Silverdocs - Doc Talk: Film Criticism - June 19, 2009

Doc Talk: Film Criticism
Silverdocs 2009
June 19, 2009

Photo by Brian Geldin

Silverdocs Director of Programming Sky Sitney introduced this esteemed panel of film critics from top media outlets as well as the man whose blog post inspired the idea for the panel, Thom Powers, Toronto Film Festival documentary programmer and creator of New York's popular Stranger Than Fiction documentary screening series. Thom's posting was a "call to action" for documentary film critics, something Sitney said is not just important for documentary filmmakers, but the state of journalism today in relationship to documentaries. Therefore, this panel was called to address the changes in mainstream journalism that are affecting criticism and the job of critics. All of these issues were addressed in one way or another, but the discussion got particularly juicy when the panelists debated if there needs to be specialized critics just for documentaries. Below are some highlights from this panel.

Moderator:
Phillip Kennicott – Washington Post Culture Critic

Panelists:
Lisa Schwarzbaum – Entertainment Weekly
David Edelstein – New York Magazine, NPR’s Fresh Air
Thom Powers - Toronto Film Festival Documentary, Stranger Than Fiction
Amy Taubin – British Sight & Sound, Film Comment

Kennicott: Were you (Thom) simply saying that we have to put more time and resources and depth into documentary reviews, or were you speaking of the virtues of specialization?

Powers: I think that there's been this growth of documentary film in the last five to ten years. It's grown to a point where the old-style method of covering it, people whose jobs are mainly covering fiction who also cover documentaries if they come along is no longer quite adequate...I have tremendous respect for what each person (on the panel) is doing here...(Lisa in EW) is always making room for documentary coverage....Amy has such a long and venerable career in documentary coverage. In fact, I would use as an example a kind of criticism I'm hoping for is a piece that she wrote for Film Comment in the last year about James Toback's film Tyson...conceptualizing it in comparison to Barbara Kopple's film about Mike Tyson that was made 10 years ago and has sort of fallen out of appreciation and circulation. It took someone with a deep understanding of history of that field to make that connection...When I talk about criticism, I'm not just talking about people to give two thumbs up to documentaries. I'm talking about we need a more rigorous analysis of this important piece of culture that's becoming more a part of the experience of how we perceive the world. Films like Food, Inc., An Inconvenient Truth...Bee Season, these are films that play a role in our culture that was once more played by print journalism. We all know that print journalism is receding. I think that this work is kind of filling its place.

Kennicott: (Speaking before the panel with Edelstein who told him it's more difficult to review documentaries). Can you talk a little bit more what you meant?

Edelstein: I think it depends on the documentary. We can sit here for a long time to discuss the boundaries between art and journalism...When you're writing about a piece of journalism, it's more difficult because you're really in the role of a reporter...You're relaying the facts (and) arguments...It's very different than reviewing a more impressionistic documentary...I did a column this week on Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes and I had a fantastic time. It's a delightfully goofy movie. Very nutty and impressionistic...I had a terrible time writing about Food, Inc., because even though I admire it much more...what I essentially was called upon to do was relay the facts of the movie and kind of get out of the way. I ended up writing much shorter on Food, Inc., and in fact writing, as Thom said, an advocacy piece...which I'm kind of too pretentious to do that. It made for a great ad quote, but I usually think let's leave that to Peter Travers. I make fun of him because he writes in blurb speak, but in fact I have friends who are documentary filmmakers who really appreciate that, not necessarily for his insights, but they can appropriate his language and use it to sell their films. We do have an advocacy rule, but it it's very difficult. You're trying to write in a lively, witty impressionistic style to win readers...make them want to read you.

Kennicott: Do you have time to be a journalistic and a fact checker on the schedule you keep?

Schwarzbaum: That's a fine question and I don't know if any of us have time to be a journalistic fact checker, but it also gets into an interesting question whether that is what we are supposed to be doing. We are looking at the material that is given us. I think David and I both jump on this word 'advocacy'...yes, we want to write about a documentary film we think is good and therefore want people to see it...What we have to do is get the word out for people to see it, but that's not our primary job...that's what advertising is for...We are to look at the work in front of us to put it in the context of what the film is and it so happens that the subject of the film is going to also be a part of this, but if I had to check the facts...it gets into a challenging issue, because how can we?

Edelstein: I mentioned on the phone...I loved like may other people the film Roger & Me, but I was somewhat shamed by (??? Jacobson's???) expose on the way that Michael Moore had manipulated the facts in the film...Admittedly, he took a long time and did a lot of digging. I should have been a little more suspicious of the film. I still love it, I think it's a landmark. I thought it was extremely vital, but I'm comfortable with the fact that I have to function as a fact checker...Our own politics will inevitably enter in.

Schwarzbaum: That's a huge part of it...What happens when there is a film, the subject of which resonates with us versus a film that we don't care for the subject? When it comes to documentary filmmaking, it's about real things...real people...How did they shape this film?...It's interesting that we as humans can't help but also have our own head in there.

Edelstein: As critics, too.

Schwarzbaum: I think Amy (Taubin's) writing is always driven by a passion that comes through you...with a political passion as well as a critical eye. Am I wrong in saying that?

Taubin: I care about movies. I obviously have politics. I obviously am a human being. I'm a woman and therefore certain subjects move me more than others...I think I write out of a sense of what is a movie, what is film language, what is this thing doing with that? There is a particular type of documentary language. I think that people who write about documentary who write about a range of film, I think yes, you feel nervous about...not understanding something about this film and no critic, I think when they feel ignorant...you get to a very complicated Chinese movie and you can't tell one character from the other and you absolutely do not want to review it because, oh my G-d, they'll know that I couldn't tell these characters apart...With documentary it's the same kind of problem. But I think that's what's missing is that people don't talk about documentary language...what it means to make one type of documentary, an essay documentary as opposed to a journalistic documentary. But also the kinds of things like, he couldn't possibly have gotten that shot unless he had five cameras there and was waiting for it to happen. Why is it trying to tell me that he's a fly on the wall? That's the kind of things that I think you really need specialized critics?

Edelstein: What do you mean specialized?...That should be what we do. I was appalled by that American Teen in which it was very clear that they had manipulated their subjects intending to be a documentary, but it was the same kind of manipulation, you know when you hear about these nature films where the lion jumps on the poor little caribou, and you hear later they pushed the caribou into the frame and had the lion there waiting off camera. That was what that movie was like...It's our job to understand verite. It's our job to bring a different set of tools to a (Chris Marker???) documentary to a verite documentary to an extremely stylizes Errol Morris...that's our job. We don't need specialized documentary critics...We have plenty of time to learn about this stuff and just do it.

Powers: I wonder if someone whose job it is to do be on top of everything that's happening in American cinema...and world cinema...and also has the time to take on the expertise of documentary.

Schwarzbaum: Thom, you're asking for a specialized group? You're asking for a special exception for documentary in a way. You're saying, well this requires very specific thinking. I think what David is saying is right that as a critic, whether it's a Chinese film or documentary...I understand what you're saying about long form and in depth, I do think that's where writing that's being done on a line where there is a tremendous amount of space for people to go on and on and perhaps get to a point. I think that's great.

Kennicott: Do you think it's okay...to rhetorically say if this film is truly good, and then review it from there? [NOTE: Either Kennicott's microphone was on very low or he is a low-talker, ie in a Seinfeld episode, I couldn't quite make out what his question was here, and the above is the best I could make out, so hopefully the panelists answers make sense in relation to this question]

Schwarzbaum: The idea that a subject that seems strong carries the film for many people writing about documentaries is a problem to me...Oh look, they did a story about underappreciated black musicians who did Motown. We're not talking about what the film looks like, how it was put together. Telling truth requires a structure, too. It is an art form that we're writing about...a medium that we're writing about, so it's not just a truth, but how it's presented in a cinematic form that I think is as important to me as a critic, not just whether you're getting a word about An Inconvenient Truth.

Edelstein: (Talking about the documentary Under Our Skin about Lyme Disease that just came out theatrically)...I thought was very fine...It was not a great piece of cinema. It was a great piece of advocacy...an expose. I'm going to put the review online...The publicist of the movie (thought) it's much more prestige for the film if it's reviewed in print oddly enough.

