All these wonderful things

The Monday Brief (a Day Later): Much Ado About Zenovich & POLANSKI, Big Weekends for CAPITALISM & MORE THAN A GAME

We were out on the road last week at film festivals in Maine and New York (more on that in a later post) during what seemed like a pretty momentous week on the indie film landscape.  And on Sunday night we were without wireless in the New York countryside, so apologies for delivering The Monday Brief a day late.

We start, naturally, with Michael Moore and his latest, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, which expanded from its successful limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles to nearly 1000 theaters, and true to his reputation as the world’s foremost documentarian, Moore scored pretty big in wide release, taking in over $4.4 million for the weekend.  In doing so, CAPITALISM becomes the third biggest nonfiction of the year (surpassing FOOD, INC. and SEPTEMBER ISSUE and lagging only Disney’s EARTH and JONAS BROTHERS 3D).

But with a per screen average of just under $5K (compared to SICKO's opening weekend average of $10K+, on half the screens), CAPITALISM will need strong word-of-mouth and a solid second weekend hold to match the $20M+ total box office take of his three most successful docs.

Still, while CAPITALISM's numbers may be modest for Moore, they still rank as highly successful for your average nonfiction film.

CAPITALISM was not the weekend’s only success story.  Kristopher Belman’s MORE THAN A GAME, retelling the historic high school basketball season of a team that would include future NBA all-star LeBron James, had one of the top doc debuts of the year.  It took in an average of $13K on 14 screens for an opening weekend cume of $182K, putting it just shy of the top 20 docs of the year.

And RJ Cutler’s THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE had another fine weekend in wide release, grossing $220K on 104 screens to bring its total to just shy of $3M. 

But while those three films were drawing folks to theaters this weekend, another film – just as was the case last week – was perhaps the week’s most talked about documentary: Marina Zenovich’s ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED continued to be in the news in the wake of Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland on 30-year old rape charges in the U.S.

Tokyo Film Fest Will Screen THE COVE as Dolphin Hunts Return

Seeming to bow to international pressure (or, in their words, "interest"), the Tokyo Film Festival announced today that they will screen Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE at their festival next month.  Previously, THE COVE filmmakers had launched a PR offensive against the Tokyo Fest (see here and here), arguing that the festival's environmental theme (which was also in place in 2008) nearly demanded the film's inclusion.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

"The Tokyo International Film Festival's news conference Wednesday was dominated by the announcement that THE COVE, previously rejected by the fest, has been included in the lineup.

TIFF chairman Tatsumi "Tom" Yoda said Wednesday that the documentary about dolphin hunting in Japan would screen at the festival but denied that the decision was down to external pressure, saying it was because of "great interest in the film from around the world."

Yoda declined to explain in further detail why the film had now been included after its initial rejection, saying that the festival didn't do so for other films and would maintain the same policy for THE COVE."

The news guarantees that THE COVE, which has been a box office disappointment in the US for distributor Roadside Attractions, stays in the media eye through October, when Oscar voters will be making their first decisions.

James Longley's Translator Reportedly Detained, Beaten in Tehran While Covering Election Aftermath

For the last two years, Oscar nominated filmmaker James Longley (IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS) has been at work (and basically living) in Iran, as he worked on his new documentary film.

24 hours ago, we exchanged emails.  He'd been posting to the D-Word online community about his experiences in Tehran in the aftermath of the recent contested elections and rare public protests.  He gave me permission to reprint his comments here on the blog.

Sunday night, before I'd had an opportunity to post his observances, a mutual friend emailed me his most recent post, a first-person account of the detention and beating of Longley's translator.

Here, in order, are Longley's posts over the last 3 days.  They show the situation in Iran escalating by the hour.:

Right now the incumbent camp is declaring itself the big winner. In fact, they are declaring at Ahmadinejad has won an unprecedented landslide.

From what I've seen, the opposite was more likely the case.

At the moment, off-hand, I would expect some rather upset people in Iran when they wake up on Saturday.

_______________________________

(Responding to a suggestion that revolution my be at hand and rumors that opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has been arrested.)

Well, revolution I don't know. It's kind of an unpopular idea here still, after the last one. I do think there's bound to be some significant social unrest, however.

Your rumor would jive with the fact that there has been no word from the Mousavi campaign all day.

All gatherings on the street have been banned and those violating the ban are arrested.

It is not possible to approach within several hundred meters the building where votes are being counted.

SMS is still not working – hasn't been working since yesterday morning. Mousavi had complained specifically about this at his press conference last night (around 10:45 pm local time) because his election monitors were to have communicated any irregularities via SMS.

All the Farsi language independent news sources that my translator usually uses to read up on the elections are now blocked.

