For more
information, contact Filmmakers Collaborative at 781-647-1102 or
info@filmmakerscollab.org.

Internship with the John Marshall Ju/’hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection

The Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution, is accepting applications for a summer internship with one of the seminal collections of ethnographic film – the John Marshall Ju/’hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection.

Intern will assist in researching information and existing documentation to be used for descriptive cataloging of this unique and important audio-visual collection which documents the Ju/’hoansi of Namibia’s Kalahari Desert from 1950 - 2000.   The intern, under the guidance of the processing archivist, will aid in conforming and improving existing shot logs and content descriptions, and in creating cataloging content descriptions for both outtakes and edited titles in the collection.

This project will involve working with both paper records and film and video elements; certain aspects of the project can be tailored to the intern’s particular interests.  In addition to making the John Marshall collection more accessible for research and use, the intern will gain familiarity with a wide variety of film and video elements and formats, as well as with its fascinating cultural and political content.  No technical experience with film or video is required, only an interest in audio-visual collections, ethnographic film, and/or the history and culture of the Ju/’hoansi.  More information about the Marshall collection is available at:  www.der.org/kalfam  and   www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/whatsnew.htm

Please direct inquiries and applications to:
Pamela Wintle
Senior Archivist
Human Studies Film Archives
Smithsonian Institution
wintlep@si.edu

After winning the top prize (the Golden Bear) at the Berlin Film Festival, and coming from 5 sold out screenings at Tribeca, we were treated to an under the radar screening of Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha’s The Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite) at the Harvard Film Archive last night (5/5).

It had been over a year since I last had contact with Jose. He and I had been collaborating on a documentary film about anthropologists, inspired by a very controversial book “Darkness in El Dorado” that caused a near riot at the American Anthropological Association’s Annual Meeting the year it was published. The controversy involved perhaps the most widely studied indigenous group of people in the world, the Yanomamo of the Amazon. Our company (DER) happens to hold the copyright to the largest film record, starting from “first contact”, of those people.
I first met Jose here when his break through film, the documentary “Bus 174″ was screening at the Boston International Film Festival. That film was widely acclaimed, and for a documentary, had the rare honor of being picked up by a theatrical distributor, Think Film. At the time I hadn’t realized it (I don’t think Jose did either) this film has become the first in what he now says, will be a trilogy.

At Harvard last night, there was a line of people that had to be turned away from the theater. Standing room only. I spied Jose, wearing what looked like the same faded blue baseball cap he wore when he was shooting interviews in my living room a few years ago. He was leaning against the wall, waiting to be introduced. I waved at him, he came over and hugged me, whispering that he had met with someone in NY who had promised to give him the money to finish our film. I felt a wave of excitement, anticipation and gratitude that I was lucky enough to know one of the most brilliant, young filmmakers in the world today.

The audience understandably consisted of a large number of Brazilian students and academics. This was HARVARD after all. There was a loud din with the hum of Portuguese being spoken all around me. The film is subtitled. It has gotten a huge amount of press, in the NYTimes and everywhere it has screened so far. Jose is articulate, but says few words in the intro saving his incise intellect for the Q & A after.

The theater darkens and the total assault on our senses begins. The core of the film is about BOPE, an elite squad of police trained to the level of Navy Seals in our country. They are intended to counter the corruption and collaboration between the regular police and the drug lords in the favellas of Rio. The audio track is masterful as we feel sucked into the world of bullets and mayhem that epitomizes the “war on drugs”. There is blood, a lot of blood. There is torture that made me reflect immediately on Abu Ghraib. But above all there is moral ambiguity. The questions that ask who is responsible for all this when apparently none of the characters seem to be in control. None of them have what philosophers call “free will”. They are all trapped in a system that we can identify as “the State”.

Theoretically, we should find most of the characters in Jose’s film reprehensible, but we don’t. They are sympathetic, we feel for them, even as they kick and beat and twist plastic bags over the heads of the punks and thugs they are sent out to hunt down and destroy.

The film has been misconstrued as an “action film” in the manner of Bruce Willis. It is anything but. It is an ode to our elemental inhumanity, our powerlessness when the policies of governments create environments that we have to evolve to fit, in order to survive. It is a complex structure that rises to the highest level of “Art” with a capitol “A”.

By the end of the on-rushing two hours I was limp as a dish rag. Stunned, I sat in my seat wondering what to make of what I had seen. Two academics, (whose names and specialities I have forgotten) start the dialogue about the film with Jose. He is thoughtful and respectful of all reactions. He has heard it all by now. He tells how he originally started to make a documentary about this subject, an outgrowth of his work on BUS 174. But soon he realized he could get himself killed, following BOPE on their excursions into the slums. So, based on his many interviews with police and with the Bope, he constructed the narrative script for the film. Before it actually was released the Brazilian government and the cops sued him to prevent the film from screening, but the public had already seen pirated copies of the film and demanded it be shown. It was released, to wild acclaim, and the lawsuits seem to have faded away.

Jose is fearless. Like all greatest artists, he takes risks that no others dare to do. His intellect seems to be able to embrace far reaching ideas and weave them together in a coherent whole. The resulting work may be approached and perceived at many levels. For some, it may always remain simply an action film. For others, it is a meditation on what it means to be human.

