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.

Silverdocs - "Milosevic on Trial" - June 19, 2008

Last night I arrived in Washington, DC, where Sujewa picked me up from Union Station and we headed on the Metro over to Silver Spring, where I picked up my press pass for Silverdocs. This is my second trip to Silverdocs, last year being my first. Today I saw two feature-length documentaries including Pray the Devil Back to Hell (the filmmaker was not present for a Q&A) and Michael Christoffersen's Milosovic on Trial (per the notes from the filmmaker Q&A below). I also attended a panel discussion in the morning and the Guggenheim Symposium honoring Spike Lee in the evening. I'll be posting notes from all the various events I attend here at Silverdocs, though in no particular order. And this year and actually for the first time ever, I'm now using a digital audio recorder to complement my hand written notes to ensure I get as much as possible down, though I'll continue to only post the most relevant points.

I've started with the excellently edited Milosovic on Trial, which takes approximately 2,000 hours of courtroom footage of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic who was on trial for nearly four years for crimes against humanity including genocide. The film presents the story from all sides including the prosecution and Milosevic's original attorney before Milosevic decided he wanted to represent himself, and eventually died before the trial finished.

Milosevic on Trial

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Silver Spring, MD

June 19, 2008

Q: How much of the trial footage were you given and how much did you capture yourself?

Christoffersen: The courtroom footage was shot by the tribunal. I find it a disgrace actually because I've watched the Nuremberg Trials, which was exquisite shot by Europeans. This was done six Dutch students and very bad producers. (As for what his crew capture themselves)...everything outside the courtroom.

Q: How did you deal with editing 2,000 hours of footage?

Christoffersen: It was terrifying. When Milosevic died, it was like all these tapes fell on my head. Because the idea was of course that he would have been convicted or acquitted of some of the charges. Basically it was up to me to figure out what this story was about. It also gave more freedoms to approach the material. There are different versions. There's a two-part one-hour version and a two-hour version which aired in Germany.

Q: (An audience member asks Christoffersen about one of the generals that spoke as a witness during the trial, but was never brought up on charges and is now a lecturer)

Christoffersen: When we finished the film, yes, it's amazing. It tells the story of how difficult it is for Serbia to deal with these crimes. There are quite a lot of local trials in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia which deal with lower ranking personnel. He might have been indited since, but I doubt it.

Q: Could this film be shown in the former Yugoslavia including Serbia and what reaction do you have to any such project?

Christoffersen: It is going to be in Serbia. There is this TV station which is part of the whole organization against Milosevic called B92. We've actually also been approached by the national television station. I don't know what the reaction will be. When it aired in Toronto where there's a big Serbian minority, some people were offended. It's still hard for the Serbs to deal with all of this.Milosevic is still an extremely popular figure in Serbia. But others, especially young people are more open to deal with that part of history. It's been shown at a station in Bosnia. They're more happy with it because these trials are trying to make a record of the victims.

Q: How much time did you personally spend working with the film? Milosevic's personal lawyer who is kind of a compelling character despite his Serb nationalism...how did you get the relationship with him and what is he doing now?

Christoffersen: I think he is a young, alter ego of Milosevic. He added to his views. We approached him at the very beginning of the trial. These guys were very sophisticated to the media. It's also what he explains at the beginning of the film. It's the media trying to give their point of view. The good thing about this trial, you could follow it on the net with half an hour delay so I had the computer running. And then of course I made arrangements to sit in the actual gallery to follow the proceedings. It wasn't easy because everyone was to busy to talk to us. It took a while...also to build up a trust. They could not understand at the beginning. Several journalists did not live up to the ethics of the profession.

Q: Do you have a personal opinion on the underlying issue of justice?

Christoffersen: They're very debatable these Tribunals because can you play out a very complex political conflicts in a courtroom where the rules are basically the same as if it was a bicycle theft? Especially since they're very much influenced by the American/British adversarial system where there's sort of a battle between the prosecution and the defense. The criticism of this trial was that it was a far too extensive charge like 66 counts covering three wars over a period of ten years.

