Two films that debuted in competition at this year's Sundance Film Festival took the top prizes at last weekend's Full Frame Film Festival in Durham, NC. James Longley's "Iraq in Fragments" won the Grand Jury Award (it previously swept the craft awards at Sundance, winning prizes for directing, cinematography and editing), while Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's The Trials of Darryl Hunt picked up the Audience Award.
I'm sure the award for The Trials of Darryl Hunt must have been particularly gratifying as the events portrayed in the film - a two-decades long miscarriage of justive - all occured just down the tobacco road from Durham in Winston-Salem. As I wrote after seeing the film at Sundance, the film is both inspiring and infuriating and the filmmaking craft by Stern and Sundberg is particularly noteworthy.
At just 8 years old, Full Frame is one of the nation's foremost documentary film festivals and is particularly enjoyed by many east coast filmmakers. As Eugene Hernandez writes in his recap of this year's fest:
(A) number of doc directors made the trip to North
Carolina just to hang out, see some movies, and
support fellow filmmakers. A festival that embraces
both emerging and established directors, this year
the event welcomed a legendary list of filmmakers,
including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard
Leacock, and Albert Maysles.
In addition, documentary filmmaker Doug Block was in Durham with his film 51 Birch Street and lavishes the fest with high praise on his excellent blog:
Try to imagine standing before a wildly cheering
audience after the showing of your very personal
film at the country's most prestigious documentary
film festival. You look off to the right and there's D.A.
Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Right up front in the
first row sits Ross McElwee (whose Sherman's March
inspired you to make personal documentaries in the
first place). To your left sits the Al Maysles (with
those unmistakeable glasses). And there hovering
in the back is Ricky Leacock.
Only in your dreams, right?
Maybe that's why the 51 Birch Street screening at Full
Frame seemed like the stuff of fantasy. But it really
happened, and two days later I'm still basking in the
afterglow.
Full Frame is an interesting festival and clearly Doug and a lot of other folks feel the full-on love. But I've also talked to a bunch of documentary filmmakers who have really mixed feelings about it. Many feel that the festival is jawlocked into a more serious, issues-based, social justice-style of programming. One reason for this may be that the festival is programmed by a selection committee that is chaired by David Paletz, a professor of political science at Duke, which is kind of remarkable for such a major festival. For my part, I prefer a more curatorial approach - where the vision of one or two or three programmers comes through in their choices. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I'm such a fan of both True/False and Silverdocs.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years as all these festivals grow with the popularity of documentary films (and new festivals sprout up). Will there be a schism between those that favor the serious with those that welcome all comers? And will Full Frame, with it's growing connection to Duke, continue with its programming by non-filmmaker selection committee?
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