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The Monday Brief: Exhaling the Week That Was, Sundance Advice, Toback's Extortion Charge & Varnum Goes on Hiatus

Deep breath.

After a week filled with all kinds of documentary developments, we're now settling into a week that's slightly less packed.  Today, the Sundance short films are announced and on Sunday, the Los Angeles Film Critics are scheduled to announce their 2009 winners.

Already the DC Film Critics jumped to the front of the line last night by announcing FOOD, INC. as their winner (it had earlier been revealed as one of five nominees along with ANVIL!, THE COVE, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and GOOD HAIR.

Another winner yesterday? Oscar shortlister MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN, which won the Best Documentary award at the British Independent Film Awards.

If you haven't been paying attention this week, you missed a humdinger, what with Sundance announcements, Gotham & IDA winners, Spirit nominations and the like.  If you missed any of it, here's a recap:

We unveiled The Horse Race and examine FOOD, INC.'s Oscar chances in light of a big week ahead, just before...

...FOOD, INC. wins the Gotham for Best Documentary and...

...is nominated for a Spirit Award in the same category, giving it the rare pre-Oscar sweep of major doc award nominations.  Others up for Best Feature include probable spoiler ANVIL!, MORE THAN A GAME, OCTOBER COUNTRY and WHICH WAY HOME.

The IDA unveils seven of its winners four days before the Friday ceremony which ultimately crowns ANVIL! as its Best Documentary Feature.  The love at the IDAs and probable love at the Spirits makes us wonder if we shouldn't reconsider ANVIL's very remote Best Picture chances.

In the midst of all this, THE COVE gets some love from the National Board of Review.

Sundance unveils a stellar competition line-up as well as a promising out-of-competition slate.

And finally, two leading Cinema Eye nominees - BIG RIVER MAN and LOOT - open at the IFC Center in NYC and a couple of cranky conservatives try to exact some kind of revenge on Al Gore and AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and the LA Times bungles the story.

The Sundance announcements always bring mixed emotions - the excitement of a whetted appetite for what's coming next year and the knowledge that literally thousands of filmmakers were disappointed not to hear Park City's clarion call.

Filmmaker Magazine's Scott Macauley addresses those who received the form emails:

"The first thing: for a few days, forget about it. Don’t think about your film. This weekend go out to a concert, or a museum, or a park. Watch football. Probably don’t go to the movies. If you were obsessively refreshing this site or Indiewire all week to see the Sundance list, take a break from not only your film but film itself.

Next week dive back into it. And as you do so, recognize the one thing you now have that all those Sundance filmmakers don't: time. Time to take a second look at the film, screen it, refine it, finesse, or perhaps just find the right post-production vendor. Time to fine tune the DIY marketing and distribution plan that you really wouldn’t have been able to pull together by mid-January."

The National Board of Review Honors THE COVE as Top Doc

The National Board of Review, the 100-year old, New York-based film society, has announced its winners for 2009 and in the nonfiction field it has named Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE the Best Documentary of the Year.

It was great news for THE COVE, one of the frontrunners in this year's Oscar, in a week that had dominated by good tidings for its chief rival for the Academy Award, Robert Kenner's FOOD, INC.  The latter film was named as one of the top six documentaries of 2009 by the organization.

Also included in the list of six were Anders Østergaard's BURMA VJ, Joe Berlinger's CRUDE, Jeff Stilson's GOOD HAIR and Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS.

The Ellsberg doc and BURMA VJ are both on the Academy's 15-film shortlist.

The Monday Brief: Sundance! Spirits! IDA! Gothams! Is This the Biggest Week of the Year?

The Monday Brief is back and just in time - as a month full of European mega-fests comes to a close (and VIDEOCRACY takes Sheffield, TRASH HUMPERS shocks Copenhagen and LAST TRAIN HOME conquers Amsterdam) and what may just be the biggest week of the year...

The Gothams kick off the award season in New York tonight as high profile docs FOOD, INC., GOOD HAIR and TYSON take on underdogs MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER and PARADISE.  In addition to those, festival favorite OCTOBER COUNTRY is up as the sole nonfiction title in the Films Not Yet Playing at a Theater Near You category. 

Here's a piece of trivia - in the five years that the Gothams have awarded a Best Documentary prize, the winning film has never gone on to win the Oscar, which is pretty good news if you're betting on THE COVE in March.

For the first time, the Gothams will be streaming live here, starting at 8 PM eastern tonight.

Then early tomorrow - probably before some Gotham revelers have gone to bed - Film Independent will announced nominations for its Spirit Awards.  Worth watching - will FOOD, INC. sweep the major doc award nominations prior to the Oscars?  Will the Spirits act (consciously or no) as a corrective on some of Oscar's snubs (I'm looking at you ANVIL, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC and SEPTEMBER ISSUE)? 

Also worth watching are the nominations in the Truer Than Fiction category, which recognize films and filmmakers who have not yet received the attention they deserve.