Silverdocs Announces 2008 Competition Films

Just received word on the 2008 competition films of Silverdocs. New this year, Silverdocs adds a World Competition in recognition of the richness of documentary storytelling globally and the value of diverse perspectives on the human experience. Overall, Silverdocs will present 108 films representing 63 countries selected from 1,861 submissions with six World, eight North American, six US, seven East Coast Premieres and two retrospective programs. The Festival will again honor the best film in the Music Documentary section.

Films screen in six sections: US Feature Competition, World Feature Competition, Music Documentary, Short Film Competition, the to-be-announced Silver Spectrum and a special thematic side-bar for 2008.

SILVERDOCS confers three additional awards presented annually at the Festival.
· The Cinematic Vision Award will be given to a feature film that exhibits excellence and innovation in the craft of visual storytelling ($2,500).
· The WITNESS Award in honor of Joey Lozano will be awarded to a theatrical documentary that addresses human rights and social justice issues ($5,000).
· The SILVERDOCS/American Film Market Award will be presented to a film of exceptional promise in the media marketplace and will include special access to the American Film Market and accommodations ($5,000 value).

SILVERDOCS and ACE/Animal Content in Entertainment will again present a development grant, initiated in 2006, which has increased to $25,000 for 2008. The awards join those for films in competition. The new awards bring the combined cash and in-kind prizes at SILVERDOCS to $65,000.

Award winners will be announced at the SILVERDOCS Award presentation on Saturday June 21, 2008. All films are also eligible for Audience awards for Best Feature and Short, which will be announced on Sunday June 22, 2008.

US FEATURE COMPETITION
BULLETPROOF SALESMAN / USA, 2008, 70 minutes (Director: Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein)

CHEVOLUTION / USA, 2008, 90 minutes (Director: Luis Lopez and Trisha Ziff)

FOUR SEASONS LODGE / USA, 2008, 109 minutes (Director: Andrew Jacobs) World Premiere

THE GARDEN / USA, 2008, 95 minutes (Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy) World Premiere.

HARD TIMES AT DOUGLASS HIGH / USA, 2007, 112 minutes (Director: Alan and Susan Raymond) World Premiere.

HERB & DOROTHY / USA, 2008, 85 minutes (Director: Megumi Sasaki) World Premiere.

IN THE FAMILY / USA, 2008, 83 minutes (Director: Joanna Rudnick) US Premiere.

KASSIM THE DREAM / USA, 2008, 87 minutes (Director: Kief Davidson)

PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL / USA, 2008, 72 minutes (Director: Gini Reticker)

TROUBLE THE WATER / USA, 2008, 95 minutes (Director: Tia Lessin and Carl Deal)

US Feature Jury: Sandi Dubowski, Filmmaker and writer (TREMBLING BEFORE G-D); Ramona Diaz, Filmmaker (IMELDA, SPIRITS RISING); Mila Aungh Thwin, Filmmaker and Producer (CHAIRMAN GEORGE)

WORLD FEATURE COMPETITION

COMEBACK / Germany, 2007, 79 minutes (Director: Maximilian Plettau) North American Premiere.

CORRIDOR #8 / Bulgaria, 2008, 74 minutes (Director: Boris Despodov)

THE ENGLISH SURGEON / United Kingdom/Ukraine, 2007, 94 minutes (Director: Geoffrey Smith) East Coast Premiere.

FOUR WIVES – ONE MAN / Iran, 2007, 76 minutes (Director: Nahid Persson) North American Premiere.

HEAD WIND / Iran, 2008, 65 minutes (Director: Mohammad Rasoulof)

THE INFINITE BORDER / Mexico, 2007, 90 minutes (Director: Juan Manuel Sepúlveda) US Premiere.

MECHANICAL LOVE / Denmark, 2007, 79 minutes (Director: Phie Ambo) US Premiere.

MILOSEVIC ON TRIAL / Denmark, 2007, 69 minutes (Director: Michael Christofferson)

MY LIFE INSIDE / Mexico, 2007, 120 minutes (Director: Lucia Gaja)

THE RED RACE / China/Germany, 2008, 70 minutes (Director: Chao Gan) World Premiere

World Feature Jury: Steve James, Filmmaker (HOOP DREAMS, STEVIE); Almadena Carrecedo, Filmmaker (MADE IN LA, WELCOME, A DOCU-JOURNEY OF IMPRESSIONS); Igor Blazevic, Director, One World, International Human Rights Documentary Festival and co-director of ten documentaries for Czech Television.

BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY AWARD

HI MY NAME IS RYAN / USA, 2008, 78 minutes (Director: Paul Eagleston and Stephen Rose) North American Premiere.

LA PALOMA / Germany/France, 2008, 88 minutes (Director: Sigrid Faltin)

LIFE. SUPPORT. MUSIC. / USA, 2008, 79 minutes (Director: Eric Daniel Metzgar)

SONG SUNG BLUE / USA, 2008, 87 minutes (Director: Greg Kohs)

THROW DOWN YOUR HEART / USA, 2008, 97 minutes (Director: Sascha Paladino)

WILD COMBINATION / USA, 2008, 71 minutes (Director: Matt Wolf)

Music Documentary Jury: To Be Announced.

STERLING SHORT COMPETITION

The Festival also presents a Sterling Award for Best Short, in recognition of this increasingly acclaimed art form. The Short Film program will be released in the subsequent program announcement. Shorts programmed in SILVERDOCS have gone on to be nominated for an Academy Award each year of the Festival. THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT, directed by Ruby Yang, which had its world premiere at SILVERDOCS 2006, received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short and 2007’s FREEHELD won the Oscar.

Short Film Jury: Ryan Harrington, Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund; Sarah Price, Filmmaker (SUMMERCAMP, THE YES MEN); A.J. Schnack, Filmmaker and Writer (KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON)

The Festival’s signature program, the Charles Guggenheim Symposium, honors the legacy of the late four-time Academy Award winning filmmaker, Charles Guggenheim, by recognizing a filmmaker who shares the same artistic excellence and profound respect for humanity and democratic values. In 2008, the Symposium will honor Spike Lee, an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated director, producer, writer and actor with more than 35 films to his credit. His documentary work includes: WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS (2006); 4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997); and WE WUZ ROBBED (2000).

Silverdocs Announces Opening & Closing Night Films

More news from Silverdocs on their opening and closing night selections below. The Film Panel Notetaker will be in Silver Spring, MD, to bring you notes from the filmmaker Q&As and panel discussions. Stay tuned.

Silver Spring, Maryland, May 14, 2008—SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival announced the opening and closing night films for SILVERDOCS 2008. The Festival will open on Monday, June 16, 2008 with the US Premiere of Adrian Wills’ ALL TOGETHER NOW and close with THEATER OF WAR on Saturday, June 21, 2008. SILVERDOCS presents eight days of programming showcasing 100 films plus special screenings, music performances, and dozens of panel discussions featuring hundreds of filmmakers, subjects and media professionals. Now in its sixth year, SILVERDOCS and its concurrent International Documentary Conference honors excellence in filmmaking, supports the diverse voices and free expression of independent storytellers and celebrates the power of documentary to enhance our understanding of the world.

ALL TOGETHER NOW, Adrian Wills’ faithful behind-the-scenes story of the unprecedented partnership between The Beatles and Cirque du Soleil, explores the making of the “LOVE” stage production at the Mirage in Las Vegas. The film captures the collaborations of Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, LOVE director Dominique Champagne and producers Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin as they create an homage to the vision and music of The Beatles. Director Adrian Wills is scheduled to attend along with other special guests.

The Festival will close with THEATER OF WAR, directed by John Walter (HOW TO DRAW A BUNNY), a mesmerising examination of the intersection of art and politics at the creation of The Public Theater’s 2006 outdoor performance of Bertolt Brecht’s anti-war play Mother Courage and Her Children. The play, directed by The Public Theater’s George C. Wolfe from a new translation by Tony Kushner features Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. THEATER OF WAR offers an intimate glimpse into the creative process and offers a raw and powerful exploration of war and capitalism. Director John Walter is scheduled to attend. Special guests to be announced.