Schwarzbaum: You're not doing for them to satisfy prestige for this.

Edelstein: I sat through the two-part distribution panel that preceded that and it was very sobering to hear that so much of their marketing strategy revolves around getting the films to critics because in many cases, we're the only ones who tell the audience and reports what's actually in the film...As I saw the people on the stage, many of whose films I didn't get to...I felt a sense of shame. There's 600-plus films that come out every year. I'm very lucky if I see 300 of them. Sometimes I don't get to these films or I don't treat them in the kind of depth that I should. I want to be better.

Kennicott: Just before the panel, (Amy) said she had 300-some odd screeners.

Taubin: Anyone who wants to send me a screener of course you can, but I don't know when I'll get to it. As a result, I have hundreds...I just want to go back to something that David said about that distribution panel. There was a brilliant piece in the New York Times...about the Hollywood studios and quotes. And critics like Lisa and David and particularly my friend Manhola Dargis hands out a sheet to the marketing people. You may do this, you may not do this with my copy...you cannot change my punctuation, you cannot change my capitalization, because I am not a publicist. That is not what I do. The point of view of this piece is that the studios don't think that they get enough out of book quotes of people like us and they are really looking forward to critics having more prestige so that they can simply take fabulous and sensational Twitter box, name an app, and they think that it will mean more. They think it will mean more to younger audiences...The idea that you got to get in print...I think that time is really about to be passed.

Kennicott: What will tell us that the primacy of print is finally over?

Edelstein: There's brilliant criticism on the web. The question is if these people can make a living doing it. Many of them have day jobs.

Powers: As an independent filmmaker, I'm totally uninterested where the review appears. Of course, it's nice when it happens under a prestigious headline. I get the pleasure of being panned in both New York Magazine and The Washington Post. It was more important to me to read something thoughtful...As much as we hunger as filmmakers to make money off of what we do, we also...want to think that our films are making ripples in the culture...One impetus behind my essay was that there's a lot more happening in documentary that is going unnoticed. (To pick up on something Lisa was talking about)...I think absolutely there is an important place for people who are writing about fiction an documentary, but I think there's a gap missing. I do think that specialists can bring a certain depth of background and understanding and more brain space to think about this.

Edelstein: We should have more brain space…In the Village Voice in 2007 you were saying, ‘I’ve seen 25 documentaries in the last year and they all seemed exactly the same to me.’ And you listed them. Stylistically, narratively or non-narratively everything about them was different. We’re not all like that. We really try…If we establish and audience that likes our voice…we might bring the reader into things that they might not otherwise seek out.

Schwarzbaum: I do think that you will find the in-depth pieces of the future online, just because of the amount of space or lack of space available in print…In general, space is shrinking in publications except for a very specific few. Whereas the Internet and online sites are where you can actually have amazing and beautiful and long pieces.

Powers: (On Food, Inc., which has a larger distributor, and The Line coming out on the same weekend, two thematically similar films)…It’s a real shame that there’s not room somewhere, and it doesn’t have to be in a major publication, it could be on someone’s blog, for the brain power to be applied. Let’s think about these two things together.

Taubin: You said something interesting in the beginning where you listed critics who had made a difference…I grew up reading Sarris…Jonas Mekas. They made an enormous difference in terms of avant garde films. There would not have been an avant garde film movement in the United States…if there wasn’t this person who had an amazing journalistic strategy and didn’t care about conflict of interest. He wrote about these films that he programmed, that he made, that his friends made. And he wrote about it with great passion…You can talk till you’re blue in the face about their being good writers online and for various site until there’s someone who has a real passion for the subject and also knows how to draw attention. This is the place where you go if you want to find about everything about X, Y & Z films, if their documentaries, if they’re American insane movies… (Peter Broderick advises people on)…how to self-market their films. If a documentary filmmaker can make $2 million marketing their film online by getting a good mailing list…then I would think that documentary filmmakers could get someone who is part of their world who can really speak about this in a passionate voice, get all those mailing lists and make a real site that says…this is where you go to find it out. Until that, there’s just a lot of people writing all over the map online.

Silverdocs - "Defamation" - June 19, 2009

Defamation

Silverdocs 2009
June 19, 2009

Defamation Q&A with Yoav Shamir at Silverdocs. Photo by Brian Geldin.

Defamation is Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir’s feature documentary that made its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year. I met Yoav at the Documentary Press Meet & Greet there, and was very intrigued by the premise of his film and had also read Pamela Cohn’s great review of it on Hammer to Nail, but I didn’t get a chance to see Defamation until this past Friday when I attended Silverdocs in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Defamation takes a controversial stance and often humorous look in a sort of Michael Moore fashion on how anti-Semitism is defined in the modern world, centering on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization with a budget of $70 million a year. Shamir's point in the film is to find out how the ADL actually flights anti-Semitism. He gets unprecedented access to the ADL’s leader Abraham Foxman, who at first seems skeptical of Shamir, but continues to allow him to document him as he goes around the world to meet with foreign dignitaries about eliminating anti-Semitism. The underlying purpose of the ADL, to combat anti-Semitism, is a worthy mission, however, Shamir discovers through interviews with other people on the subject of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and by following Israeli students on a field trip to Holocaust sites in Poland, that perhaps more harm is being done than good with their underlying messages of guilt for past actions. At one point in the film, Rabbi Hecht says in the film about Foxman, "He has to create a problem, because he needs a job." But the most outspoken person Shamir meets is Dr. Norman Finkelstein, who has often been described as a "self-hating Jew." The film does raise a lot of interesting questions, and I'm not quite sure which side of the fence I'm on after watching the film, but it has surely opened my eyes. The film sparked debate even among the members of the audience in attendance at the Q&A. Below are some highlights of that discussion.

Moderator Question: I was really struck by some of the performances in the film, such as by the students or Abraham Foxman. Can you talk about performances in documentaries?

Shamir: I don't think they were performing, but certainly as a filmmaker, it makes my life easier on people that have a very strong ideology of conviction to what they do...A lot of the time the key is access...interviews and attitudes. When people are very engaged in what they are doing, they have a strong belief.

Audience Question: I want to tie your film to an incident that happened in San Francisco not too long ago...what I observed in front of the Israeli consulate that genocide was practiced on Palestinians in Gaza. The local Jewry turned out in force. Are they anti-Semitic? They were protesting something political they didn't agree with, but in the newspapers the next day, the phrase anti-Semitic was used over and over again. It seems to me, this is a way to curtail debate by the State of Israel and by the corporate media, people who profit from war...What is your opinion as a filmmaker having seen both sides of this?

Shamir: Certainly I would wouldn't describe what happened in Gaza as a genocide. It's a very unfortunate and stupid war where a lot of people died, but genocide is a totally different thing. Just to make fair, at least the way I distinct these things. It's a very complicated subject with many grays. Anti-Semitism in Israel and in the Jewish world is very influenced by the past. That's what the film is trying to speak about, these issues to be debated... I wanted to make a film that would make people think about the role that anti-Semitism takes in our lives as Israelis and Jews. Is it constructive? Is it eventually damaging us?

Audience Question: I wonder why you chose to make such a light-hearted film about such a serious subject. It seems to me you're suggesting that anti-Semitism isn't really a problem. It's easy to feel that way in America, although just a few days ago, a lunatic burst into the Holocaust Museum and shot dead a security guard because he hates Jews and Blacks. Just a little reminder that it does exist. But this does not replace where it exists at the greatest level. You should have gone to Spain. You should have read the Pew opinion poles, which show that anti-Semitism is rising in Europe. 46% of Spaniards have an unfavorable attitude toward Jews. It doesn't help that they also don't like Muslims. And the other place you might have gone to is Lebanon and talk to Hezbollah and their attitude toward Jews. Why did you not investigate the anti-Semitism, which is inherent in these founding documents of Hamas and Hezbollah, and might have you also gone onto the Internet and found Norman Finkelstein expressing his solidarity with the Jew-hating Hezbollah?

