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DAVID MCCULLOUGH, GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP Screening

David McCullough: Painting with Words (top); Philip Glass in GLASS: a portrait of Philip in twelve parts (bottom)

David McCullough: Painting with Words and GLASS: a portrait of Philip in twelve parts will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 28th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” series on Wednesday, November 4, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Directed by Mark Herzog and produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, David McCullough: Painting with Words takes a look at the career of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough (Truman, John Adams). Herzog will be present to take questions from the audience following the screening.
Shot on [...]

THE END OF POVERTY? US Release

Philippe Diaz’s documentary The End of Poverty?, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week sidebar and has been screened at more than two dozen international film festivals, will be released nationwide by Cinema Libre starting in New York City on November 13 (at the Village East Cinema), followed by Los Angeles on November 25 (at the Laemmle Sunset 5 and Culver Plaza Theaters), with a platform release to follow including runs in Seattle, Portland, and Austin, and later in Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
"Most of the experts interviewed in the film had predicted the current economic crisis more than two years ago, when we started to film, explaining that a system based on a [...]

THE GLASS HOUSE, BANKING ON HEAVEN Screening

Two new documentaries to be screened at the American Cinematheque:
The Glass House (above) with director Hamid Rahmanian In Person
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at the Aero Theatre
Banking of Heaven with writer-producer Laurie Allen In Person
An Unflinching Look at the Controversial Latter-Day Saint Community
Thursday, October 29, 2009  at the Egyptian Theatre
The Glass House, which was screened at Sundance 2009, is "an intimate portrait of the never-before-seen plight of underclass Iranian women," while Banking of Heaven is " an unflinching look at a controversial Latter-Day Saints community" that is described as "home to a culture that routinely practices child rape, welfare fraud and systematic mind control."
Wednesday, October 28 – 7:30 PM at the Aero Theatre
THE GLASS HOUSE, 2009, 92 min. [...]

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER Screening

Werner Herzog’s Academy Award-nominated Encounters at the End of the World (above, lower photo) and Irena Salina’s Flow: For Love of Water will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 28th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” series on Wednesday, October 21, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Directed by Herzog and produced by Henry Kaiser, Encounters at the End of the World looks at human beings interacting with the harsh environment of Antarctica. Werner Herzog will be present to take questions from the audience following the screening.
Flow: For Love of Water deals with the dire consequences of increased privatization [...]

TAPESTRIES OF HOPE Screening in New York

PRESS RELEASE
Freshwater Haven, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the dramatic social change that is required to stop the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of women, announced today it’s production, Tapestries of Hope, will be shown at an exclusive screening on Sunday, October 18, 2009 in New York City. This special event will be followed by screenings at the United States Department of State and in the Capitol Visitors Center Theater 10/20/09.
Tapestries of Hope (www.tapestriesofhope.com) is an astounding story told through the eyes of filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley. The film captures her sojourn to Africa as she investigated the longstanding myths surrounding the power of virgin blood, including its ability to cure HIV/AIDS.
Documenting the work of Zimbabwean child and [...]

TEN9EIGHT – Mary Mazzio’s Inner-City Youth Documentary

Filmmaker Mary Mazzio

PRESS RELEASE
This is the compelling question behind award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio’s newest project Ten9Eight, a thought provoking film which tells the inspirational stories of several inner city teens (of differing race, religion and ethnicity) from Harlem to Compton and all points in between, as they compete in an annual business plan competition run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).
The film includes students such as:

Rodney Walker, age 19, Founder of Forever Life Music and Video Productions: Rodney was put into the foster care system at the age of 5 and ended up homeless on the streets of Chicago. Almost becoming a statistic like many of his brothers, Rodney was able to chart a new future – and is [...]

ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE: Oscar’s Docs

Michael Moore shooting Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, Kevin Macdonald’s One Day in September, and Errol Morris‘ The Fog of War are among the 12 Oscar-winning short and feature documentaries to be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ "Oscar’s Docs, Part Five: Academy Award-Winning Documentaries 1998–2003" beginning Monday, October 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The screenings will be held Monday evenings through November 23.
“Oscar’s Docs” is a comprehensive screening series of every short subject and feature to win the Academy Award for documentary filmmaking since the category was established in 1941.
As per the Academy’s press release, [...]

Perspectives on Editing: Editing for Documentary Films

Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog (lower photo)

The art and craft of editing documentary films is the topic of the third installment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ four-part seminar series "Perspectives on Editing," which will be held on Tuesday, October 6, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
"Perspectives on Editing: Editing for Documentary Films" will be hosted by Academy Film Editors Branch governors Donn Cambern (The Last Picture Show, The Bodyguard) and Mark Goldblatt (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Starship Troopers).
Special guests will include Kate Amend (The Long Way Home, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains), Joe Bini (Little Dieter Needs to Fly, [...]

CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA, THE GARDEN Screening

Set in Los Angeles’ impoverished inner city areas, the documentaries The Garden (above, lower photo) and Crips and Bloods: Made in America will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 28th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” series on Wednesday, October 7, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
In Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s The Garden, the organization South Central Farmers fight a wealthy developer in order to preserve the community garden they created after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The Garden earned an Academy Award nomination for Documentary Feature. Kennedy will be present to take questions from the audience following the [...]

MAN ON WIRE, IN A DREAM Screening

Philippe Petit in James Marsh’s Man on Wire (top); Isaiah and Julia Zagar in Jeremiah Zagar’s In a Dream (bottom)

James Marsh’s Man on Wire and Jeremiah Zagar’s In a Dream will launch the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ 28th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" screening series on Wednesday, September 30, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission to all screenings in the series is free.
Man on Wire tells the story of Philippe Petit, who in 1974 walked on a wire illegally rigged between the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center — a feat that became known as "the artistic crime of the century." Directed [...]

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, SALIM BABA, PLEASE VOTE FOR ME Screening

Salim Baba (right), Please Vote for Me and My Kid Could Paint That will be screened as the final installment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual "Contemporary Documentaries" series on Wednesday, June 3, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Salim Baba tells the story of 55-year-old Salim Muhammad, who, with the help of a hand-cranked projector inherited from his father, has made his living screening discarded film scraps for kids in North Kolkata, India, for 45 years. Directed by Tim Sternberg and produced by Francisco Bello, Scott Mosier and Raja Dey, Salim Baba earned an Academy Award [...]

OPERATION HOMECOMING, BODY OF WAR Screening

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (top photo) and Body of War (bottom photo) will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 27th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" series on Wednesday, May 13, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Directed and produced by Richard E. Robbins, the Academy Award-nominated Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience presents letters written by US military personnel and their families who have been involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Directed and produced by Ellen Spiro and former talk-show host Phil Donahue, Body of War tells the story of 22-year-old Tomas Young, who volunteered to fight [...]

A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: THE EXILE JOURNEY OF ARIEL DORFMAN, PORTRAITS OF A LADY Screening

Neil Leifer’s Portraits of a Lady and Peter Raymont’s A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ 27th annual Contemporary Documentaries series on Wednesday, April 29, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Portraits of a Lady takes a look at the work of 25 artists who participated in a painting session with former US Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. Following the screening, Leifer and co-producer Walter Bernard will take questions from the audience.

A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel [...]

Documenta Madrid 2009

PRESS RELEASE
108 films from 40 countries will compete in DOCUMENTA MADRID 09
• 108 documentaries selected from among the 1000 films presented to the competition will participate in the Competitive Sections, which have a strong Spanish representation.
• Chema Rodríguez has two films in the Official Section, with his full-length Coyote and his short film Triste Borracha.
• The Spanish-Dutch director Sonia Herman Dolz, the Mexican Juan Carlos Rulfo, the Chilean Ignacio Agüero Piwonka return to the festival to compete for the Award for Best Full-length Film.
Madrid, 14 abril -’09
In its 6th year, DOCUMENTA MADRID furthers its commitment to the Competitive Sections, which are made up entirely of films previously unreleased in Spain for [...]

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT d: Amir Bar-Lev

My Kid Could Paint That (2007)
Direction: Amir Bar-Lev
 

 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
In a real sense, the 83-minute documentary My Kid Could Paint That is one of the most disgusting films of all time. It disgusts because

a) it so vividly displays the utter nonsense and stupidity of the modern art scamming that has gone on for the last half century or more (especially in Abstract Expressionism) — and that’s a good thing; and
b) it so vividly displays the exploitation of an innocent child, Marla Olmstead, to meet the personal and psychological demands and needs of her Mark and Laura — and that’s a bad thing.

Basically, the film, [...]

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT Review Part II

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT Review – Part I

The My Kid Could Paint That DVD’s best (or worst) feature is a brief set of queries directed at the New York Times’ Kimmelman (above). His answers and disingenuity make for an enjoyable bit of borderline hilarity as the man shows an utter ineptness in responding to even the most basic and straightforward queries on art, as well as having nothing of substance to say even when one decodes his pontifications. It’s as if he’s dedicated to the notion that art is the preserve of didacts and dilettantes such as himself.
Had Bar-Lev really wanted to push the documentary form further, he could have crafted [...]

DARFUR NOW, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK Screening

Darfur Now and The Devil Came on Horseback, both focusing on the ongoing Darfur crisis, will screen as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 27th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" series on Wednesday, April 15, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free.
Darfur Now is a call for people everywhere to take action against the human tragedies taking place in Darfur, Sudan. Director Theodore Braun and producer Cathy Schulman will be present to take questions from the audience following the screening.

Directed by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, The Devil Came on Horseback depicts the events in Darfur through the eyes of an American marine [...]