Elite Squad is sceduled for theatrical release in this country in September 2008. Go see it if it appears in a theater near you.

Coding Culture color, 85 minutes
The Indian software outsourcing industry has emerged as a key node of the global economy. The series of ethnographic films, Coding Culture, explores the cultures of outsourced work and the moulding of a new workforce to cater to this global high-tech services industry. Each of the three films focuses on a single company, representing one of the major types of software company found in Bangalore: a medium-sized Indian-owned company software services company; the offshore software development centre of a U.S.-based IT company; and a small ‘cross-border’ startup company that produces its own software products and markets them to global customers.

Karl Heider - Dani Films color, Special Edition two-DVD set
In 1963, under the auspices of the EDC curriculum project Man: A Course of Study, an elementary social studies curriculum, Karl Heider went to the central highlands of Irian Jaya (West New Guinea). He spent the previous two years in the Grand Balim Valley with Robert Gardner’s Harvard-Peabody exhibition, and his intention was to return from this second trip with material to be used to teach American grade school students about digging-stick horticulture and house construction. However, after producing the Netsilik Eskimo series, the EDC curriculum project fell victim to the political climate of the time. Heider spent the following years presenting the Dani material himself, eventually producing the ethnographic classics, Dani Sweet Potatoes and Dani Houses.

This Special Edition two-DVD set contains the two films along with commentary by Karl Heider, and a narrated pictorial history of Heider’s career in archaeology and anthropology.

Those With Voice (Los Con Voz) color, 55 minutes
Indigenous video makers, media activists and anthropologists explain the importance of community-oriented media to indigenous populations in Mexico and the world.

Young Arabs color, 25 minutes
Muslim and Christian boys attending an elite preparatory school in the heart of Cairo offer thoughts on God, pop culture, terrorism, marriage, the Middle East, and more.

By Story Consultant Fernanda Rossi, The Documentary Doctor

(Reading time: 5:15 minutes – 468 words)

Click here to download a printable PDF of this issue.
Missed March’s issue? print version

Voice-over is the technique of adding narration to images, i.e., voice over images. Lately, however, I feel compelled to re-name it voice-all-over because of its overuse. Or voice-over-again, because how many times it’s re-written.

Filmmaker Gino Del Guercio, with a dozen documentaries under his belt, has no problems writing, directing, and editing good narration. But his latest film, Abandoned in the Arctic, presented a particular set of new challenges. So we decided to work on it together in his South Easton, Mass. studio along with his executive producer, Jeff Clark.

It took a thorough scene breakdown and analysis to find the miniscule glitches that were putting the rest of the film out of balance. And it was only on the second day that it struck me: the double function of the voice-over was adding extra weight to the already complex story.

The film has two storylines: that of James Shedd retracing the steps of his great-great-grandfather Lt. Adolphus Greely’s exploration of the Arctic; and that of the original exploration itself and how Greely was forgotten both by history and the government that was supposed to pick him up at the end of his expedition, an oversight that resulted in desperate yet heroic attempts at survival.

Through narration James himself intertwined these storylines separated by 120 years and four generations. But, alas, that forced him into two almost opposing functions: on the one hand, present-day explorer coming of age; on the other, omniscient historian. Can one single character do both? Sometimes; but after thorough consideration we all concluded it wasn’t possible in this film.

The obvious solution was to have talent narrate the historical events. Of course, Gino had thought of that and tried it already. Professional talent and James didn’t mix well. Who else could it be? Gino quickly blurted out, “The aunt! The aunt!” Yes, the aunt, who appeared in only one scene in the opening, was the family custodian of Lt. Greely’s memorabilia.

This sparkly old lady would be perfect, better than talent. Rather than making history a separate entity passed on from a disembodied narrator to the audience, it would be integrated more deeply into the film, with James’ aunt passing the family’s oral tradition to the next generation, as though a wise ancestor were guiding young James through his adventure in the Arctic. It made mythical sense!

In retrospect, the solution, like all good solutions, seems obvious. And the answer might seem too easy, but it was only easy because we found the right question. It was not whether to have less voice-over or different content or more scenes or use cards instead: the true issue was to understand the function of characters and voice-over in the overall story structure.

Conclusion: Voice is made of air not ink and paper..

The Doctor will see you now: The Doc will be offering her signature workshops on structure and fundraising trailers in Denver, May 17-18. She’ll also be at the Boston Market on May 30. For details check www.documentarydoctor.com.

Voice Over and Over – Case Study: Abandoned in the Arctic by Gino Del Guercio.
Article by Fernanda Rossi | edited by Marcia Scott | photo by Tania Retchisky
published by Documentary Educational Resources

Fernanda Rossi, 2008. All rights reserved. This article can be reprinted in its entirety for educational purposes only, as long as no charges of any kind are made. Partial reproductions or modifications to the original format are strictly prohibited.

“What’s the Big Idea?” Clip

SUNDANCE CHANNEL ANNOUNCES SECOND ANNUAL USER-GENERATED ECO-CONTEST
“WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?”

