Docs in Progress Open House

Over the weekend while visiting my family in Maryland, Sujewa Ekanayake and I met up with Erica Ginsberg, Executive Director of Docs in Progress, at the not-for-profit organization's new "Documentary House" in Silver Spring, Maryland, just a few short blocks away from the AFI Silver Theater, home of Silverdocs. Erica told us about the open house Docs in Progress is holding this Thursday night. Wish I could be there myself, but will be back in New York. If anyone in the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area would like to attend, here's more of the details courtesy of Erica.

You are invited to join us at an Open House this coming Thursday, December 4 between 6:00-9:00 pm at "The Documentary House" in downtown Silver Spring.

This is an opportunity to tour Docs In Progress' new space which serves as our administrative offices and as a training and educational center for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers.

We look forward to this event to recognize alumni of our programs, thank our program sponsors and partners, introduce our new board, and welcome both the DC/Baltimore-area film community and Silver Spring's local community.

This Open House is also serving as our end-of-year fundraiser. Since this is our inaugural year in the space, there is no door charge, but, if you have not already made a tax-deductible contribution, we can accept your donations (checks, cash, or online credit card transactions).
We look forward to welcoming you!

Erica Ginsberg, Executive Director

Adele Schmidt, Director of Programs and Services

Sam Hampton, Director of Planning and Special Projects

Docs In Progress
Although our offices and training center are in Silver Spring, we will continue to hold screenings in Washington DC and Baltimore. A special thank you to The Documentary Center at the George Washington University and Creative Alliance for being amazing and generous sponsors of our screening programs.

Docs In Progress
The Documentary House
8700 First Avenue
(corner of First and Fenwick)
Silver Spring, Maryland

We are only a few blocks from the Silver Spring Metro. Drivers can park in the gravel lot behind our house or in the Cameron Street Garage (garage parking free after 7 pm)

A DIY Filmmaker Sujewa Weekend

DIY Filmmaker Sujewa came to town this past weekend. Saturday night, I went with Sujewa and Tambay Obenson of The Obenson Report to see a sneak preview screening of Princeton Holt's DIY feature Cookies & Cream, which was playing at the Sexy International Film Festival. While I thought the concept of the film was quite interesting-- a young woman who works in the adult webcam world and can't seem to settle down with the right guy, all of whom pretty much only go out with her because of her profession, finally finds a guy she really likes whom she doesn't tell about her job, because she wants him to love her for who she is and not what she does...and a pretty solid performance by the lead Jace Nicole as Carmen-- I found the execution the be somewhat amateurish...pivotal scenes are poorly lit, little to no chemistry exists between Carmen and Dylan played by Brian Ackley, and quite a bit of out-of-sync ADR (additional dialogue recording). It's a nice first-time feature effort, but needs a lot of polishing if it plans to travel far. I do understand the limitations of low-budget, indie, and DIY filmmaking, but at the end of the day, the presentation is still very important. Princeton had a great show of support that evening as much of the cast, crew, family and friends came out.

And Sunday, I finally got to sit down and see Sujewa's documentary that I was lucky enough to be one of the interview subjects in, Indie Film Blogger Road Trip. We gathered at Cinema Echo Chamber's Brandon Harris' pad in Brooklyn. It was Sujewa, Tambay, myself and of course Brandon who was preparing for his big day at MoMA where he would be introducing two films for the Best Films Not Playing at a Theater Near You program.

In Indie Film Blogger Road Trip, Sujewa takes a journey on the East Coast from his hometown of Kensingon, Maryland, to New York where he interviews staples of the indie film blog community including Anthony Kaufman, Brandon Harris, Stu Van Airsdale, Tambay A. Obenson, and myself. Then he heads south to Fayetteville, North Carolina and talks with Chuck Tryon of Chutry Experiment (see Chuck's write up of the film here), and even deeper into the South to Atlanta where he meets up with Noralil Ryan Fores of ShortEnd Magazine, and Gabe Wardell and Paula Martinez of the Atlanta Film Festival. And finally back up to Maryland where he talks with Armondo Valle and Erica Ginsberg of Docs in Progress.

I like Indie Film Blogger Road Trip as a social commentary on a growing community...a kind of multi-city film panel discussion on digital video. Sujewa makes great use of a diverse bunch of unique bloggers, each speaking about the state of indie film blogging and how it's evolved from and its affects on more traditional means of film journalism and criticism, what each of us brings to the table, and where we see things going. Structurally however, since the film is a road trip, each interview is shown chronologically. There's no special editing employed to build any sort of thematical archs, so topics are spoken about by each of the indie film bloggers individually one after the other, and no interconnectedness. I was however pleasantly surprised at my own little segment, as I'm usually camera shy, and I didn't seem to fluster as much as I thought I did, and came out sounding intelligible and succinct, though there was one moment where I flubbed and called indieWIRE, Indiepix :)

Indie Film Blogger Road Trip is definitely the first documentary about indie film bloggers that I'm aware of, and I hope it gets some play at festivals. I look forward to hearing reactions from audiences and other indie film bloggers, of course.