AMERICAN SWING d: Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart

American Swing (2009)
Direction: Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart
Screenplay: Keith Reamer
Interviewees: Buck Henry, Annie Sprinkle, Melvin van Peebles, Ron Jeremy, Jamie Gillis, Helen Gurley Brown, and others
 

 
By way of interviews, photos, and home movies, Mathew Kaufman and journalist Jon Hart’s American Swing humorously chronicles the rise and fall of all-American entrepreneur Larry Levenson, free-sex advocate and self-proclaimed "King of Swing," while painting a nostalgic — though hardly all-flattering — portrait of the heyday of Plato’s Retreat, New York City’s foremost sex club-disco of the late 1970s.
Earlier in the decade, wholesale meat purveyor Larry Levenson had decided to reinvent himself as a Sexual Liberation Messiah. Even so, it’s debatable whether Levenson actually saw himself as a Man with [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Documentary Feature Competition

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Documentary Feature Competition
 
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Director: Bill Ross
An inquiring look at everyday life in middle America, the film explores the congruities of daily life in an American town Sidney, Ohio. (World Premiere)
Garbage Dreams
Director: Mai Iskander
Filmed over four years, the film follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village. Each boy chooses a different path when their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of their trade. (World Premiere)
MINE: Taken By Katrina
Director: Geralyn Pezanoski
After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of pets were rescued and adopted by families around the country, leading to many custody battles. Through these stories, the film examines issues [...]

SARI’S MOTHER, SICKO: Contemporary Documentaries Screening

Part II of the 27th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" screening series, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, kicks off with two Academy Award-nominated documentaries, James Longley’s short Sari’s Mother and Michael Moore’s controversial feature Sicko, on Wednesday, March 25, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission to all screenings in the series is free.
Sari’s Mother chronicles an Iraqi woman’s struggle to help her 10-year-old son, Sari, who is dying of AIDS.
Directed by Michael Moore and produced by Moore and Meghan O’Hara, Sicko is an indictment against the ailing U.S. health care system, through which huge corporations get richer at the expense of [...]

THE SINGING REVOLUTION: Q&A with Filmmakers James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty

"Imagine the scene in Casablanca in which the French patrons sing ‘La Marseillaise’ in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of The Singing Revolution," wrote Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times in his review of James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty’s documentary about Estonia’s struggle to end Soviet occupation in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The curiously titled The Singing Revolution chronicles the history behind the little-known, nonviolent protests that began in the late 1980s in the small Baltic republic of Estonia, which had been annexed by the Soviet Union nearly half a century earlier.
With glasnost and [...]

Top Ten Biggest Oscar Snubs – Nominations #5

5

In A Brief History of Errol Morris, Errol Morris discusses the making of The Thin Blue Line. Clip posted by WOODDDDDDDYAMOVIES

The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Roger & Me (1990)
Hoop Dreams (1994)
Grizzly Man (2005)

The Thin Blue Line (1988)
For better or for worse, Errol Morris‘ The Thin Blue Line has been so influential that it’s become commonplace for documentary filmmakers to use (cheesy) reenactments whenever they get the chance. Additionally, Morris’ investigative film won awards from the New York critics, the National Society of Film Critics, and the National Board Review, and it even led to the overturning of the murder conviction of its subject.
The Academy’s Documentary Committee remained unimpressed, as The Thin Blue Line failed to receive a nomination. [...]

TAPESTRIES OF HOPE: Q&A with Michealene Cristini Risley

American filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley (right) met Zimbabwean social activist Betty Makoni at an International Development Exchange event in San Francisco. Risley was impressed with Makoni’s achievements as the founder of Zimbabwe’s Girl Child Network, an organization dedicated to helping young women and girls who have survived rape, a not uncommon occurrence in a part of the world where the spread of HIV remains out of control and "healers" prescribe "young (female) virgins" as a cure for males infected with the virus.
Now in post-production, Tapestries of Hope became — or rather, is becoming — the film that chronicles Makoni’s efforts to empower women in a country ravaged by disease, poverty, corruption, and civil rights abuses. [...]

A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar’s Docs

The two 1997 Oscar-winning documentaries, Donna Dewey’s A Story of Healing (right) and Mark Jonathan Harris‘ The Long Way Home, will be screened as the final installment of “Oscar’s Docs, Part Four: Academy Award-Winning Documentaries 1988–1997” on Monday, November 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
The documentary short subject A Story of Healing follows American plastic surgeons and nurses who have volunteered to help disfigured children and young adults in Vietnam.  The screening will be followed by an onstage discussion with producer-director Donna Dewey.
The documentary feature The Long Way Home focuses on the years between the liberation [...]

Oscar 2009: 15 Documentary Semi-Finalists

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will move forward in the voting process for the 81st Academy Awards. A record 94 films had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are (in alphabetical order):

At the Death House Door
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Encounters at the End of the World
Fuel
The Garden
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
I.O.U.S.A.
In a Dream
Made in America
[...]

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