Participants Submit
“Big Ideas” To Green The Planet

Contest Continues Until May 20th, 2008

Sundance Channel invites consumers to share their inspired eco-solutions in the second annual national contest entitled “What’s The Big Idea?” presented by Lexus Hybrid Living. The contest, in which consumers submit a short film or photo essay demonstrating how they work green, play green, eat green or live green, helps to kick off season two of Sundance Channel’s original series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet,” which launches on April 1 as part of The Green, Sundance Channel’s weekly destination focusing on environmental topics. The winner will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000 to help make their “Big Idea” a reality as well as a private green audit by “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” subject Current Energy. Four runners up will receive a Sundance Channel Green VIP Bag.

Current Energy provides energy-efficient solutions that are environmentally sensitive or advanced. Focusing on home and business systems as a whole, Current Energy saves customers money on products, services and utility bills. They are featured in “Big ideas for a Small Planet: Gadgets” airing on June 17th.

Contestants will submit their one-minute short film or photo essay featuring their “Big Idea” via www.sundancechannel.com/thegreen#/bigIdeasContest:overview between April 1 and May 20. Sundance Channel will select the top 25 entries to be viewed and voted on by users between May 27 and June 24. The five proposals to receive the most votes will be reviewed by a panel of environmental experts who will pick the winner. Pieces will be judged on creativity, overall theme, feasibility and presentation.The winner will be announced the week of July 7th.

The Green presents a lively mix of original series, documentary premieres and interstitial series about the earth’s ecology which provide viewers with ideas on how to work green, play green, eat green, dress green and live green. Its documentary presentations survey a broad scope of eco-related topics, from climate change and energy to design, fashion and architecture. “The GREEN” airs every Tuesday night at 9pm et/pt and is presented by Lexus Hybrid Living and Citi Smith Barney.

Under the creative direction of Robert Redford, Sundance Channel is the television destination for independent-minded viewers seeking something different. Bold, uncompromising and irreverent, Sundance Channel offers audiences a diverse and engaging selection of films, documentaries, and original programs, all unedited and commercial free. Launched in 1996, Sundance Channel is a venture of NBC Universal, CBS and Robert Redford. Sundance Channel operates independently of the non-profit Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival, but shares the overall Sundance mission of encouraging artistic freedom of expression. Sundance Channel’s website address is www.sundancechannel.com.

The Films of Bess Lomax Hawes B/W, 107 minutes
This DVD brings together four films by American folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes - GEORGIA SEA ISLAND SINGERS (1964), BUCKDANCER (1965), PIZZA PIZZA DADDY-O (1967), and SAY OLD MAN CAN YOU PLAY THE FIDDLE (1970) - made while at the Anthropology Department of San Fernando Valley State College. These films concentrate on performance and by implication how the performers’ aesthetics both inform and reflect societal values.

Ika Hands - SPECIAL EDITION color, 99 minutes
Here Gardner’s film about the Ika, a Mayan remnant living high in the Sierra Nevadas, is augmented by a conversation between the filmmaker and nobel laureate Octavio Paz and readings from Gardner’s journals illustrated with over color 60 photographs. This newly re-mastered DVD provides further insight not only on shamanism, but also answers to the question: What can images tell us?

John Bishop Short Films B/W & color, 87 minutes
This DVD brings together 14 short films and videos by John Bishop made between 1975-2000 broken down into three categories - documentary, observational and dance.

The Key From Spain: The Songs & Stories of Flory Jagoda color, 40 minutes
In this uplifting tale of survival and continuation, acclaimed Sephardic folksinger, Flory Jagoda, tells the story of her life, of all our lives. With warmth and passion, she sings the songs of her ancestors and contributes melodies and lyrics of her own to this timeless musical canon.

OSS Tales B/W & color, 68 minutes
Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy visited Padstow, Cornwall in 1951, producing a film, Oss Oss Wee Oss, about its May Day celebration. In 2004, filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Sabina Magliocco returned to Padstow to see how the custom was faring fifty years later. This DVD contains four films: Oss Tales (2007), Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953), Oss Oss Wee Oss Redux: Beltane in Berkeley (2004), and About the Oss Films (2007).

Running Out of Time color, 104 minutes
This documentary locates the crisis of Indian Adivasi agriculture in the larger context of Jharkhand’s political and economic history. Positing the indigenous Adivasi people and their ecosystem against overwhelming national interventions that have carved out an industrial and urban “state” in Jharkhand, it shows the fundamental impact of such development on Jharkhand’s environment and demography.

The Swahili Beat color, 28 minutes
This is an upbeat look at the remarkable history of the Swahili people of Kenya and Tanzania’s East African coast. Packed with the music and dance of its indigenous peoples, the film takes viewers along the coast from the fabled island of Lamu to Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kilwa, Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam, tracing the development of the Swahili culture through the intermarriage of Arab settlers with local Africans.

Visit our Resources page to find valuable books about documentary film. Recent additions to the list include Jean Rouch’s Ciné-Ethnography (Visible Evidence, V. 13), Robert Gardner’s Making Dead Birds: Chronicle of a Film, and the new edition of Karl Heider’s Ethnographic Film.

From Honey to Ashes color, 48 minutes
An intimate portrait of an indigenous Paraguayan community after contact with the developed world, and their efforts to chart a collective future in a context shaped by deforestation, NGO activity, anthropologists and evangelical Christianity. This film contributes to the visual anthropology of lowland South America by putting a human face to critical questions about contact, indigeneity and modernity.