Then, on Wednesday, the dam will fully break as the Sundance Film Festival announces its competition films for 2010.  Here's what we know already - after what many agreed was a lackluster 2009 festival, next year's Sundance is shaping up (on paper at least) to be a barn-burner for docs.  At least three films from Oscar nominated filmmakers are on tap, along with 2 new films from folks who took Sundance by storm with their previous features, plus a veteran Sundance filmmaker is back as producer on a debut feature.

And that's not even including LAST TRAIN HOME, the IDFA-champ that everyone and their mother expects to show in Park City (along with 2 or 3 or more titles from the just-wrapped European doc circuit).

By the way, if you haven't checked it out yet, gander at the newly re-designed Sundance fest website, which leads off with a retro graphic manifesto:

"REBEL.  This is the renewed rebellion.  This is the re-charged fight against the establishment of the expected.  This is the rebirth of the battle for brave new ideas.  This is Sundance, reminded.  And this is your call to join us."

That's a whole lot of "re" words. 

And what does it say, exactly, that John Cooper's first year at the helm begins with the declaration that Sundance needed a rebirth and a re-charge?  (Although, again, after last year, you won't get much argument from these's parts.)  Slogans aside, the week's first peak at this year's line-up will give our first clues as to whether there's a true revolution (a "re" word they didn't use) afoot.

IT MIGHT GET LOUD Nets Four Golden Satellite Nominations

The Golden Satellite Awards - the barely comprehensible spinoff of the Golden Globes - has announced their nominations for 2009, and the big surprise (if one can said to be surprised by what goes on at the Golden Satellite Awards) is that Davis Guggenheim's IT MIGHT GET LOUD has received 4 nominations, sweeping through the technical categories of Cinematography, Film Editing and Sound in addition to its nod for Best Motion Picture, Documentary.

In addition to LOUD, the six-deep field nominated for the Documentary category includes Oscar shortlisters THE BEACHES OF AGNES, THE COVE, EVERY LITTLE STEP, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR and Oscar snubbed THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE.  

Europeans Get in the Awards Spirit: BEACHES, BURMA, LA DANSE, DEFAMATION, MUGABE & 45365 Amongst Trophy Seekers

If its October, we're starting to get serious about gearing up for this year's awards season.  Nominations for the IDA Awards and for the Gothams will come this month, with Cinema Eye nominations announced early in November in Sheffield.  And behind the scenes, Oscar and Independent Spirit Award voters are watching, taking and debating this year's crop of docs.

And as these nominations and shortlists and top 10s are announced, we begin to get a collective sense of where things are headed, vis-à-vis the Kodak Theatre in March.  For example, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath's THE BETRAYAL wasn't seen as a big Oscar contender until it began to appear again and again on year end lists and nominations.

This week, two groups in Europe - the folks at the London Film Festival and at the European Film Award - announced nominees/finalists for the The Grierson Award and the Prix Arte for Best Documentary, respectively.

The European Film Award folks, who announced their ten nominees today, have a flair for spotlighting films that have not yet screened or just premiered in North America, although a handful screened last November at IDFA.  Last year's winner, Helena Trestikova’s RENE, had a quiet North American premiere at SXSW 2009 prior to a screening in Toronto at this year's Hot Docs.

Amongst the films that we have gotten a chance to screen (on this side of the Atlantic), the big names are Anders Ostergaard's BURMA VJ (winner at CPH:DOX, IDFA and Full Frame), Agnes Varda's self-portrait THE BEACHES OF AGNES (LES PLAGES D'AGNES), Yoav Shamir's DEFAMATION (screened at Hot Docs, Tribeca and Silverdocs), Peter Kerekes' COOKING HISTORY (Hot Docs, Silverdocs) and Peter Liechti's THE SOUNDS OF INSECTS (also Hot Docs, Silverdocs).

DEFAMATION also shows up on the London Film Festival's shortlist for their Grierson Award, denoting the best documentary at the festival.  Among the other finalists: Bill and Turner Ross' SXSW winner 45365, Silverdocs' champ MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN, Frederick Wiseman's LA DANSE - THE PARIS OPERA BALLET and festival fave SERGIO.

Full list of nominations/finalists below:

The European Film Awards Prix Arte for Best Documentary

THE BEACHES OF AGNES (LES PLAGES D'AGNES)
BELOW SEA LEVEL
BURMA VJ
COOKING HISTORY
THE DAMNED OF THE SEA
DEFAMATION
THE HEART OF JENIN
PIANOMANIA
THE SOUNDS OF INSECTS - RECORD OF A MUMMY
THE WOMAN WITH THE 5 ELEPHANTS (DIE FRAU MIT DEN 5 ELEFANTEN)

The London Film Festival Grierson Award Finalists

45365
LA DANSE - THE PARIS OPERA BALLET
DEFAMATION
HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG: THE BOTTOM LINE
MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN
OSADNE
SERGIO

18 Months After it Won the Oscar, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE Wins an Emmy

They held the News and Documentary Emmys last night in New York and, per usual, the night was a mix of broadcast journalism icons (including lifetime honoree Barbara Walters) and documentary films that first saw the light of day back during the Bush administration (George H.W.?).

The big winner of the evening (on the doc side) was Alex Gibney's TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, which won the Oscar in February '08 and had its official premiere at Tribeca '07.  It took the prize for Best Documentary as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Research.