Tehran's chief of police has reportedly said he hasn't heard anything about the incident yesterday evening at Mousavi's campaign headquarters where armed men burst into the offices and threatened the mostly youthful staff – which is odd since hundreds of riot police were on hand in the scene that followed, as well as the deputy chief of police.

_______________________________

12:12 pm

The rumor about Mousavi being arrested is only that – a rumor. Nothing of the kind happened.

Right now the official election results have still not been announced, so it may be that the Mousavi campaign is wrangling in the background and doesn't want to make any public statements yet.

At the moment, the city seems quiet but tense.

BANANAS!* Out of Competition in Los Angeles After Judge Rules Protagonist Lawyer a Fraud

Two stories this week - one in the Los Angeles Business Journal and another in the NY Times - have stirred the pot in a controversy surrounding the forthcoming documentary, BANANAS!*.  The stories question the underlying truthfulness of the film, directed by internationally respected filmmaker Fredrik Gertten, particularly whether protagonist/lawyer Juan Dominguez perpetrated a fraud against both the legal system as well as the filmmakers.

Tonight, a publicist for LAFF confirmed to us that the film - announced as one of seven in this year's documentary competition - has been pulled from the competition line-up.  The move was described as a mutual decision between fest and filmmakers.  The film will still play at the festival - despite an apparently agressive campaign by Dole Food Co., the international food conglomerate that bears the role of villain in the film, to have a judge block the film from screening. 

BANANAS!* is now billed as "A Case Study" on the LAFF website, with added paragraphs describing a newly-added post-film discussion:

"Between the film’s completion and its screening at this year’s Festival, critical new elements of the case have come to light.

What happens when a story continues to evolve after the shooting stops? This case study and screening will explore the relationship between documentary filmmaking, objective and subjective point of view, as well as the rights and responsibilities of activist filmmaking."

[Full disclosure - Our own film, CONVENTION, is screening at LAFF in the documentary competition this year and we share a publicist - David Magdael - with the filmmakers from BANANAS!*]

ROUND-UP: NO IMPACT MAN for Oscilloscope, No Yellowfin Tuna for Pret a Manger, Silverdocs Buzz

Lots of doc news in the last week or so, including...

...another doc acquisition for Adam Yauch's Oscilloscope, this time for Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's Sundance premiere NO IMPACT MAN.  The film is scheduled to screen at Silverdocs and at LAFF.  The film is scheduled to open September 4...

...The release in the UK of another Sundance title - Rupert Murray's THE END OF THE LINE - has prompted UK take-away chain Pret a Manger to change its buying and selling habits.  The film, which advocates for sustainable seafood, has moved Manger founder Julian Metcalfe to announce that the firm will move from yellowfin and bluefin tuna to skipjack tuna, a more sustainable alternative...

...Silverdocs is the latest festival to partner with B-Side in creating special content for their website.  One new feature this year is the "audience buzz" page, wherein films are ranked according to how many Silverdocs attendees add the films to their schedules.  Way out in front is Kristopher Belman's Opening Night Film MORE THAN A GAME, with a promised appearance by now-available LeBron James.  Also ranking highly are the closing night and centerpiece films as well as Jennifer Baichwal's Hot Docs opener ACT OF GOD.  But two competition titles are also burning up the buzz-o-meter: Patrick Shen's THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS and Jon Blair's latest, DANCING WITH THE DEVIL...

2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with ONE MINUTE TO NINE's Tommy Davis

#12 in a series.

Tommy Davis' ONE MINUTE TO NINE - the story of Wendy Maldonado's last days before reporting to prison for killing her abusive husband - had its premiere at the 2007 Locarno Film Festival, but it made its mark stateside with a much talked about US premiere at SXSW last March.  From there, Davis' film attracted the attention of HBO, which will release the film later this year.  It was one of my favorite films of 2008 as noted yesterday in our recap of the year's best films.

In this exchange, Davis talks about discovering his subject and racing the clock to film in a scant five days, how he tackled the film's revelations as well as its centerpiece 911 phone call.

ATWT: Let me say first off that I don't think I was as emotionally drained after watching a movie this year as I was with ONE MINUTE TO NINE.  When the film finished, I just sat silently for a while because it was such a moving and wrenching experience.  Much of that is not just from the events that took place but by how you chose to unfold this for the audience.  A lot of the key facts of this story are laid on the table at the very beginning of the film, yet you keep surprising the audience - not in gimmicky ways - by the way you play with chronology and memory.  How much of your process did you have from the start and how much of it came during the post process with your editor Luis de Leon?