The Last Kamikaze: Testimonials from WWII Suicide Pilots color, 55 minutes
This video explores the minds of former teenage suicide bombers who participated in the suicide operations during WW II. Now in their 70s and 80s, these individuals reflect upon their past and talk candidly about their lives, issues related to patriotism, propaganda, spirituality, and on-going turmoil in the Middle East.

The Last Rites of the Honourable Mr. Rai color, 47 minutes
A groundbreaking and in-depth study of a Hindu cremation that allows the viewer to actually experience and participate in a cremation ceremony along the Ganges River.

Today the Hawk Takes One Chick color, 72 minutes
Jane Gillooly’s film captures day-to-day life in a rural society on the threshold of simultaneous collapse and reinvention. The Lubombo region of Swaziland suffers from the world’s highest prevalence of HIV and the lowest life expectancy. This observational film is told from the poignant perspective of three grandmothers (gogos) who have become instrumental in defining a new world order in the fight against the spread of HIV. As the stakes of each day heighten, gogo Albertina asks: “What will happen when all the gogos are dead?”

Walking Pilgrims (Arukihenro) color, 73 minutes
Shot over a period of nine months and based on ethnographic survey methods, this film reveals the motives, aims and desires of modern Japanese people as they follow a Buddhist pilgrimage. Presenting the pilgrimage as a microcosm, Walking Pilgrims (Arukihenro) offers profound insights into the religious and socio-cultural background of modern Japanese society whilst at the same time pointing to the universal human quest for self-knowledge.

Deadline March 31, 2008

Working Films is seeking candidates with a demonstrated commitment to
social justice and an interest in the role of documentary filmmaking
and new technology for the George Stoney Fellowship. Candidates will be
assisted in conceptualization, writing and research on Working Films
campaigns. Regular responsibilities include sitting in as colleagues in
all development meetings between filmmakers, activists and other
Working Films staff, and traveling when necessary to rough-cut
screenings and community organizing meetings.
The fellowship is expected to last 8-10 weeks in the
Wilmington office, starting in May or June  2008. The Fellow will serve as
part-time, temporary staff, earning $10-15 an hour. For more
information about the work of  Working Films and how to apply,
please see www.workingfilms.org.

--

The LEF Foundation is pleased to announce its support of a new film screening series, Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Filmmaking. Having recognized and supported documentary filmmaking in Boston for many years, this film series is part of a larger effort to highlight the history and deepen the understanding of Boston’s remarkable documentary tradition, which continues today.

The screening series begins on Saturday, March 22 at 12:30 pm at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The intent of the series is to juxtapose important documentary films from different generations of Boston based filmmakers, thereby revealing the connections between the earliest innovators and filmmakers today. For the first screening, curator Peter Dowd has selected Forest of Bliss by Robert Gardner and Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, by Jane Gillolly.

A discussion between the filmmakers will be facilitated by film scholar Scott MacDonald, author of numerous books about experimental film, including the series A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. For complete details on this initial screening, please reference the attached flyer or visit the project’s website at www.filmandreality.org.

This screening series is part of a multi-platform effort, Film & Reality: Boston Documentary, being sponsored by LEF to shed new light on Boston’s documentary filmmaking tradition and its significant, yet under-recognized, contribution to the history of cinema and modern moving image culture. Through film screenings, critical writing and discourse, and filmmaking itself, this project highlights the work of area filmmakers who continue to explore the risk and friction that occur when film meets reality, and who produce highly original work that wrestles with the depiction of “truth” in our complex world.

Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Filmmaking
Saturday 22 March, 2008
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Remis Auditorium

12:30
Forest of Bliss by Robert Gardner, 1986, 90 min.

2:15
Today the Hawk Takes One Chick by Jane Gillooly, 2007, 72 min.

3:30
Discussion with Robert Gardner and Jane Gillooly led by film scholar Scott
MacDonald
For more information, please email info@facingreality.org

Cubanos, Life and Death of a Revolution color, 52 & 86 minutes
This film takes a unique look at the final moments of the Castro saga and the uncertain future of Cuba through the eyes a Cuban musician/expatriot. Cubanos is a road movie fleshed out with personal and cultural dimensions, punctuated by interviews with Cuban citizens and exiles in Miami. Behind polarized political discourses, there is life as lived by the millions of Cubans who, day after day, shape the Cuban identity of the 21st century.

Through the Negev color, 18 minutes
Told through interwoven first-person accounts by the few Sudanese women and children who have made the journey by walking from Egypt to Israel, Through the Negev is a short documentary that encapsulates the refugees’ struggle for home and safety.

May 29. - June 1st, 2008, NAFA (The Nordic Anthropological Film Association), The Museum of Jón Sigurðsson, The University Centre of West fjords, Edinborgarhúsið (a cultural centre in Ísafjörður) and Roots (a non- governmental organisation for multicultural society), will hold an international documentary film festival and a conference at Ísafjördur in the West fjords of Iceland, in association with University of Iceland and The Icelandic Anthropology Association.

CONGRATS to DER Filmmakers Melissa Peabody (SAN FRANCISCO: STILL WILD AT HEART) and Catherine Mullins (BEING INNU) for their films acceptance for screening at the 10th Anniversary edition of the Wisconsin Film Festival.

This prestigious festival has screened more than 1100 films from around the world in it’s first nine years.