Shamir: It's kind of interesting to have these two remarks. One coming from the Right and one from the Left. (The man who asked the question interrupts and says, "There's nothing Right Wing about it, sir. I'm actually a supporter of Obama.") I didn't mean to offend you. The question of anti-Semitism in our world is a serious question. I think what is happening in many cases is a lot of the Arab media and the uneducated Arab press. I taught in Palestine. I follow on what's going on there and they don't know almost anything about the Holocaust, because no one is teaching them about it. It's not only the Palestinians, it's also the Arab Israelis....Until three years ago, Yad Vashem, the biggest museum for the Holocaust, they had translations for 12 languages, but Arabic. After a strong battle with a lawyer from Nazareth, they decided to have it translated to Arabic...For me the Holocaust is not only for Jewish people, it's a human lesson for everybody...I've been researching this film for a long time. I was looking all over the world. I'm not saying anti-Semitism is not an issue. Even my parents call me every time they read about an incident. There are crazy anti-Semites and crazy racists, homophobes. All these people exist. They should be fought honestly, but to what extent? What is the level of the treatment of the problem that is causing more problems than the problem itself? I think we have to consider these things.

Audience Question: Did you edit out all the extreme fringe groups?...When I looked up slavery on the Internet and was really researching something else, I got this huge list of topics that the Jews brought all the slaves, that the Jews are the cause of it all...Do you feel it's not a problem any more in America?

Shamir: There's all sorts of radical skinheads and crazy groups. It's a 90-minute film about anti-Semitism...I'm not saying that (it's not a problem anymore in America.)...The biggest insult a Jewish person can have is for someone to tell him, 'you're not being hated' or 'you are hated less than you think you are.'...Why do we have to go an look for it and dig?...What kind of purpose does it serve really? I live in Israel...It's a personal journey. I'm not representing all Jewish people in the world and I'm not representing all the Israeli people in the world. I live in one of the most racist societies in the Western world for sure right now. Israel is seriously a very racist place. We have a lot of tolerance to racism toward Arabs. Nobody gets excited if you see graffiti, 'Death to the Arabs.'...At the (football) championships, there was an Arab minister (of sports). None of the winning team shook his hand. They just passed him by like he didn't exist....For my Arab-Israeli friends who try to rent an apartment in Tel Aviv, it's an impossible mission. They cannot find an apartment. We are living in such a racist society and we are so sensitive to other forms of racism. This turns us blind to what's happening in our country. To me, this is a bigger problem than what maybe some Jewish people are facing in the world today, and I just want people to think about it. (Shamir gets a round of applause from the audience).

Audience Question: I'm curious about Abraham Foxman's reaction to your film. Have you heard from him?

Shamir: (Joking) He has seen the film in Israel and he loved the film and wants to join the solidarity movement with the Palestinians and donate all the money from the ADL to them. (Laughter from the audience)...(Shamir gets serious)...He saw the film with his wife and they didn't like it very much. His wife thinks I need to go to therapy....There was a press release on their (the ADL's) website against the film. To be honest, I have to say I have respect for the organization for being so open to me and for letting me film. I don't think there is anything conspiratorial about what they are doing. I think they're doing it out of real concern for Israel. They're passionate about the way they feel is the right way, which I disagree with obviously...Does the end result help Israel or make our situation worse?

Silverdocs - "The Way We Get By" - June 19, 2009

The Way We Get By

Silverdocs 2009
June 19, 2009

Photo by Brian Geldin.

Aaron Gaudet’s The Way We Get By, which has been making its rounds on the festival circuit since it premiered at SXSW in March, made its way to Silverdocs in Silver Spring, Maryland, where The Film Panel Notetaker returned for the third year in a row. (Check back later in the week for more coverage from Silverdocs.)

The Way We Get By is a charming and poignant story of three seniors who make the most of their day at the Bangor, Maine, airport greeting men and women from the armed forces who are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Gaudet’s mother Joan is one of the three greeters. She rarely leaves the house unless it’s to greet the soldiers, even if it’s the middle of the night. Next we have Bill, a veteran and widower who’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer and lives in squalor in a farm house with lots of cats and his dog. Finally, we have Jerry, who views himself as an Independent politically, and lost his son at the age of 10. Ultimately, their stories are sad, but in the end, they are a complete and utter inspiration. Gaudet has crafted a beautiful elegy to the devotion given by these humble everyday American citizens giving something back to their country. It was a treat to see Joan, Bill and Jerry at the Q&A, along with Gaudet and producer Gita Pullapilly. Below are highlights from their Q&A.

Q: How did you decide to make this film and what inspired you?

Gaudet: Gita and I were working in television news in Grand Rapids, MI, in 2004. We met and started dating in October of 2004. For Christmas that year, I was just bringing her home to meet my mom. I had known that my mom had started troop greeting and it really changed her life. She was so active and into what she was doing. The first thing we wanted to do was go down and see what she was doing with all of her time day and night. She got a call that there was a flight coming in at two in the morning and we went down with her. We met Bill that night and fell in love with Bill and knew that we wanted to spend more time with him. Then we met Jerry and he made us laugh. We kind of went from there.

Q: For the three of you in the film, how did you like having Aaron and Gita around making the film?

Gaudet: Jerry liked having Gita around. He was trying to get rid of me the whole time.

Bill: It was pretty surprising. One day, Aaron comes up to me and says 'I want to make a documentary with you.' I said, 'Go right ahead.'...He put a microphone on my collar and I had to be careful everything I said.

Q: What was it like for you to see yourself and all that raw emotion on film?

Jerry: It was overwhelming to say the least. I'm just so pleased that I could be part of it. I had no idea when they asked to film me that it would go this far and turn out like it did...(tearful) I never had this experience. It almost makes a wimp out of me.

Joan: I still cry every time. It feels strange. I'm very proud of (Aaron).

Bill: I was kind of amazed with most of it. Every time I watch it, I see something different.

Q: How did you all get started being greeters?

Bill: Primarily, there were about 19 of us in the Bangor area, retired military.When the troops came home from Iraq, they weren't allowed to wear the uniform when they went out on the streets...That hurt us very deeply. We decided to do something. The thing was to do something that wouldn't object to our government, so we decided we would greet the troops coming and going...I think I'm one of the last of the Mohicans as they used to call them. I think all the rest of them have gone to meet their maker. I'm hanging on here enjoying the visitations of various groups and people who are interested in what we're doing.

Gaudet: They originally started it during the Gulf War and then started it back up again this time. The first time, it was much shorter. It was just troops coming home, so now this time it's been a much bigger commitment that continues.

Q: From afar, is there anything we can support what you do?

Gaudet: They do take donations (at www.themainetroopgreeters.com).

Q: Has your local community of greeters, vets or non-vets, expanded?

Bill: We have more non-vets than we do veterans as a whole...As long as you want to do it, we're willing to take you.

Gaudet: It's not easy keeping up with them. As we were making the movie, every plane seemed to come in in the middle of the night. We were praying for something to come in at noon and it would come in at 4:00 a.m. instead. I don't know how they've done it for six years and still keep going.

Joan: We need help at night.

Reflections on 2008 and Top 10 Favorite Panel Discussions and Q&As

2008 saw the birth of the One-on-One Q&A, where I interviewed a number of filmmakers including Lucia Small and Ed Pincus (The Axe in the Attic), Leah Meyerhoff (Unicorns), Paul Krik (Able Danger), Fritz Donnelly (To the Hills 2), Phillip Van (Come Wander With Me), Sue Williams (Young & Restless in China), Daniel Robin (My Olympic Summer), Josh Koury (We Are Wizards), Lucía Gajá (My Life Inside), Tambay Obenson (Beautiful Things), Dawn Scibilia and Alan Cooke (Home), Richard LeMay & Jason Brown (Whirlwind), and Paul Lovelace & Sam Douglas (The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose).

New to the contributing notetaker team was Erin Scherer (Are You From Bingo?), who helped me tremendously at South by Southwest, and contributions by aliases Majimafia and Ultradevotion. AMPeters and Jennifer Warren were back with more notes this year, as well. I also want to thank my friends Adolfo Doring and Amanda Zackem, whose film Blind Spot played at the Woodstock Film Festival, for taking me to the mansion on top of the hill :)

And before I forget, thanks to IndieGoGo for making The Film Panel Notetaker one of its resources, to indieWIRE for listing it as one of their Blogs They Love, Infincine and any other blog or website that linked to here.