Another winner, James Moll's INHERITANCE, screened at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival.  That film won last night for Outstanding Interview.

Why the long turnaround?  INHERITANCE didn't air on P.O.V. until December 2008, TAXI screened on HBO last September.  That may say more about the long road that nonfiction filmmakers face between premiere and broadcast than anything else.

BURMA VJ, THE COVE, WAY WE GET BY Lead 2009 Feature Honor Roll

Our first edition of the 2009 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll is now up, tracking top tier festival awards (and later critics and institutional prizes) for this year's crop of documentaries.  And just looking at sheer numbers, three films are currently leading the list of 2009 titles: Anders Østergaard's BURMA VJ, Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE and Aron Gaudet's THE WAY WE GET BY.

BURMA VJ scored multiple awards at this year's Full Frame Film Festival as well as prizes at Sundance, San Francisco, Thessaloniki and last year's IDFA (not included on this year's Honor Roll).  THE COVE is this year's Audience Award champ, picking up the title at Sundance, Hot Docs, Seattle and Silverdocs, among others.  And THE WAY WE GET BY has received jury prizes and honorable mentions, including a Special Jury prize at SXSW and the Audience Award at Full Frame.

History Channel's 102 MINUTES and Marina Zenovich's POLANSKI Top Primetime Emmys

The Creative Arts portion of the 2009 Emmy Awards were held tonight in downtown Los Angeles with the History Channel's 9/11 recap 102 MINUTES THAT CHANGED AMERICA and HBO's Sundance 2008 acquisition ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED both netting multiple Emmys.  POLANSKI director Marina Zenovich picked up two Emmys tonight - one for Oustanding Direction and another for Outstanding Writing.

POLANSKI's win was just the tip of the iceberg for regular Emmy darling HBO.  The network won the most Emmys of any tonight, including three for its narrative version of the Maysles Brothers classic GREY GARDENS.  The net received the Exceptional Merit award and the Outstanding Childrens Nonfiction Special for two films from their acclaimed Alzheimer's Project - and HBO's grande dame Sheila Nevins was presented with the Academy's Governors Award, in addition to two other Emmy's she won tonight.

Full list of winners in nonfiction categories after the jump.

HBO's POLANSKI Scores Big at Primetime Emmy Nods; P.O.V. Lead at News & Doc Emmys

It was a regular orgy of Emmy nominations last week (and by last we mean like a week and a half ago - blame it on the rain) as both the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (presenters of the Primetime Emmy Awards that give out statuettes to "Mad Men" and "30 Rock") and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (which give the Daytime Emmys, the Sports Emmys as well as the News and Documentary Emmys) announced this year's nominees.

We tend to value the Primetime Emmy a bit more than those presented by NATAS (maybe that's cause we won one of the latter, maybe it's because NATAS is honoring films that were at festivals or in theaters two and three years ago, maybe it's because the nominees often seem to make no particular sense), but we have to at least a little love to NATAS for giving so many prizes that honor the craft of nonfiction filmmaking (they've even got the word "craft" in the title of the awards), even if they don't have one for directing (but we digress). 

P.O.V., the outstanding PBS series focusing on independent documentaries, led this year's news and documentary nominees with a record 10 nominations spread across nine different films.  Only James Moll's INHERITANCE, which first popped up on our radar at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2006 (no, that's not a typo), received more than one nomination.  P.O.V. was second only to CBS' venerable newsmagazine "60 Minutes", which received 15 nominations. 

HBO received 9 nominations for its Documentary Films unit, including three for 2008 Oscar winner TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, which HBO picked up after Discovery Channel declined to air it (in what many viewed as a political move for the Silver Spring-based conglomerate).  Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern's THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK was also nominated for three awards, but the king of this year's N&D Emmy jungle is GORILLA MURDERS, nominated for four awards.  Both GORILLA and DEVIL came to your TV via the National Geographic Channel.

Meanwhile, over at the Primetime Emmys, HBO scored again, as Marina Zenovich's ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED was nominated in five categories - including Directing, Writing, Editing and Outstanding Nonfiction Special - and will be one of the only true nonfiction features showing up for the Creative Arts Emmys, as most of its competition are reality television and reality compeition titles.  While in a normal year, POLANSKI would be considered a frontrunner for "Outstanding Nonfiction Special", it will have tough competition from another Hollywood subject - NBC's FARRAH'S STORY.

Select nominees for both sets of awards after the jump.  One nomination outside of nonfiction categories worth noting is a nod for SPELLBOUND director Jeffrey Blitz for Outstanding Achievement in Directing of a Comedy Series for an episode of "The Office".

UP THE YANGTZE Wins Best Documentary at Canada's Genie Awards

Fresh off receiving two Cinema Eye Honors last Sunday (Outstanding Debut and Audience Choice), Yung Chang's UP THE YANGTZE last night won the Canadian Genie Award fir Best Documentary.  The ceremonies, held in Ottawa for the first time, were apparently marked by controversy - numerous entities criticized the conservative government's recent announcement that it would be cutting support for the CBC.