We hope to see an enthusiastic audience in Madison Wisconcin on April 3rd-6th  for these two fine films.

Check here for details: www.wifilmfest.org/

OPEN CALL FOR PRODUCTION FUNDS
Annual Deadline: April 3, 2008 by 5pm Pacific *

Offered once a year, this round of funding is for applicants with projects at the production and/or post-production stage. Project should be intended for public television broadcast. Awards average from $20,000 to $50,000, though exceptions may be made. NOTE: Projects in research and development or script development phases are not eligible to apply.

CAAM convenes an independent panel of media professionals including producers, directors, and programmers who evaluate proposals and sample tapes, and then make recommendations to the CAAM staff and Board of Directors. The Board makes final approval. The review process for Open Call takes approximately 4 months.

Through this call, CAAM also offers the James T. Yee Fellowship [link] named in honor of CAAM’s founding Executive Director. This award offers funding coupled with a mentorship for first-time or emerging filmmakers. This is not a separate funding initiative. Candidates are nominated from the Open Call applicant pool.

OPEN DOOR COMPLETION FUND
Winter Deadline: February 7, 2008 by 5pm Pacific *
Summer Deadline: August 7, 2008 by 5pm Pacific *

Offered twice a year, this round of funding is for applicants with projects in the final post-production phase. To be eligible a full-length rough cut must be submitted with the proposal. Awards average $20,000 and CAAM funds should be the last monies needed to finish the project and deliver the broadcast master.

CAAM programming staff will review proposals and rough cuts and then make recommendations to the CAAM Board of Directors. The Board makes final approval. The review process takes approximately 3 months.

* PLEASE NOTE: These are NOT postmark deadlines. Complete applications must be received in our office no later than 5pm on the date indicated. We do not accept late applications for any reason nor do we offer extensions on the deadline.

On February 8th, we’re launching UP THE YANGTZE, our 4 year-in-the-
making epic documentary on China’s devastating Three Gorges Dam. We’ve
gambled it all and gone to 35mm film print (beautifully done by
Technicolor), launching an open run at the Cumberland in Toronto,
followed by Vancouver (feb 15), Montreal (feb 22), Ottawa (feb 29),
etc. then the U.S. in April with Zeitgeist. In order to help support
the existence of feature docs in cinemas, we need your help forwarding
this message, and showing up to the theater on OPENING WEEKEND! Also,
we’re up against a big rival: Paris Hilton’s new film also opens Feb
8th. Please, if only for this reason, please help UP THE YANGTZE beat
THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE on opening weekend!
Thanks  - Mila Aung-Thwin, producer
trailer:
“Outstanding … gorgeously shot and as gripping as an epic novel”
-Liam Lacey, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“A gloriously cinematic doc”
-John Anderson, VARIETY

SYNOPSIS: In China, the mighty Yangtze is known simply as “The River.”
It is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in
history, the Three Gorges Project.  At the river’s edge, a girl named
Yu Shui says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards
their small homestead. She is leaving to work on a cruise line that
takes tourists on a “Farewell to the Three Gorges Tour”, where
visitors get to wave goodbye to 5000 years of civilization. It’s “The
Love Boat” meets “Apocalypse Now”. The Three Gorges Dam — contested
symbol of the Chinese economic miracle — provides the epic backdrop
for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside
modern China. 95 minutes, 35mm. Named one of Canada’s Top Ten Films,
winner of best Canadian Documentary at the Vancouver Film Festival, UP
THE YANGTZE opens its theatrical run in Canada on February 8th, 2008.
Presented in glorious 35mm in Dolby 5.1 Surround , UP THE YANGTZE is a
cinematic immersion in China’s rapidly changing landscape. Please show
your support by coming out OPENING WEEKEND. Documentaries don’t last
long in theaters without your SUPPORT!
Opens:
Toronto, February 8th, 2008: CUMBERLAND Cinemas - 159 Cumberland St.
(at Avenue Rd.)  tel. (416) 964-9359
Vancouver, February 15th:  THE RIDGE - 3131 Arbutus.  tel. (604)
738-6311
Montreal, February 22nd: AMC FORUM - 2313 Ste-Catherine Ouest tel.
(514) 904-1250
Ottawa, February 29th: BYTOWNE -  325 Rideau  tel. (613) 789-3456

U.S. release is slated for April 2008 by Zeitgeist

“Restores your faith in the documentary film medium”
– MATTHEW HAYS, MONTREAL MIRROR (full review)

FURTHER SCREENINGS:

February 1 – Canada’s Top Ten, TIFFG, Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto
February 3 - Empire Theatres Empress Walk, 5095 Yonge Street, Toronto
February 6 – Doc Soup, Hot Docs, Bloor Cinema, Toronto
February 8 – Cineplex Odeon, Toronto (open run)
February 15 – Ridge Cinema, Vancouver (open run)
February 9 - Powell River Film Festival, Evergreen Theatre, Powell
River, BC
February 14-16 - The Capitol Theatre, Nelson, BC
February 22-March 1, Salmon Arm Film Festival, Salmon Arm, BC
February 22 – AMC Forum, Montreal (open run, date tbc)
February 22 – Quartier Latin, Montreal (French version) - (open run,
date tbc)
February 22 - Port Moody Film Society Canadian Film Festival (www.pmfilm.ca
)
February 27- Village Cinemas, Whistler, BC
February 28-March 2 - Kingston Canadian Film Festival
February 29-March 4 - Bytowne Cinema, Ottawa
March 6-9 - London Canadian Film Festival (www.londoncanfilmfest.ca)
March 7-13 - Princess Cinemas, Waterloo, ON
March 24 - Cine-Club Laval, Quebec (French version)
March 27 - MUN Cinema Series, Memorial University, St.John’s, NFLD
March 28 - April 2 - Cinematheque Winnipeg, Dave Barber
April 3 - Sackville Film Society, Vogue Cinema, Sackville, NB
April 10 - Cape Breton Island Film Series, Empire Sydney Theatres,
Sydney, NS
April 26 - CNC Theatre Film Group, College of New Caladonia, Prince
George, BC
May 7 - Galaxy Theatre, Brockville, ON

International Festival schedule

Sundance Film Festival
From January 17, 2008 to January 27, 2008
Park City, USA
International Film Festival
From January 24, 2008 to February 03, 2008
Santa Barbara, USA
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
From February 14, 2008 to February 20, 2008
Missoula, USA
One World International Human Rights Film Festival
From March 05, 2008 to March 13, 2008
Prague, Czech Republic
International Film Festival
From March 06, 2008 to March 16, 2008
Cleveland, USA
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
From March 07, 2008 to March 16, 2008
Athens, Greece
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
From March 13, 2008 to March 21, 2008
London, England
International Film Festival
From March 17, 2008 to April 06, 2008
Hong Kong, China
DocAviv - International Documentary Film Festival
From April 03, 2008 to April 13, 2008
Tel Aviv, Israël
Golden Gate Awards Competition & International Film Festival
From April 24, 2008 to May 08, 2008
San Francisco, USA
New Zealand Film Festival
From July 11, 2008 to August 03, 2008
Wellington, New.Zealand

After a sold-out screening in 2007, The International Documentary
Challenge returns to Hot Docs in April 2008! Registration for the 3rd
annual Doc Challenge, held March 6-10, 2008, is now open.

The Premise: Filmmakers from around the world have just 5 days to
make a short non-fiction film. Hot Docs Canadian International
Documentary Film Festival, the Presenting Partner, will once again
host the theatrical premiere of the finalists and the awards ceremony
during the Festival. After the premiere of the finalists, showcases
of regionally produced films will be held, including an IDA sponsored
screening in Los Angeles, a SILVERDOCS sponsored screening in
Washington DC, a Big Sky Documentary Film Festival screening in
Montana, a DOC sponsored screening in Toronto, a Northwest Film Forum
sponsored screening in Seattle, a Film Action Oregon sponsored
screening in Portland and many more! Additionally, a Best of DVD will
be released and television distribution will be pursued by a
distribution partner.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Early Registration Deadline: February 11, 2008
Final Registration Deadline: March 5, 2008
Doc Challenge: March 6-10, 2008
Hot Docs Premiere of Finalists: April 2008

Complete details and entry forms can be found online at
www.docchallenge.org

Check out Hot Docs here: www.hotdocs.ca

The Doc Challenge is produced by Doug Whyte of KDHX Community Media
and sponsored by Hot Docs, the International Documentary Association,
the Documentary Organization of Canada, SILVERDOCS, the Big Sky
Documentary Film Festival, Film Action Oregon and the creators of the
48 Hour Film Project.

The International Documentary Challenge.
Real Life. Filmed Real Fast.

Fate of the Lhapa color, 63 minutes
A touching portrayal the last three Tibetan shamans (lhapas) living in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal. With no other descendants to carry on their healing practices and a younger generation attending schools, acculturating, and modernizing, these “sucking doctors” are practicing an endangered tradition.

Sean Scully at Work - three short films color, 42 minutes
In 1997 Robert Gardner visited friend and well-known American painter Sean Scully in his Barcelona studio. He documented the making of two paintings, Testigos and Passenger, and the opening of “Sean Scully 1987-1997” at Salas del Palacio Episcopal in Malaga. This DVD, an important document of an influential modern artist, brings together the three short films made during that summer.

West of the Tracks color, 554 minutes
DER is proud to announce the North American release of Wang Bing’s acclaimed West of the Tracks, a document of the slow, inevitable death of China’s obsolete manufacturing system. Between 1999 and 2001 he meticulously filmed the lives of the last factory workers in China’s Shenyang province, a class of people once promised glory during the Chinese revolution. Now trapped by economic change, the workers become deeply moving film heroes in this modern epic. The film is an engrossing portrait of Chinese society in transition.

The Toronto Doc Forum is currently accepting project submissions from producers worldwide via its online entry form.  Deadline is Monday, January 28.

The TDF is North America’s most effective international market for documentary and non-fiction projects.  A limited seating event for 450 delegates, the event draws over 140 of the world’s key buyers for its two-day schedule of thirty pre-selected project presentations, April 23-24.  The TDF’s format has proved highly successful for the projects presented, as well as its other delegates who value the TDF’s sociable setting for their business and market intelligence needs.

New for 2008! TDF has broadened its genre focus to include history, science, the environment and health, and will now accept mini-series and series proposals. The TDF has also introduced a private meeting option to the selected projects.