I made my first trip to Austin, Texas for SXSW and a return trip to Silver Spring, Maryland for Silverdocs, while also staying on the home front for the New Directors, New Films, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Film Festival, IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Conference and Woodstock Film Festival. I also made appearances at a number of very-well programmed film series, screenings, and discussions including Stranger Than Fiction, Rooftop Films, the Museum of the Moving Image, and MoMA. And in March, I was very fortunate to attend the first ever Cinema Eye Honors for nonfiction film presented by Indiepix.

And I cannot close this year off without mentioning fellow indie film blogger and DIY filmmaker extraordinaire Sujewa Ekanyake’s documentary Indie Film Blogger Road Trip, in which Sujewa generously interviews me and several other indie film bloggers about the rise and somewhat unseen future of indie film blogs. Just trying to see how many times I could put the phrase ‘indie film blogs’ in one paragraph :)

Like last year, it was very hard for me to narrow it down to just 10, as there were so many interesting and wonderful conversations from which to choose. (If you would like to share some of your favorite panel discussions of 2008, please leave a comment.) I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or just my love of non-fiction films, but most of the Top 10 has something to do in one way or another with documentaries. But much of my underlying reasoning can really be attuned to the following criteria: Information and material that I learned and haven’t seen before at panel discussions, diversity in the members on the panels, great moderators, the way in which the panel or discussion was presented, and the ability to entertain, enlighten, and inspire my readers…as well as those that made me laugh my ass off...you know who you are :)

Here’s hoping for more of these wonderful attributes…as well as new surprises…in the year to come.

#1
A Tribute to St. Clair Bourne

Museum of the Moving Image
Astoria, NY

February 10, 2008
This was a very lively discussion that introduced me to the work of the late St. Clair Bourne, who produced and directed many documentaries about prominent figures in African American culture and history including Paul Robeson, John Henrik Clarke, Gordon Parks, and Langston Hughes. Moderated with much respect and appreciation for Bourne and his work, Warrington Hudlin led a great mix of scholars and critics. Nonso Christian Ugbode also presented a clip montage that he edited of Bourne’s films. That same montage would be screened a month later during a tribute to Bourne during the first annual Cinema Eye Honors, which leads into the perfect segway for my #2 pick…

#2
Cinema Eye Honors Roundtable Discussion
New York, NY
March 18, 2008
To my surprise and delight, halfway through the ceremony for the Cinema Eye Honors, co-chair Thom Powers gathered to the stage four directors whose films were nominated for awards that evening including Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Darkside), Esther B. Robinson (A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory), Jason Kohn (Manda Bala) and Pernille Rose Grønkjær (The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun) for a roundtable discussion. While I did kvetch about the lack of light in the seating area for me to see my own notes I was taking, the whole experience of it all trumps that, and I therefore bestow #2 to this very clever and might I say daring idea to break up an award show with a discussion with its honorees.

#3
Stanley Nelson: History in the Making
SXSW Film Conference & Festival
Austin, Texas

March 9, 2008

Stanley Nelson is one of my favorite historical documentary filmmakers. Not only did he show clips from a few of his docs (Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till), he also screened a sneak peek clip of his upcoming film Wounded Knee that is now an official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It was the first time Nelson showed this clip to the public. I noted in my notes that I often like panels that include film clips because they bring a lot of perspective into the discussion.

#4
Behind the Screens - Under Our Skin
Tribeca Film Festival

New York, NY

April 27, 2008
While I attended several filmmaker conversations myself at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, the notes provided by contributing notetaker AMPeters helped this particular discussion on the documentary Under Our Skin make it to #4. Peters’ notes solicited the most comments than any other notes on The Film Panel Notetaker this year. It was clear by the subject matter of the film, lyme disease, and the information presented in her notes that people were clearly affected.

#5
My Olympic Summer
New Directors/New Films

New York, NY

March 30, 2008
The Q&A with My Olympic Summer director Daniel Robin at New Directors, New Films is clearly an example of fiction blurring the lines of non-fiction, a topic addressed by many a film blogger this past year. A re-telling of the events of the 1972 Munich Olympics with real home movies that are manipulated into what I felt to be an artitistic and compelling story, the reaction by audience members during the Q&A who thought it was all real, only to learn that it was non-fiction, seemed to shock and irk many of them, which made for a tense, yet very important discussion.

#6
Acting Out
NewFest
June 14, 2008
Notetaking newcomer Ultradevotion provided notes from the Acting Out panel featuring out actors and filmmakers such as Heather Matarazzo. 2008 was the first year The Film Panel Notetaker attended NewFest, and ultimately a milestone year for the LGBT community as same sex marriages were declared consitutional in the state of Califoria, but then upsettlingly repealed in November when Proposition 8 received the majority vote, which has since then lead to nationwide protests.

#7
No Borders Case Study with John Hadity

Independent Film Week

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
New York, NY
2008 marked my 8th visit to IFP’s annual Filmmaker Conference (fka IFP Market & Conference), but the first year I was invited to attend a seminar that was not a part of the conference itself, but rather the No Borders International Co-Production section. That seminar was a rather interesting and informative talk on single picture financing presented by finance guru John Hadity.

#8
Shooting in India
Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival

New York, NY

November 8, 2008
This was also my first time at the MIAAC Film Festival and since I’ve never heard people talk about what it’s like to shoot a movie in India before, my interests were immediately sparked. Parvez Sharma (A Jihad for Love) did a nice job moderating a group of panelists who were either from India and shot a movie in India or weren’t from India and shot a movie in India. Either way, all had interesting stories to share.

#9
Herb and Dorothy
Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Silver Spring, MD
June 21, 2008
Herb and Dorothy the movie was quite a nice change of pace with its light-hearted subject matter compared to more hard-hitting, yet equally well-made documentaries I saw at Silverdocs. So it was even nicer a treat to see Herb and Dorothy the people make an appearance at the Q&A after the screening along with the director Megumi Sasaki.

#10
Actors Dialogue: Mary Stuart Masterson & Melissa Leo
2008 Woodstock Film Festival

October 5, 2009

Woodstock, NY
Martha Frankel nearly brought me to tears with laughter for a second straight year in a row with her casual yet very-well researched moderation for a conversation with actresses Mary Stuart Masterson and Melissa Leo at the Woodstock Film Festival. Hey, Martha…stop being so funny so I can let other panels have a chance to be on here next year, will ya?

Honorary #11
Here's to Life: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to One Life to Live

New York, NY

June 10, 2008
I try not to veer off topic too much on The Film Panel Notetaker, but how can I leave out one of my very favorite panels of the year? Thanks again to Ultradevotion for her very colorful commentary!

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)

Silverdocs - "Herb and Dorothy" - June 21, 2008

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Herb and Dorothy
Silver Spring, MD

June 21, 2008

(L toR: Megumi Sasaki with Dorothy and Herb Vogel)

Last Saturday afternoon at Silverdocs, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to sit down and watch a more light-spirited documentary given that I had watched several hard-hitting and more serious docs on current events and social issues (all very good by the way). So I went to see Herb and Dorothy, Megumi Sasaki's first film about Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a couple in New York City who have been collecting artwork on a modest living and displaying it in their tiny little rent-controlled Manhattan apartment since they were married in the early 1960s. Their collection became so well known, that the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC ,decided to acquire their entire collection as evident in the film, an entertaining and inspiring story that all are sure to enjoy, even if not art aficionados. Sasaki along with the Vogels and Ruth Fine, Curator of 20th Century Art at the National Gallery of Art, talked about the film during a Q&A. Here are some of the highlights:

Q: When is your next visit to Washington, DC?

Dorothy: I hope we'll come November 16 because the National Gallery is planning something.

Fine: On November 16, we're going to have an interview with Herb and Dorothy and another showing of the film. The collection is being given to 50 museums throughout the United States in addition to the National Gallery. We're hoping in November the book documenting these gifts will be ready to talk about in a bigger length than now.

Q: It's a film about looking and seeing. Were there any particular technical challenges in bringing what might be abstruse works of art immediately clear to an audience on the screen?

