My third interview for SnagFilms’ SummerFest is up today at indieWIRE. DISCO AND ATOMIC WAR, which screened at Telluride and IDFA, tells the darkly comic story of how DALLAS and KNIGHT RIDER helped break through the Iron Curtain in Estonia (via Finland).
Watch the film for free for the next two weeks and read my interview with director Jaak Kilmi here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals
Opening in NYC today, and in LA next Friday, August 6: ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
After premiering at IDFA at the end of 2009, Rob Lemkin & Thet Sambath’s documentary went on to screen as part of Sundance‘s World Cinema Documentary Competition this year, winning a Special Jury Prize. It’s gone on to win awards at numerous other festivals, including Full Frame, True/False, One World, Hong Kong, and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.
Co-Director Sambath is an integral part of this story, a journalist who spent years getting to know a number of individuals who participated in the genocide against Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge regime. He manages to get them to discuss the past on camera, revealing dark secrets that have left an indelible mark on Cambodia and its people, including survivors like Sambath, who lost multiple family members in the Killing Fields.
ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE is a powerful personal documentary that transcends Sambath’s own story to speak to to a much larger issue – how does a country deal with the legacy of genocide?
Update: indieWIRE has an interview with Rob Lemkin here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
My series of interviews with the directors featured in SnagFilms’ SummerFest, continues today with the second film in the series, SHOOTING ROBERT KING. The film, originally entitled BLOOD TRAIL, premiered at Toronto in 2008, and follows the titular subject, a war photographer, over the course of 15 years and three wars.
Watch the film for free for the next two weeks and read my interview with director Richard Parry here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals
Coming to POV on July 20: EL GENERAL
Natalia Almada’s film debuted in 2009 at Sundance, where she won the award for Best Documentary Director. The film was later nominated for the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards’ Truer Than Fiction Award.
Focusing on the titular figure, Almada’s great-grandfather, one of the country’s most controversial leaders who served as a general during the Mexican Revolution before serving as President from 1924-1928, EL GENERAL weaves together original and archival material from Mexico and Hollywood films in a stunningly wrought examination of both personal and national history and identity. The film succeeds in bridging together decades of history with Almada’s family memoir, uniting the public with the personal in an artful, poignant manner.
To find out more about the POV screening on PBS, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
Over the next six weeks at indieWIRE I’ll be conducting a series of interviews with the directors featured in SummerFest, an online festival organized by SnagFilms offering free, exclusive access to notable new documentaries.
The first film in the series is the Pete Postlethwaite starring documentary/narrative hybrid on climate change, THE AGE OF STUPID. Watch the film for free for the next two weeks and check out my interview with director Franny Armstrong here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals
The previous post ran down some useful information on the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmakers should remember that the festival is just one program of the larger Sundance Institute, which also offers a number of resources for filmmakers each year, including grants and labs. This post provides information on most of these programs.
Filed under Film, Funding Deadlines, Sundance
I’ve been a Programming Associate for the Sundance Film Festival since 2005, focusing on US Documentary Features. With the programming cycle for the 2011 festival (January 20-30) beginning, it seems like a good idea to remind filmmakers about submission deadlines and other information, if you’re aiming to have your work considered.
Filed under Film Festivals, Submission Deadlines, Sundance
