Catching Up: WGA, True/False, SXSW and Morgan Spurlock

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind around these parts and there've been a number of developments that I've missed out on blogging about, so herewith a short recap of the week that was:

• The Writers Guild bestowed its award for Documentary Screenplay to Amy Berg for Deliver Us From Evil.  As I noted in my post covering the nominations, I remain baffled by the rules for the Writers Guild's prize for documentary, no less so now that Deliver Us - an excellent film that I had a hand in awarding best doc at the Los Angeles Film Festival - has taken a writing prize, despite my recollection that their is no script, per se, no narration to speak of.
• The True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri is going full bore with it's full list of films scheduled to screen at this year's festival, full list of panels, and a slew of links, including a MySpace page and an in-house blog.  Pete Bland has the most complete coverage online at his site.  Among the newly announced titles: Toronto and Telluride fave Ghosts of Cite Soleil, AFI Fest Jury winner Buddha's Lost Children, recent Sundance premiere Zoo and John Maringouin's Running Stumbled - which I raved about here.
• SXSW has posted its full list of panels, which is stunning in its scope.  I'll be on the Rock Docs panel on Tuesday, March 13.  Also on tap are doc panels on shooting, finding the narrative, politics, international trends and a conversation with Morgan Spurlock.  On his blog, Matt Dentler announces a retrospective of music docs, including screenings of Monterey Pop and Let's Get Lost. 
• And speaking of the aforementioned Mr. Spurlock, Indiewire reported earlier this week from Berlin of a secretive and formal screening of footage from the Super Size Me director's upcoming film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.  Says Eugene Hernandez and Brian Brooks:

Overall, attendees were quiet about the new project because they were met with a non-disclosure agreement prior to entering the private screening. A sizable contingent from The Weinstein Company attended the showing of clips, along with buyers "from all over the world," according to an anonymous indieWIRE source, specifically an exec from a rival company who declined to further discuss the content of the film out of respect for both Spurlock and the ultimate distributors of the project.

Still, some seemed stymied by the screening, calling it a stunt. An anonymous source, clearly miffed by the move, told indieWIRE that the NDA showing was above and beyond the call of duty, creating an unnecessary level of secrecy for a staged screening. Meanwhile another company head, who had no problem with the situation, noted separately that Wild Bunch brokered deals for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and that Cinetic sold "Bowling For Columbine," each projects that required some level of secrecy in advance of release.