Sasaki: I started making this film four years ago and six months into the production, I had this big challenge after I did my first interview with Herb and Dorothy asking them questions like 'what do you like particular about this artists...what's so great about Richard Tuttle?' And the only answer I could get from them was 'because they're beautiful...because I like them!' I was like, oh my g-d, how can I make a film about art collectors who couldn't explain or articulate about the artworks or artists? That was my first obstacle. Then I interviewed Lucio Pozzi, the brilliant Italian artist. He said 'that's why the Vogels are so special...why does art have to be explained and verbalized? Herb and Dorothy only look at the art and that's the way they communicate with art. Isn't that the way it should be?' And that was such a hard moment. That was right before we went to the National Gallery to shoot the main scene of the viewing room. Every cameraman I worked with...I worked with more than a dozen...I told each cameraman to pay attention to Herb and Dorothy's eyes how they look at the artwork. Specifically Herb, when he looks at the art, his eyes get so tense. First I thought that was an obstacle and a challenge and it turned out as a very important overall theme of this film. From that moment I learned that obstacles you have to welcome. You don't make enemies out of the obstacles because for filmmakers we just constantly run into challenges and difficulties in many aspects. After a certain point, I realized that obstacles force you to work harder, to be more creative and I should appreciate that.

Q: One of the things you said in the opening of the film was that there was quite a movement in the late 1960s/early 1970s in New York against the institutionalization of art. Should art be on walls in museums or in people's homes?

Dorothy: I think it should be all over. If you bought it and enjoy it then when you can't enjoy it anymore...you move or die...give it to a museum. I think you can do anything.

Q: Do you agree?

Herb: Absolutely! (Audience LOL)

Dorothy: We buy for ourselves. I'm glad other people enjoy it. I'm glad to give it to museums so they will be able to enjoy it. We first buy for ourselves. We have to like it. We live with it and then it goes on and that's the evolution.

Q: I want to know what happened to your artwork (Herb's and Dorothy's own artwork) that was in the trunk? Is that on display anywhere?

Dorothy: Herb's work is in a trunk on the terrace. I don't know where mine is. I think I gave one to my brother and sister-in-law. I don't know what happened to my paintings.

Q: What are your favorite ways of discovering new artists?

Dorothy: I think we see a work someplace like a gallery, someone's studio or home. We find out who the artist is and we make a connection. As simple as that. A lot of dealers gave us phone numbers and said, 'call the artists yourself.' They realized we weren't going to sell. Because we went with the National Gallery, people knew we were sincere what we were doing.

Q: Tell us some more about sending the works to all 50 states. How is that working? Do you have museums beating down your door to get them?

Fine: We do have museums beating down our door. Unfortunately, when the contactors announced in The New York Times they got one fairly important fact wrong, which was they published that the museums had not been selected when in fact they were. We're hoping by the end of 2009, the first 10 museums will be identified publicly and the gifts are on the way and we're just to send the letters out to the next 40 museums sometime in the summer. We're hoping by November 15, it will all be arranged. It's become a very exciting project. It involves not only the National Gallery, but the National Endowment for the Arts. We're publishing a book related to the project. We're also setting up a website. The idea will be that eventually the entire set of 50 gifts will be available on the Web. It's truly a nationally interactive project in a way that I never worked with anything else before.

Q: Are you able to get out and about these days to continue collecting?

Dorothy: Unfortunately not. My husband can't walk too much. Unfortunately, we're in the process of distributing work, not adding to it.

Q: If you could do it, what would be happening in New York right now?

Dorothy: We really don't follow what's going on too much. I read the newspapers. We get some magazines. We talk to people. I'm very uninformed right now. At one time, as you can see in the picture, we knew what was going on. We were very much involved. That's no longer the case.

Ruth: I just want to contradict a little bit, because the artists have stayed very close in touch. The artists you already have long standing relationships with are still very strong.

Dorothy: People come to us.

Silverdocs Announces 2008 Festival Winners

As you've been reading, The Film Panel Notetaker was at Silverdocs last week. Many more notes to come from panel discussions and filmmaker Q&As. In the mean time, here's the winners of this year's festival:

THE GARDEN Wins Sterling US Feature Award

Special Jury Mention to TROUBLE THE WATER

THE ENGLISH SURGEON Wins Sterling World Feature Award

Special Jury Mention to THE RED RACE

WHAT WOULD THE DROP KNOW ABOUT THAT? Wins Sterling Short Award

Honorable Mention went to GROUND FLOOR RIGHT and ONE DAY

Music Documentary Award Goes to THROW DOWN YOUR HEART

THE ORDER OF MYTHS Wins The Cinematic Vision Award

The WITNESS Award Goes to PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL

KASSIM THE DREAM Wins the American Film Market/SILVERDOCS Award

Writers Guild of America Documentary Screenplay Award to FORBIDDEN LIE$

Feature Audience Award to be announced Monday, June 23, 2008

Short Audience Award to be announced Monday, June 23, 2008

ACE Grant winner is THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM

2009 Cinema Eye Honors Announced at Silverdocs

Here's some news from the 2008 AFI Silverdocs Film Festival. On Friday, a reception was held to announce the 2nd Annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking that will take place in March 2009. (The Film Panel Notetaker attended the very first Cinema Eye Honors this past March.) Friday’s announcement was made by Cinema Eye co-chair AJ Schnack and Danielle DiGiacomo, documentary coordinator for Indiepix, which returns as the partnering sponsor for the awards through 2010 and will once again produce the awards ceremony. Thom Powers, Documentary Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, and Schnack, a filmmaker (KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON) and author of the popular nonfiction website All These Wonderful Things, return as award co-chairs.

(Pictured: AJ Schnack & Danielle DiGiacomo)

Here’s more of the announcement:

"Thom Powers and I are extraordinarily pleased to be partnering once more with Indiepix in presenting the Cinema Eye Honors," Schnack said Friday. Indiepix Documentary Coordinator Danielle DiGiacomo added, "Indiepix is thrilled to build upon the amazing success of the first Cinema Eye Honors and are proud to announce our commitment to the Cinema Eye Honors through the first three years of its existence. We look forward to working with Thom and AJ for the next two years."

It was also announced Friday that the 2009 Cinema Eye Honors will add a new award for Outstanding Composing for a Nonfiction Film. Nominations for the 2009 Cinema Eye Honors will be announced in Park City, Utah during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

In an effort to broaden the eligibility criteria for the 2009 awards to include more films from outside of North America, Powers and Schnack have added IDFA, the influential Amsterdam documentary festival, and Cannes to the list of qualifying festivals. In addition, they have added four new festival programmers to the Cinema Eye Nominating Committee - Ally Derks of IDFA, Heather Croall from Sheffield DocFest, Maxyne Franklin of BritDoc and Meira Blaustein from Woodstock Film Festival. Also joining the nominating committee for 2009 is SXSW Film Festival producer Janet Pierson.

Returning to the nominating committee for 2009 are a cross section of the top documentary festival programmers in North America - Phoebe Brush of Full Frame, Sean Farnel of Hot Docs, Tom Hall of Sarasota Film Festival, David Kwok of Tribeca, Cara Mertes of the Sundance Documentary Film Program, David Nugent of Hamptons Film Festival, Rachel Rosen of the Los Angeles Film Festival, Sky Sitney of Silverdocs, David Wilson of True/False and Brit Withey of Denver Film Festival.

To date, more than 75 feature films have qualified for eligibility for the 2009 awards - a number that matches the total number of eligible films for 2008, including 25 films that are currently screening at Silverdocs:

AMERICAN TEEN
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON)
BULLETPROOF SALESMAN
CORRIDOR #8
DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
THE ENGLISH SURGEON
FORBIDDEN LIES
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
THE INFINITE BORDER
KICKING IT
LIFE. SUPPORT. MUSIC.
LUCIO
MAN ON WIRE
MECHANICAL LOVE
MILOSEVIC ON TRIAL
MY MOTHER'S GARDEN
MY WINNIPEG
THE ORDER OF MYTHS
SONG SUNG BLUE
STRANDED, I'VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS
THROW DOWN YOUR HEART
TRIAGE: DR. JAMS ORBINSKI'S HUMANITARIAN DILEMMA
TROUBLE THE WATER
UP THE YANGTZE

The inaugural Cinema Eye Honors were held March 17, 2008 at the IFC Center in New York City. Top honors for Outstanding Feature went to Jason Kohn's MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET), which also received Cinema Eye Honors for editing and cinematography. Alex Gibney won the directing prize for TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE. Additional awards went to GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL, THE MONASTERY - MR VIG AND THE NUN, BILLY THE KID, CHICAGO 10 and THE KING OF KONG (A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS).