“ALL TOGETHER NOW is a testament to the power of great music to endure over decades and the risk, rewards, and sheer drama, of creative collaboration,” said Festival Director, Patricia Finneran. “THEATER OF WAR is a riveting modern media take of a classic cultural exploration of conflict. Whether music or theatre, both films offer a rare insight into the creative process and invite audiences to reflect on the present through the prism of our artistic and political history.”

Silverdocs To Honor Spike Lee

SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival will honor Spike Lee at its Charles Guggenheim Symposium during the June fest. The Film Panel Notetaker will return to Silver Spring, MD, for a second year in a row to bring you coverage of the panels, filmmaker Q&As, and more. Stay tuned. Here's my coverage from last year's screening of The Gates (my favorite film I saw in all of 2007) at Silverdocs. And here's Silverdocs's announcement about Spike Lee:

Silver Spring, Maryland, April 23, 2008—SILVERDOCS announced today that it will honor Spike Lee at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium, a centerpiece of the now eight-day documentary festival which takes place in June just outside DC. Spike Lee, an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated director, producer, writer and actor with more than 35 films to his credit, was selected for his unyielding commitment to telling stories that challenge America’s consciousness of social injustice, while also celebrating the resilience and power of the human spirit. The Symposium, named after the late, four-time Academy Award-winner Charles Guggenheim, honors a filmmaker who has mastered the power of the documentary to capture current events, frame history and who inspires audiences with powerful explorations of the complexity of the human experience.

“Spike Lee is truly a master storyteller; in both his contemporary and historical films, he uncovers the deep truths and unhealed wounds of the American experience while celebrating our resilience and passion,” said AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale.

Lee’s most recent documentary work, the Peabody-winning masterpiece WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS (2006), is considered the documentary of record of the aftermath of Katrina and the courage and tenacity of the people of New Orleans.His deep commitment to telling stories of the African American experience has resulted in numerous non-fiction films including: the Academy Award-nominated documentary 4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997) which tells the tragic story of the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing that helped galvanize the civil rights movement; A HUEY P. NEWTON STORY (2001), a documentary film based on the biographical play of the Black Panther leader; and WE WUZ ROBBED (2000), which recounts the stunning story of the 2000 election in Florida with poetic economy. His passions for both music and sports have lead to films on Pavarotti and Michael Jackson as well as football’s All-American Jim Brown. All this is in addition to his powerful and celebrated narrative dramatic films, including DO THE RIGHT THING which AFI has honored as one of the 100 greatest American films of all time.

As part of the Symposium, SILVERDOCS will screen a series of excerpts from Lee’s body of documentary work. Following the screening Lee will be joined on stage by special guests to engage in a discussion of his career. Past honorees include Barbara Kopple, who was joined by Albert Maysles and Elvis Mitchell in 2005; Martin Scorsese, who engaged in conversation with Jim Jarmusch in 2006; and most recently Jonathan Demme, who was interviewed by NPR’s Michel Martin. More details will be released closer to the Festival.

Silverdocs 2007 - "The Gates" (Companion notes from June 10th's Maysles Films Program at BAM)

Following up on my notes from June 10th's Maysles Film Program at BAM with Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens), I would like to include the below notes from a Silverdocs Q and A with Antonio Ferrera, co-director of The Gates, as a companion piece. I was so moved by the presentation at BAM last week that I just had to see "The Gates" at Silverdocs. I missed it when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. But before I present my notes, here's my review:

The Gates is an incredibly engaging, dramatic work of documentary filmmaking with footage spanning more than 25 years of artists Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's struggle and ultimate victory to display their work of art entitled "The Gates" in New York City's Central Park from filmmakers Antonio Ferrera and Albert Maysles. A most dramatic and clever edit occurs at the beginning of the film when we see Christo and Jeanne-Claude as they were in 2005 and all of a sudden, they're back in 1979 as they prepare to talk with the then Parks Department Commissioner Gordon Davis, who turns their exhibition down. The duo take their presentation to various communities throughout New York City from Harlem to NYU, each time getting dissent from skeptical residents where a major argument was that they were going to destroy a piece of natural art by putting their own art over it. Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's response was that Central Park is man-made. Finally, in 2005, mayor Michael Bloomberg approved their exhibition, and in February of that year, "The Gates" went up for two weeks. I happened to see "The Gates" in person, and I personally didn't know what to make of them at the time. Whether or not one agrees that they were a beautiful work of art, one can't help but to admire how they brought an entire city together. Perhaps that is what the art really is, and that is exactly what is captured in the documentary The Gates. The last half-hour of the film shows the two weeks in 2005 when people came to Central Park. The filmmakers capture their natural reactions, excitement and confusion so beautifully.