Tommy Davis: I was visiting with my Uncle Ferdinand and he was asking how the shoot in Oregon had gone.  I told him how over 5 days I had to earn Wendy's trust in order to find out about the crime, etc.  Then a friend of his, Jimmy, came over and sat down beside us.  Jimmy, had heard parts of the conversation and wanted to know what we were talking about.  Ferdinand started to fill him in.  Hearing the story retold was a minor miracle.  Ferdinand told Jimmy that as I was filming, Wendy slowly doled out the information and it created a totally natural state of suspense.

That gradual process of hearing their story was pitch perfect.  In some ways it made editing pretty seamless, because we just had to filter out things, the story was there, in the proper chronology, all we had to do was keep our eyes and ears open.

How did you find Wendy and how soon did you meet her before she is scheduled to go to prison?

I read about her story on google about a week or so before she was set to go to jail.  I got up to Oregon ASAP and went to her attorney's office.  I told him I wanted to film Wendy and he said, "She only has five days...."  A couple hours later I met Wendy and her family at a diner in Grants Pass.  They were all incredibly gracious and twelve hours later the camera was rolling.

The family was always wanting to turn on lights for me or turn down the TV and I'd say, "no, just keep doing things like you're doing".  A month or two later I was shown all of their home videos and I realized that their father had always staged scenes to make sure they looked happy and the lighting was okay.  Had I known about that when I was filming I probably would have let them turn on a light or two.

2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY's Daniel Junge

#11 in this series...

Daniel Junge's THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY premiered ten months ago at the SXSW Film Festival, taking Austin by storm and winning both the jury and audience awards.  Just a couple of weeks later, his previous film, IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA (which had premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival) took the top prize at AFI Dallas, capping a rare Texas documentary sweep.

After SXSW, DOROTHY was acquired by HBO, which will broadcast the film this year, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award.  The film is also currently in the news, as prosecutors in Brazil have re-opened the case against a rancher tied to Sister Dorothy's murder based on evidence presented in the film.  (Shades of ROMAN POLANSKI...)

In this exchange, Daniel (who is, full disclosure, one of the filmmakers involved in the CONVENTION project) talks about gaining access to both sides of a dramatic trial in the Amazon, the power of a great nonfiction character and working the festival circuit with two acclaimed films simultaneously.

ATWT:  Watching THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY, I was reminded of IRON LADIES and one of the things that really impressed me with that film, which was the amazing level of access that you had.  You are behind the scenes with both the prosecutors in the trial of Dorothy's murderers as well as the defense team.  How did you gain the trust of both sides of this case to allow your cameras to follow them?

Daniel Junge:  While I believe SISTER DOROTHY is more cinematic than IRON LADIES, it’s true that they both benefit from unprecedented access.  I think people are most surprised by our access to the defense team, and, in fact, at times I myself was surprised by their candor.  I think their bravado is indicative of the power structure that exists in the Amazon and ultimately which led to Dorothy's death.  Ironically, it was access to Dorothy's side of the story which was actually a more difficult and constant negotiation, which I think speaks to the stakes and what they have to lose.

The lead defense attorney, Americo Leal, is an amazing nonfiction  character.  He really could have a film all to himself.  What were your impressions onmeeting him, particularly in that he's at least nominally the villain in the last act of the film.

If you wrote Americo Leal as a fiction character he would be unbelievable.  The first day I met him I asked if we could him film him at work doing rudimentary office things, and he said, "No.  Today, I'm going to the forest to ride my Harley Davidson.  Do you want to film me doing that?"  It was at that moment I knew we had a great character and in fact a film!  I would like to react to some of the words that reviewers have used for Americo, including "villain" and "evil."  I think it's important to point out Americo is a lawyer (and a very good one) and ultimately an actor.  Furthermore, as Sister Becky points out, half of the outrageous things he says are true.  If people walk away from our film with only the portrait of a sweet nun and some evil men then I've done this story a great disservice.  Because ultimately it has to be about the systemic failures which are leading to the destruction of the forest and loss of human life in the Amazon.

Henry Waxman, Steroid Crusader, in BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER*

The other day in our headlines section, we noted that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was back on the steroid hunt and referenced his appearance in Chris Bell's BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER*, where he comes off as not exactly well-informed on the issue of steroids (or cigarettes or alcohol for that matter).

Well, apparently said scene is online in all its glory.  Enjoy.

2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED's Marina Zenovich

#7 in a series...

Marina Zenovich took Sundance by storm one year ago with her fresh and cogent investigation of the decades-old Roman Polanski underage sex case.  HBO picked up the film very early in the festival (for a rumored seven figures), the Weinstein Company picked up international rights for a reported $600,000 and THINKFilm later signed on to do a theatrical release after the film had aired once on the pay cable channel.  It was something THINK had only done once before - with Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern's THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT - to little success.  This time, the release of ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED would come in the midst of THINKFilm's unraveling.  Some argued that HBO did the film no favors by disallowing traditional theatrical engagements in favor of an out-of-the-way Oscar qualifying run, particularly for such a well-received film.  Months later, the film was perhaps the most surprising exclusion from the Academy's Documentary Feature shortlist.

But by the end of the year, the film was still making headlines, as Polanski sought to use new evidence uncovered in the film to get his case thrown out.  Just yesterday, after this conversation was completed, Polanski's lawyers filed a new motion to move the entire case out of the Los Angeles Superior Court System and over to the California Judicial Council for review.  Polanski and his legal team allege judicial bias and misconduct.

And the debate spurred by the film is likely to continue - the film's DVD is due later this month, with two hours of extra bonus features.

Here, Marina talks about her magical Sundance experience, having a ringside seat for the THINKFilm implosion, why HBO was the right choice and what it took to get her reluctant interview subjects to talk about the case on camera for the first time.

ATWT:  I've been asking a lot of folks from last year's Sundance class what they were feeling at this time last year, so let me ask you the same question.  A little less than two weeks out from Sundance, what were you feeling and what was happening with your film?  Were you finished?

Marina Zenovich:  I remember last year quite fondly.  Lots of late night Chipotle dinners while color correcting, locking picture and sound mixing in New York and Los Angeles.  It was pretty nuts. 

The day before leaving for Sundance I showed the film to Polanski's agent who had asked to see it.  It was a perfect dress rehearsal for what was to come.

I'm curious about your sales strategy.  There's been a lot of talk recently about whether filmmakers should screen their film for select buyers prior to a festival or whether they should wait to show the film until their world premiere.  What did you do and did you have that discussion?

We had the discussion and decided not to do it.  Once we got to Park City it was amazing to see the whole sales team kick into high gear.  You hear and read about it for years but to actually be in on it was pretty enlightening and intoxicating, actually.

The best advice I got was from my friend Arianna who said, "Just try to manage your expectations."  Having made a film about the struggles of indie filmmakers at Sundance and Slamdance in 1996 and 1997 (INDEPENDENT'S DAY) I knew all the stories -- good and bad -- but I had never experienced it myself. 

Neil Labute sums it up best in my film -- "You get into Sundance but are you in the competition?  You're in the competition but did you win anything?  You won something but did you get distribution?  You get distribution but did you make any money?" The goal posts keep moving.  It's endless.  Thankfully you forget about all that when you remember the audience gasping at a great moment in your film.  That's what its all for.

Ann Savage, Guy Maddin's "Mother" in MY WINNIPEG, Dies

(Via MCN.)  Ann Savage, the B-movie star of the 1940s and '50s, who most recently appeared as Guy Maddin's mother in his "docu-fantasia" MY WINNIPEG, died on Christmas Day in a Los Angeles nursing home.

Savage's best known role was as the femme fatale in the noir classic DETOUR (1945).  In his essay about the film in his "Great Movies" series, Roger Ebert wrote of her performance:

"Ann Savage's work is extraordinary: There is not a single fleeting shred of tenderness or humanity in her performance as Vera, as she snaps out her pulp dialogue (``What'd you do--kiss him with a wrench?'')."

 

In a piece this summer for the UK's The Guardian, Maddin praised Savage.  The whole thing is lovely, but here's an excerpt:

"The most unknown aspect of Ann is that she has a fine ear for music. She cried for three days when Ray Charles died. I believe her ear for music extends to the music of poetry, and good film dialogue. Ann does not intellectualise these things, but she feels them - it's this music that galvanises her performance. But she speaks off camera with the same crackling music, that same staccato patter, that scores her best movies. In fact, she showed up in Winnipeg spitting rivets, styling hard and fast conversations out of another, more lyrical era. "That doesn't cut any ice with me!" was her favourite way of telling me to think of a better solution to an on-set problem.

Savage comes from a time when faces, especially faces in luminous, silvery close-up, counted most. And she still has a wealth of this dazzling currency. As in her prewar screen tests at MGM, her face today, 70 years later, seizes the camera, arrests it, and loads even the newest, cheap film stock with quantities of silver not used in Hollywood since the 1940s. The power of her visage is still shocking, at age 87. It imperiously demands a third dimension as it spectrally wafts - no, looms threateningly - out toward her beholders."

Savage even had her own MySpace page, where she described Maddin as one of her heroes:

"(H)e's like Mike Todd, Jean (Cocteau) and Jacques Tati all rolled into one!"