Full list of currently eligible titles for 2009:
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
AMERICAN TEEN
ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL
AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR
BE LIKE OTHERS
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON)
BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER*
THE BLACK LIST
BLOODLINE
BODY OF WAR
BRA BOYS
BULLETPROOF SALESMAN
THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN
CONSTANTINE'S SWORD
CORRIDOR #8
DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER
THE DHAMMA BROTHERS
DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT: A NATION'S JOURNEY
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
THE ENGLISH SURGEON
EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED
FIGHTING FOR LIFE
THE FIRST SATURDAY IN MAY
FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER
FLYING ON ONE ENGINE
FORBIDDEN LIES
FULL BATTLE RATTLE
THE GATES
GIRLS ROCK!
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
HATS OFF
HER NAME IS SABINE
HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO
IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST
THE INFINITE BORDER
A JIHAD FOR LOVE
JOY DIVISION
KICKING IT
LIFE. SUPPORT. MUSIC.
LOU REED'S BERLIN
LUCIO
MAN ON WIRE
MECHANICAL LOVE
MILOSEVIC ON TRIAL
THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM (AND OTHER STORIES)
MY MOTHER'S GARDEN
MY WINNIPEG
THE ORDER OF MYTHS
PARADISE
PARADISE - THREE JOURNEYS IN THIS WORLD
PLANET B-BOY
PRAYING WITH LIOR
A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: THE EXILE JOURNEY OF ARIEL DORFMAN
REFUSENIK
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED
SECRECY
SHINE A LIGHT
SHOOT DOWN
THE SINGING REVOLUTION
SONG SUNG BLUE
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
STRANDED, I'VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS
SURFWISE
STEEP
TEHRAN HAS NO MORE POMEGRANATES!
THROW DOWN YOUR HEART
TRIAGE: DR. JAMES ORBINSKI'S HUMANITARIAN DILEMMA
TROUBLE THE WATER
TRYING TO GET GOOD: THE JAZZ ODYSSEY OF JACK SHELDON
U23D
UP THE YANGTZE
VINCE VAUGHN'S WILD WEST COMEDY SHOW: 30 DAYS & 30 NIGHTS - FROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE HEARTLAND
WAITING FOR HOCKNEY
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?
WILD BLUE YONDER
YIDDISH THEATER: A LOVE STORY
YOUNG@HEART

One-one-One Q&A: Lucia Gajá- Director, "My Life Inside"

In May, I met Lucia Gajá at the Tribeca Film Festival during a press meet and greet at the filmmaker lounge. She told me about her documentary My Life Inside, about a woman from Mexico named Rosa who was sentenced to what basically equates to life in prison on the counts of homicide and injury to a child she was looking after. I was unable to see the film at Tribeca, but soon learned that it would also be playing at Silverdocs, so I got in contact with the Silverdocs press team and they sent me a DVD screener of the film, which I watched and found very compelling. While the film focuses on Rosa's personal story, it also makes a bolder statement on how illegal immigrants are treated in the American judicial system. I met up with Lucia at Silverdocs for a One-on-One Q&A.

One-on-One Q&A

Lucia Gajá- Director, My Life Inside/Mi Vida Dentro

TFPN: How was it getting access and permission to shoot inside both the courtroom and the correctional complex? Did you face any difficulties?

Gajá: The whole process was made by Carmen Cortes. She's the one from the consulate in the film who explained all the things that happen to women when they go to jail. She had really good relationships with the jail and in the courtroom. We asked for permission from the judge because he was the only one that allowed cameras inside the court. We said we were making this documentary and he said, 'OK, we'll see how it goes,' and slowly we were able to shoot the whole 12 days of the trial. We also went several times to the jail to interview Rosa. Each time, they treated us really well. They gave us permission to be with her as long as we needed.

TFPN: How come they were more fair to you than they were to Rosa?

Gajá: I don't know. That's one really interesting thing. It depends on different people. Hank, the policeman who's in the movie, talks about how he helped Mexicans to live better by asking the home owners to improve their houses. I think there is a very important movement in Austin that's supports migrants. This is different than what happened in the film. We never had any problems to make this movie. The film commission helped us when he had to get shots on the street. That's the thing that's contrary to what happened to Rosa in court.

TFPN: Did you originally start out doing a documentary just about Rosa or was it more about illegal immigration?

Gajá: Originally I wanted to do a documentary about Mexican men on death row in the U.S., but it changed when I started reading a lot of books about Mexican women in American jails. So it became about conditions in jails in another country with another language and another culture without their families and how that changed their lives more drastically than being in jail in their own country. I spent four years looking for someone in the Mexican government who wanted me to make this documentary. It was really hard for me to find the cases. It was really hard for me to get access to the women. And then I met Carmen and she was very interested in me doing this film and got me these interviews with women who accepted to meet with me, and Rosa was one of them. I never heard or read anything about Rosa's case until I got to her. Carmen told me Rosa and other women like her in maximum security, could only make calls once every six months for five minutes. There is no physical contact or conjugal visits allowed. All those things, I couldn't imagine for a Mexican woman. Most of their families back in Mexico are never going to have a visa, so they're never going to see their mothers and fathers again.

TFPN: Did you have access to the family of the boy who killed?

Gajá: I've been reading things that I should have interviewed the family. This was really tragic and the mother was really upset. I really didn't want to go like a reporter to ask her how she felt, because I knew how she felt. I heard her testimony in court. She never said anything bad about Rosa. You can see the Uncle's testimony at the end. He is crying and asking for Rosa's forgiveness. He never expected for her to be sentenced this way. He was never really sure that she did it.

TFPN: What message do you want people to take from watching your film?

Gajá: At the beginning, I wanted to talk about migration and how there are some consequences that could end in a story like Rosa's. Maybe it's better not to go. Then I learned that's impossible. People are going to keep coming from Mexico and Central and South America because they are really trying to get a better life. The main message of my film is, they have rights and they don't know they have rights. They have a right if they get caught by the police, they can ask for someone from the consulate if they don't have a lawyer. They don't have to answer questions if they are not detained or arrested. This is just to be aware of what can happen.

TFPN: This theme also resonates in Juan Manuel Sepulveda's film The Infinite Border that also played at Silverdocs. What did you think of it?

Gajá: I really loved it. It's been in my head since I saw it. It's beautifully told. It is what he said he wanted to do. To put you a little bit in these people's time and place and state of mind. They are trying to cross Mexico to get to the United States. It's very important because that's another awful part of what happens when they try to cross Mexico.

TFPN: What's your next film project?

Gajá: I think I'm going to do something about domestic violence against women focused mainly in Mexico, though I know it's a problem all over the world.

Silverdocs - "The Infinite Border" - June 20, 2008

Along the lines of my One-on-One Q&A with My Life Inside director Lucia Gajá, I saw another film at Silverdocs that dealt with the similar theme of illegal immigration to the U.S. called The Infinite Border, directed by Juan Manuel Sepulveda, who spoke to the audience after the screening of his film.

The Infinite Border

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Silver Spring, MD

June 20, 2008

Q: How did you explain to the people you followed what you were doing?

Sepulveda: We always explained that we were not with a major broadcast company? We are not getting rich making this film. We only want to hear from them about their travels. The first day always we came without any equipment. The second day, we always gave them the release and told them they have to sign in order to get permission to film them. We constructed relationships with them and that’s why they trusted us.

Q: What motivated you to do this film?

Sepulveda: As a Mexican filmmaker, and as a Mexican, I related about immigration. We are a country that’s a transit country that supports a lot of migrants and give exile to a lot of migrants. We all have histories about migrants with our families and friends.