Photo courtesy of Silverdocs.

The Gates - Q and A with co-director Antonio Ferrera
SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival 2007
June 16, 2007

Q: Can you talk about the editing decisions? How much footage was there?

A: 400 hours of the actual event [the two weeks in 2005], about 200 hours from the preceding year, and 30 to 40 hours from 1979. We had access to a lot of great sensibilities. Captured the journey for the audience. Spent two years editing the film from 2005-2007, myself and Matthew Prinzing. I lived in the park for 16-17 hours a day. The story is all about the light.

Q: Did you find the original people who were against "The Gates" in 1979?

A: We hung out with Gordon Davis, who originally turned it down, but turned out to be one of its greatest advocates.

Q: Did Christo and Jeanne-Claude make any money from "The Gates"?

A: The drawings go toward the final work of art.

Q: Did Christo and Jeanne-Claude adjust the opening of "The Gates" because of the snow?

A: What ever happened, happened. It was incredible. It was just mother nature and our discipline to capture it.

Q: Will Christo and Jeanne-Claude do any art exhibitions in the Washington, D.C., area?

A: As soon as you tell them an idea, they don't do it.

Q: What are your thoughts on David and Albert starting the shooting and you finishing it?

A: It's a long story. It was a whole archaeological job.

Q: What was your decision not to showcase Christo and Jeanne-Claude once "The Gates" were fertile.

A: At a certain point, the expression has to take the foreground. I was scared I wouldn't be able to pull it off. We don't interview subjects. An example is the scene with the Trinidadian kids sitting on a rock in Central Park just talking about "The Gates." You can't interview shit like that. You just listen. I remember 9/11 when everyone looked up in horror. At "The Gates," everyone looked up in delight.

Q: What was the decision behind not showing in the film the taking down of "The Gates" in Central Park ?

A: We wanted to capture that feeling when you left the park.

Silverdocs 2007 - "What's It Worth": Value vs. Values

When I stopped in at the Silverdocs Cinema Lounge on Saturday, I happened upon the panel discussion "What's It Worth": Value vs. Values. Below are some notes I took. Unfortunately, I missed the final portion of the discussion, because I was heading back over to the AFI/Silver Theater for the Sterling Awards Ceremony. If anyone else was at the panel and would like to submit additional notes, please do so.

DocaGora and International Documentary Conference Wrap

"What’s It Worth": Value vs. Values

Silverdocs Cinema Lounge

June 16, 2007

Peter Wintonick and Neil Sieling, Co-Moderators

Cameron Hickey, Session Producer

Panelists:

Pat Aufderheide - “New Deal 1.5” paper from The Center for Social Media and The Independent Television Service

Tamara Gould - Vice President of Distribution, ITVS

Yvette Alberdingkthijm - Joost Executive Vice President, Content Strategy & Acquisition

Angela Wilson Gyetvan - Revver VP, Marketing and Content

Notes:

Wintonick: The idea behind Docagora is to bring what's best and beautiful about the linear documentary world into the digital age. It's been a quest for me since the mid-1990s to find diverse financing for documentaries from the new world of "now" media. Trying to get festivals, corporations and philanthropic communities to come together.

Sieling: A recent recruit to DocsGora. Works for The Center for Social Media. Did a debate at HotDocs. Introduced the three different presentation at this panel. 1) "New Deal 1.5", 2) Revver.com and 3) Joost [***This is the portion of the panel I missed and if you have notes, you're welcome to submit them]

Aufderheide: The significance of "The New Deal: Verson 1.5, Monetizing and Mission" is how rights negotiations are changing so independent filmmakers can measure their goals against business practices. Worked with ITVS on it. Tamara Gould was the contact at ITVS. Pamphlet is titled "1.5" because there has only been a small change since last year.