In addition to the project teams and their partners, approximately 300 Observer seats are made available for other industry professionals.  Observer seat deadline is March 13.  Application is now open via Hot Docs’ online registration form.

For more details on the Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF) and its programmes please visit www.hotdocs.ca.

There are many things I’ve discovered as a result of my job as the director of a documentary film distribution company (www.der.org) that I would never have known about because they were someone else’s passion, not my own.

One of those discoveries came about when a southern ethnomusicologist, Oliver Greene, brought us a film he had made titled Play, Jankunú Play - The Garifuna Wanaragua Ritual of Belize. Oliver (www.der.org/films/filmmakers/oliver-greene.html) is an assistant professor of Music at Georgia State University who teaches courses in traditional and popular world music from places like Trinidad, Tobago and Brazil. He has a deep knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject, and while his film was very informative, it needed a little tightening, editorially speaking and he was very open to our critique. He took the time and made the effort to craft a better film, which we then agreed to distribute. (www.der.org/films/play-jankunu-play.html)

It was this film and the enthusiastic conversations I had with Oliver Greene over the course of our negotiations, that enticed me into experiencing the world of Garifuna (pronounced ga-RI-foo-nah) music first hand. It was last summer and the word was out that Andy Palacio, the musician who appears in the film and who almost single handedly is credited with saving Garifuna culture and music from extinction, was scheduled to perform with his Garifuna Collective, here at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

The summer concerts in the evening in the courtyard at the museum are delightful events, where you can bring a blanket to spread on the grass and sit with family and friends, or reserve one of the tables and enjoy a beer or a glass of wine. As my newly hired Director of Production was also a musician, a drummer, I figured the company would buy a block of tickets to this event and I and my staff would be able to experience Garifuna music first hand. We were also scheduled to meet Andy Palacio and give him DVD copies of Oliver’s film.

The evening was perfect, warm, dry with a gentle breeze. The courtyard was comfortably full, and everyone was in an upbeat mood. The music was fabulous. The kind of infectious music that makes it virtually impossible to sit still, even for a normally sedate museum going crowd. Within a few minutes of Andy’s groups singing and playing, we were all standing and swaying and clapping to the music. The band played up a storm and the energy was electric. I never thought I’d experience an event like this at the MFA. While they played countless encores, at some point it all had to end. There were long lines of people waiting to get autographed copies of Andy’s latest album “Watina” which was acclaimed as the best world music release of 2007.

So it was with great sadness that I read in the obituaries in Monday’s (1/21/08) NYTimes that Andy Palacio, a guy who only months ago had been full of the energy that music gives to life, had died in his native Belize at the age of 47. He died of respiratory failure after a stroke and a heart attack.

But his spirit and talent remains to be experienced through his recordings, and the film Play, Jankunú Play. I am grateful that our company, in some small way (thanks to Oliver Greene), is able to help keep his memory alive.

We’ve launched a new section of our blog entitled Film Reviews. The first post is about moving Katrina documentary The Axe in the Attic. Please check back often, don’t forget you can always signup for our newsletter to be notified of new articles and upcoming events.

My business is distributing documentary film, so one could say watching films is “work” for me. Most of the films I see in a theatre setting are at film festivals when I’m scouting for new titles to acquire, but last night was one of those times when my partner and I went to a premiere of a new documentary just for an evening out - dinner and a movie.

The film in question, The Axe in the Attic, had been getting a lot of “buzz” locally, as much for the back story, how/why the film was made, as well as who made it, even before the screening last night as the opening film for the International Human Rights Watch Film Festival at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Filmmaker Ed Pincus had his heyday in the 1960’s and 1970’s when he was part of the fast growing cinema verité or “direct cinema” movement. There was a nexus of creative filmmaking activity, right here in New England back then that involved the founder of my company John Marshall, his friend, French filmmaker Jean Rouch, Fred Wiseman, DH Pennebaker, the Maysles and others. It had been a good 20 years since Pincus had picked up a camera. He’d “retired” to reinvent himself as a farmer in Vermont. It took the much younger filmmaker, Lucia Small, to coax Pincus back behind a camera. Small’s last film, My Father the Genius, had a very successful festival run and she was ready for another project.

It was back in August of 2005 as Lucia watched the shocking events of the Katrina catastrophe unfold on her TV screen, that she grabbed her camera and started filming the TV…Then she and Ed banded together a few months later, on a road trip, to somehow get beyond the sound bites, and the hardened, iconic images that the media imprints on our brains, to connect with the people behind the tragedy.

The last film I had seen about the Katrina disaster was Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke. It was a film that tried to give us the big picture, to connect the dots so we could better understand why events unfolded as they did and as a result, while his film successfully did that, I felt something was missing. Some callous folks may say “oh, not another Katrina film”, lets put all THAT behind us and “move on”. What The Axe in the Attic does is connect us in a very emotional, real way with the human destruction, the irreparable aftermath, the toll on health, and the psyche, not only for those who continue to shoulder the brunt of it, those whose homes, families and lively hood were obliterated, but also the toll this event has taken on the rest of us, we who bare witness. And it is the filmmakers, who in their naivete start out, trying to be objective, who represent the rest of us in this messy, heart wrenching film.