Q: What did you have to go through physically to make the film? Where did you sleep? How about the weather?

Sepulveda: At the beginning, we tried to follow them always and be with them. I made the migration travel a lot of times alone with a little camera when I was developing and raising money for the film. We realized with major equipment, the cameras and a sound engineer; it would be dangerous for them. We preferred to make the film in the places they rested and waited, not in the traveling sites. We slept in hotels. We traveled in a van.

Q: How did you select the routes?

Sepulveda: We selected the most natural routes the migrants chose. There are two major routes – the Pacific and the Mayan routes. They are very defined routes. There were lots of shelters that were always providing service.

Q: What’s the opinion of the people riding all of the trains they hopped onto?

Sepulveda: They don’t forbid these people to take the trains. Someone always was giving permission. There’s no major problem.

Q: When you edited the film, were there certain personalities that you omitted?

Sepulveda: We tried to get as many in. We always see the migrants as victims. As a documentary filmmaker, you must see them as a very complicated, complex human and not only a victim. A lot of people act like a victim. They know what we want to hear. Those kinds of characters were out of the final selection.

Q: What has the reaction been from audiences on this film in Mexico? Has there been any political reaction?

Sepulveda: A lot of people ask me what the government and police think about this film. I don’t know what they think. There were several screenings in Mexico City and major film festivals. The reaction is very diverse. You have people who related very much to immigration and said they feel this time passing. There are other people who don’t like the film very much because they say it’s like a picnic; you don’t talk about the policies that apply in Mexico.

Q: Since you’ve made this film, have you heard if any of the people in it have made it to the U.S.?

Sepulveda: We always gave them our email address and asked them to write us to tell us where they are, but unfortunately no one wrote us. I would be very glad to know what happened.

Q: How did you come about the visual tone in the film?

Sepulveda: The first thing I wanted to transmit is the feeling of the density of time for a migrant. The migrant isn’t the friend or the enemy, it’s time. I want the audience to feel the weight of time. I decided to make a lot of long shots in order to get that.

Silverdocs - Guggenheim Symposium - Spike Lee - June 19, 2008

Prolific filmmaker Spike Lee was honored at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium on June 19th. Clips from Lee's documentary work were played including 4 Little Girls, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, We Was Robbed and Jim Brown: All American. And a preview of Lee's upcoming narrative feature, Miracle at St. Anna (In Theater Sept. 26), was also screened. Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy moderated a discussion with Lee. I've read a lot on other blogs that Lee came across as arrogant, but I thought he was just responding honestly to Kennedy, who for the most part, seemed to know her Lee film history well, but often times became redundant in her questioning and struggled to come up with questions. Below are highlights of the opening remarks and some of the questions asked during the discussion.

Guggenheim Symposium - Spike Lee

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Silver Spring, MD

June 19, 2008

AFI President Bob Gazzale introduced the discussion referring to Charles Guggenheim, for whom the symposium is named. Gazzale said: "Without question (Guggenheim) is one of the central figures in American film history. A documentary filmmaker who chartered a record of this nation's history, of its people and its stories across five decades... Charles made over 100 documentaries. From films that documented political campaigns: Stevenson, Kennedy, McGovern to name just a few...films about architecture, the civil rights movement. We all remember the film about the Jonestown flood...a levee that broke in 1889. His work defines you and me. The heroic struggles of every man and every woman, and the dignity in that struggle. At the very heart of all of his films, even if it's about the St. Louis arch, they are films about inspiration probably best defined a moment in the very end of the film about Bobby Kennedy when Kennedy says, 'You can do something about tomorrow.' That's Charles Guggenheim. That's the spirit that carries us into this room today...and to our honoree tonight. He arrived in our collective cultural consciousness in the 1980s a fierce and a fearless voice in American film. His narrative work is of such a singular place in our world that...I think if not he, who? Who would be telling these stories? Who would be challenging us to see America as a diverse and vibrant and complicated place that it is filled with art and music and hope and color and anger and inspiration. Who would create those characters that are smart people on screen who smash stereotypes. Each well written, well spoken, well acted work. They are people we all aspire to be. They are heroes and yet they're humble. When his name is on a film, you better be up for a challenge. Think of the end of Do the Right Thing. A quote from Malcolm X. A quote from Martin Luther King. He's a filmmaker who does not ask us to think his way, he asks us to think. This is never more true than when you look at his nonfiction work. He's made several documentaries including Four Little Girls, which is reason enough for us to gather here tonight. But then a storm began to brew out over the Atlantic Ocean and it became Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster and a national disaster. It tore the roof off of America we had become a little too comfortable with. And if it weren't for our honoree tonight, the truth would be gone like the storm itself. The tragedy and its causes would be lost in a sea of sitcoms. But instead, we have a documentary that reminds us who we are as a nation and how far we have to go. And it reminds us of what Bobby Kennedy said that you can do something about tomorrow. So we gather tonight to honor a great man of American film and a great man of America. His name is Spike Lee.

Lisa Kennedy then made her introduction: "Because Bob did such a lovely job of contextualizing what Spike really means to us and has meant to us for more than two decades now, I want to take a moment to probably be a little bit more personal. When I started writing, Spike was also starting to make feature films. I used to think he did something along with a couple of other filmmakers that came after him called letting us in on the black 'familiar' -- little moments, conversations, looks, gestures, ways of talking, but also things like progress. It just reminded me that he got it. He got the texture of African American life. He loved it. You know, that was a long time ago when he started doing that. And I know think of that 'familiar' as our 'familiar,' the 'American familiar.' There are perfect storms of incompetence and frightening weather and bad engineering that allowed for something like the levees breaking in New Orleans. And then there's this other thing that I also think was a perfect storm, but storms the wrong word, because it's so positive and I think what better week to be talking to Spike Lee...what better year to be talking to Spike, than a time where an African-American man is running for president. (Big applause from the audience.) At the same time, there are levees that are starting to give way and have been giving way. Spike connects us to our moment. He connects us to bodies. I think he does that in this documentary. And one of the things I think is amazing about this body of work...his legacy as a filmmaker is that you look at his narrative films, they're so vibrant. They have style, they have vigor, they have music, they have so much texture and they're bold. And the acting in them is extraordinary. He works so beautifully with performance. That's his narrative work. His documentaries are just as challenging, and it's amazing. I think this is a man who makes documentaries that allow other people to tell stories...to tell their stories...to tell our stories. And it has to be in part because he has competence that he's told his stories the way he wants to and he has the peace and the wherewithal to hear someone else's story and I think that comes across in the clip reel we're going to see where he talks to the parents of the little girls that died from that bomb in 1963. This will be the 45th anniversary of that bombing a the 16th Street Church in Birmingham. Not only does he talk to them, he builds a kind of trust. I think there's a trust he also built with audiences that as I said, can think for ourselves. I think that's extraordinary. I always want to go out of a documentary having more questions. Not more questions as in, 'why didn't they do it this way?' but more questions because I think that it's a challenge. I don't want someone to answer the truth of the world for me. I think Spike Lee's done an extraordinary job with his films. When the Levees Broke is an amazing documentary. The funny thing is, whenever we told Spike this...it took me a long time to look at it because that's my family. My great aunt left there and went to Houston and she died. She was very old, but she lost something. She was the storyteller in my family about the power of New Orleans as a place to live. So I don't think I've ever said to Spike, thank you for a movie that broke my heart and challenged me. What we're going to see in this clip real is...I do think there is hope and distillation of what he does so well.

(Clip reel presented)

Kennedy: When you decided to make Four Little Girls, did you want to make a documentary? When did you start that process?

Lee: In film school, I wrote I wanted to do a narrative film about this. That was 1981. I never forgot about that story. For me, it was better to do it as a documentary. I was in Birmingham, my family's from Alabama. I spent the night (at the family's) house. They trusted me. Ellen Kuras, a great cinematographer, she shot it. She also shot Bamboozled and Summer of Sam. The hardest thing about this was I had to really pray on including those post-mortem shots. I thought about that long and hard. They were in the cut, they were out of the cut. But finally I decided that the audience should see what those sticks of dynamite did to these four girls who were never allowed to grow up. The whole thing about the documentary, how I approached I wanted to talk with the people, who knew in their own words, tell us what they thought they might have become if they had been allowed to live.

Kennedy: I saw (Ellen Kuras) talking about the interview with Maxine McNair and how moving and difficult that was as a DP. Normally, you're behind the camera and you have a little distance, and I was sort of curious...did you find moments like that as well? Where do you position yourself? Do you protect yourself?

Lee: You know what, it's not about protection, but you have to ask questions. And you know you're asking questions and people break down. You can never say the wounds heal. You're still digging up a lot of emotions. I guess being a parent, too, that on top of that, these great people talk about their loss.

Kennedy: How does a filmmaker build trust?

Lee: They see my films. If you're a documentary filmmaker and your subjects don't trust you, you're not going to have a film. They don't know me, but they know me through my work.

Kennedy: What other film films or narrative features helped you prepare for Four Little Girls?

Lee: Narratives tell the story, whether it's a documentary or feature films. For me, it's still telling the story, so I don't they there's a distinction.

Kennedy: When I saw When the Levees Broke, one of the things I loved is when you decide to let your voice enter the picture. What triggers that? When do you decide to do that? Is there a moment when you think it works? I think it's very powerful because you don't use it very much?

Lee: You need to hear my questions again to hear my answer. People who have seen my documentaries, we don't use narrators. There's no narration in any of these. Sam Pollack I'd like to thank, who's the editor.

Kennedy: How did We Was Robbed Come about?

Lee: I got approached by these people that were putting together a bunch of films by directors from all over the world. They could be about anything, but could only be 10 minutes. There was no limit on the subject matter. I read the story about how Al Gore was 10 minutes away from making his concessional speech, so I tracked all these people down and turned my camera on.

Kennedy: You're working on the Kobe Bryant film. Can you talk about the structure of that?

Lee: There was a film in Cannes three years ago about Tze Chung, the great soccer player. In that film, they have 20 cameras on him. I liked it. I said, this would work better with basketball. This past April 13, there was a game at the Staples Center, the Lakers versus the then world champions San Antonio Spurs. We had 30 cameras on Kobe. It's going to air on ESPN and ABC when they kick off the next basketball season.

Kennedy: How did Jim Brown, All American come about?

Lee: Jim's one of the most fascinating people I ever met. He's an activist. He's the greatest football player. At one point, the biggest movie star in Hollywood. He's always been relevant. It was just natural. He said, 'Spike, I don't care what you show.' He is so secure in who he is. He gave me complete freedom.

Kennedy: Let's talk a little bit about that guy who's running for president. Do you think if Obama becomes president...?

Lee: There's no if! (Rousing applause from audience.) It changes the way the world looks at the United States. It changes everything. It's going to be Before Obama (BB) and After Obama (AO). And some folks need to get used to this. It's gonna be a new day. And it's not just going to be a new day, but a better day. I'm going to be at that inauguration, too.

Kennedy: What does that mean for artists? What does that mean for you?

Lee: As artists, you reflect what you see in the world. I think you'll see a lot of art reflect the good this country is going to embark on.

Kennedy: Are there documentaries you'd like to see you don't want to make?

Lee: There are narrative films. I'd love to see a great film on Martin Luther King. I don't think I can do it. Marcus Garvey. I can't do everything. Gotta leave room for Tyler Perry. (Great big LOL from audience.)

Kennedy: I know you have the Kobe Bryant coming up.

Lee: One on Michael Jordan, too.

Kennedy: Tell me about that.

Lee: We're going to be doing it. This one about Michael is going to be about his last year in Chicago. The bulk of the filming is done. We had a camera every single day. We hope to have a world premiere in Cannes next May.

Kennedy: What are some of the things you learned from James McBride's research on Miracle at St. Anna?

Lee: Before James wrote the book, he interviewed a lot of the black men from the 92nd Division. In fact, he compiled a lot of those people into characters. Again, Judy (Lee's researcher) sent me everything she could on the war effort, the participation on land, African Americans in World War II and then the specifics on where it takes place in Italy. It takes place in Tuscany and the whole thing was happening while the country was in a civil war. The fascists run by Mussolini were in cahoots with Hitler and the Nazis. For me as a filmmaker, I can't have enough research. Judy sends me everything.

Kennedy: Don't you think there's still opportunities for documentaries about that part of the greatest generation that we haven't really heard of?

Lee: There's plenty of stuff. It's wide open. Myself and Ken Burns do not have a monopoly on the great stories that need to be told.

Silverdocs - "Trouble the Water" - June 20, 2008

Tonight at Silverdocs, Tia Lessin's and Carl Deal's Sundance Award-Winning feature documentary Trouble the Water, which tells the account of Hurricane Katrina survivors Kimberly Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts through their home video footage, was presented at Silverdocs. Lessin and Deal along with Kimberly, Scott and their newborn baby girl were on hand after the screening for a Q&A moderated by Silverdocs' Sky Sitney. There were some questions asked by the audience, but mostly praise and "thank you"s were extolled.

Trouble the Water
Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival
Silver Spring, MD
June 20, 2008

Sitney: The role of documentary filmmakers is usually to stay objective and not get involved with stories. But when one is involved with documenting catastrophes unfolding, how do you make that decision? How do you create that balance ? What are the boundaries between recording and getting involved?

Lessin: We don't really believe in the myth of objectivity. Any filmmaker or for that matter a journalist who says they're objective is being dishonest. We all have a point of view and some of us express that point of view more strongly. But our points of view is reflected in this film very strongly. You might not hear our voice or see myself or Carl, but Kimberly's, Scott's and our points of view are very much in this film and if you can man that circumstance a week after Katrina and not have a point of view, I think you ought not to be filming.

Sitney: One other thing that's interesting is the way the film's structured time wise that you start with the moment of encounter and then you return two weeks earlier. Can you talk a little about that structure?

Deal: We felt that the entire narrative of Scott and Kim and their journey out of the city was important to tell from beginning to end because it shed so much light on the historic negligence and the bureaucratic screw ups around the storm. Kimberly and Scott filmed just heart-stopping, amazing first-hand point-of-view footage from the ground. We wanted to make the most of it and tell the complete story because there was a Hurricane going on. Kimberly, being the resourceful person she is, when her video camera died, she picked up her still camera, which can record little MPEG files, which you see some of that on the first day when they're stranded on across the street. We felt like grounding the film in the present, being two weeks after the storm when we entered the picture to help make things make a lot more sense. So that every time we went back to the storm, it was a flashback.

Lessin: What we tried to do was also incorporate when Kimberly's battery went out, there was still four more days that took them to get out of the city, so we used footage that we found that approximated what they might have seen on their journey out of the city. It was necessary for us to go back and forth in time for storytelling.

Q: I was just in the Lower 9th Ward this weekend and I was trying to pick out where your neighborhood is. I think that a lot of the 9th Ward was still under water, but your neighborhood wasn't. Can you tell us a little about that?

Scott: Our neighborhood was under water for maybe a month. We stayed basically three blocks away from the levee and the water just rushed in and stayed.

Kimberly: The Lower 9th Ward is divided by one bridge. The Lower 9th Ward is over the bridge. We were on the other side and that's two blocks from the industrial canal.

Q: How did you decide before the storm to start doing the videotaping? What was going through your mind? Why did you decide you wanted to document what was happening?

Kimberly: I purchased the camera I had used a week maybe or so before the storm came. My purpose for purchasing the camera was to record family events. I had never used a camera before in my life until the day before I started recording. That's not in the movie, but I was just playing with it. Once we realized we were going to stay, I figured that it would be history. Once we realized we couldn't leave, it was like we have no other choice but to stick it out. If it's going to happen how they say it is, we're going to record it. We were like, we can sell this to the news if we get something good. (Audience laughs out loud.) Another aspects was if we die, people would know exactly how we died if they found the tape somehow.

Q: At some point in the movie, you said you hadn't cried yet. At what point did you start crying?

Kimberly: I cry every day. It's deeper now than it was when it was actually happening. I've been seeing psychologists. Through this movie I was able to see myself as a great blessed person.