Gould: The theme is energy, excitement and confusion about digital platforms versus traditional distribution models. The mission is to fund and bring documentaries to public television, as it is considering how to reach audiences, and to work with PBS to develop ways to reach all audiences across America. Last year, there was a lot of hype from producers about rights without a clear understanding of what they could do with them. "1.5" answers questions like: What can producers expect? What does this mean for independent filmmakers? What kind of revenues can you expect? What expenses? What rights to clear? There's also 164 right terms and distribution platforms such as traditional home video and download-to-own rights. The marketplace is confusing, uncomfortable and unclear, but we recommend you to find partners and experiment to earn a living, make revenues and distribute films to audiences.

Gytevan: Revver.com slideshow presentation:

A unique new chapter in media:
- Monetization and distribution platform for content
- A moderated environment; no copyright infringement
- Open syndication network; Allow content to flow freely around the Internet
- A powerful platform for advertisers

Capitalist Content Democracy – Open system to power the best form video content

Press Coverage – ex) sited in Time Magazine

Who’s Using It? – Best-of-breed creators who want to leverage this new medium

Examples:
- Ask a Ninja (supported by Ask.com)
- My Name is Bill (picked up for a CNN segment)

What’s Unique?
- Content is sticky and safe
- Customize programming
- Share revenue with content creators and syndicators

Unique Open Syndication Network

Unique Dynamic Advertising System

Unique Open API and Blog Plug-Ins:
- “video portal in a box”
- blogging tools – wordpress plug-in

Unique Content Review Process

Rewarding Creativity (Why we exist)

Audience Q&A

Q: What happens to copyrights?

Gytevan: There's no concierge who's going to tell you who's playing fair, but Revver is quite fair with it.

Q: Is there any one website where you can upload your film and it will distribute it to multiple viral video websites like Myspace & YouTube?

Gytevan: TubeMogul.com

Sieling: This is not an easy process. It's difficult to get the standards.

Gytevan: It has to support different file codings.

Silverdocs 2007 - Sterling Awards Ceremony

On Saturday, I attended the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival 2007 in Silver Spring, Maryland. I had the opportunity to see Weijun Chen's Please Vote For Me, which won the Sterling Award for Best Feature. Please Vote For Me is about "a third grade class in Wahun province (in China) and the intense politicking in the race to become Class Monitor" and is part of " the international documentary project Why Democracy? scheduled to air globally in October 2007." A complete list of winners from Silverdocs follows.

Please Vote For Me producer Don Edkins takes the prize for Best Feature on behalf of director Weijun Chen.

SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival 2007

Sterling Awards Ceremony

June 16, 2007

Sterling Award, Best Feature - PLEASE VOTE FOR ME by Weijun Chen

Sterling Award, Special Jury Mention - ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS by Eva Mulvad


Sterling Award, Best Short - LOT 63, GRAVE C by Sam Green

Sterling Award, Honorable Mention - I WANT TO BE A PILOT by Diego Quemada-Díez


Music Documentary Award - NOMADAK TX by Raúl De la Fuente


The Cinematics Vision Feature Award - KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON by AJ Schnack

A.J. Schnack, director of Kurt Kobain About A Son, stands behind his giant $2,500 check after winning the Cinematic Vision Award. Photo snapped by Sujewa Ekanayake.


The Cinematic Vision Short Award - MY EYES by Erlend Mo

WITNESS Award - THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg

WITNESS Award, Honorable Mention - THE PRICE OF SUGAR by Bill Haney

SILVERDOCS/American Film Market Award - BIG RIG by Doug Pray

Feature Audience Award - SOUVENIRS by Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat

Short Audience Award - A SON'S SACRIFICE

ACE Grant Winner - THE CONCRETE JUNGLE by Rachel Buchanan and Don Bernier

My companions at the Sterling Awards Ceremony: Pamela Cohn, Still in Motion and Sujewa Ekanayake, DIY Filmmaker Sujewa & Date Number One writer/director