Pincus and Small were totally unprepared for what they encountered, the massiveness of the destruction, the continuation of the staggering ineptitude of our government, and that the poor Americans affected by this are now in far worse straits and it ain’t getting any better for many of them. The stories we hear are both new and old. The fact that FEMA is still out there doing their dirty work is almost beyond comprehension.

For me one of the most powerful moments in the film occurs in their car when Pincus has his camera aimed at Small as she drives. She is talking and she stops and you feel the wave of helplessness wash over her, and you feel with her the sense of powerlessness that seems to underscore much of the film. Not that people aren’t trying, not that the human will to survive and overcome isn’t presented, it is, the struggle goes on every day for thousands of these folks, now scattered to the winds. But in that moment, in the film, it is as though Small channeled those feelings directly into my heart. She seems to unravel before our eyes.

The story ends with a black screen, and an epilogue, that catches us up to the moment as to the whereabouts of some of the key characters whose voices were heard throughout the film. It is not a happy ending. We are left only with our feelings and thoughts and the desire to do whatever we can to repair this festering wound to our fellow citizens and to our country.

Visit the film’s website: www.theaxeintheattic.com

reviewed by Cynthia Close, Executive Director

SUBMIT YOUR STUDENT FILMS TO DOC IT! AND SIGN UP YOUR CLASS FOR DOCS FOR SCHOOLS

Submissions for the second annual Doc It! are now being accepted. The programme’s goal is to stimulate non-fiction filmmaking among youth, as well as to provide a showcase for their perspectives on the world around them. All works screened in the DOC IT! programme are eligible to win juried prizes, and the DOC IT! Audience Award. Students have until February 15 to submit their film!

Submitted films must be documentaries and must not exceed 12 minutes in total length. Fiction, animated fiction, mock-documentaries, etc. will not be considered. The principle creative team for each project, including the director, must be between the ages of 14 and 18 (as of 2008), AND/OR be enrolled in a secondary school for the 2007/08 academic year. Upon selection, Hot Docs will require age verification.

More information and Doc It! submission forms can be found at www.hotdocs.ca.

Now in its third year, Docs for Schools provides FREE daytime screenings during the festival for Toronto-area high schools and youth organizations. An overwhelming success, last year more than 15,000 students and educators participated in the programme. Screenings are offered both at Festival venues and in schools, and whenever possible filmmakers are in attendance to participate in question-and-answer sessions with students.

To get involved, please contact Leah Venturina or 416-203-2155 ext.249.

Many of you have asked to be regularly notified of new releases and filmmaking related events. Now you can signup on our Resources page, or do it right here:

You can signup for the D.E.R. newsletter or the Doc Doctor’s Clinic, or both. If you are already a Doc Doctor list subscriber, you’ll be prompted to update your account with us. It’s quick and easy! We look forward to keeping you informed.

www.fifeq.ca

Hello to everyone!

Previously known as the FFEM, the FIFEQ (Quebec international ethnographic film festival) celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2008 and is also bringing together five Universities from across Quebec for the first time, namely those of Chicoutimi, Laval, Concordia, McGill and Universite de Montreal.

On the 25th, 26th, and 27th of January 2008, we invite professors, professionals, film and visual anthropology enthusiasts to join us at the festival, during which we will be screening numerous films, holding photography exhibitions, discussion sessions, and much more, all of which will be free of charge.

Dedicated to the promotion of ethnographic films, the FIFEQ will screen films created by new filmmakers from both Canada and abroad as well as from renowned figures in the discipline of visual anthropology and the social documentary genre.  The festival is both a celebration of the discipline of visual anthropology, as well as a reflection on the debates and ethical issues surrounding the utility and relevance of employing visual media when studying cultures and societies.

For a full listing of our activities and films please visit our website, at www.fifeq.ca.

Looking forward to seeing you!

The 2008 FIFEQ Team
For further enquiries please contact:

ethnographik@gmail.com
–
Catherine Lavoie-Marcus
Coordonnatrice, FFEM 2008
514-279-0387

The Mseyas color, 27 & 52 minutes
Follows a family of four siblings in Tanzania orphaned by AIDS. Their lives are a daily struggle to survive without parental or state support and the film details how they contend with illness, debt and constant worry. Director Gustavo Vizoso was moved to document their situation, capturing the light and color of Tanzania in beautifully observed photography, in order to speak out on behalf of the 12 million AIDS orphans living in Africa today.

Independent Television Service, Inc. (www.itvs.org) is a nonprofit organization created and chartered by Congress to make unique, provocative, compelling programs for public television by independent producers. ITVS is an equal opportunity employer; women and people of color are encouraged to apply.

Title: DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING
Reports to: Vice President of Programming
Salary/Status: DOE/Exempt
Benefits: Excellent

Job Summary: This position is responsible for managing the LINCS program solicitation and other programming initiatives through all phases of review, evaluation and selection. Responsible for the day-to-day operations of the programming department in the absence of the Vice President of Programming, including oversight of initiatives and fulfilling administrative and organizational duties. Assigns and trains department staff for field relations outreach. Manages the Program Manager for Diversity Development Fund and Programming Assistant. Managerial Responsibilities: Programming Manager (DDF), Programming Assistant.

Title: INDEPENDENT LENS PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Reports to: Independent Lens Assistant Producer
Status: Exempt, full benefits
Salary: DOE

Job Summary: please go to: