Good afternoon and apologies for a slightly late (and abbreviated) Monday brief - a combo of internet failures and trying to stay on top of the Top 25 Film Festival list (as well as my real job(s)).
As the midday sun hits Los Angeles, the orgy of film critics prizes is in full effect and it's pretty clear that the early favorite for crix nods will be Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE. Just this weekend, it picked up prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics (which split the award between COVE and Agnes Varda's THE BEACHES OF AGNES), the Boston Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online and even the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (which also gave two awards to Varda - the Lifetime Achievement and Perseverance Award). 11 days ago, THE COVE picked up the Best Documentary laurel from the National Board of Review.
Only today did some critics groups start to break away from THE COVE, as the New York Film Critics gave their doc prize to OF TIME AND THE CITY and the Southeast Film Critics awarded FOOD, INC. (which previously picked up the DC Film Critics award), with THE COVE as runner-up.
This is setting up and interesting dynamic heading forward, with THE COVE seemingly the critics choice and FOOD, INC. sweeping the major pre-Oscar documentary awards (winning at the Gothams, nominated for the IDA, the Spirits and Cinema Eye), where THE COVE was mostly shut out (it leads Cinema Eye nominations with 7 but was bypassed by the other awards).
Also today, the Broadcast Film Critics named their 5 nominees. In addition to front-running COVE and FOOD, they nommed ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT.
And at the European Film Academy's Awards on Saturday, Peter Liechti's THE SOUND OF INSECTS: RECORD OF A MUMMY received the Documentary Prix Arte. The film is up for Cinema Eye's new Spotlight Award.
As we come to the end of the year and Oscar narrative hopefuls are plenty, there's not much room left in art house theatres for docs, so we're seeing quite a few of them start to top out on their box office haul. Lionsgate's LeBron James documentary MORE THAN A GAME, an Indie Spirit Award nominee, now becomes (on BoxOfficeMojo's chart at least) the film to become closest to $1M without going over (on Price is Right, they'd win a car). That film's $951K take puts it $60K and change past the final figures for James Toback's TYSON.
In the end, the race for the 2010 nonfiction crown won't even close as MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT, which ended its run with just over $72M. That's 5 million shy of MARCH OF THE PENGUINS for #2 on the all-time list. Disneynature's EARTH comes in 2nd at slightly more than $32M, followed by THE JONAS BROTHERS: THE 3D CONCERT EXPERIENCE ($19M), CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY ($14.4M) and FOOD, INC. ($4.4M).
Some interesting distribution news last week when longtime sales rep Annie Roney announced that her Roco Films shingle was teaming with Oprah Winfrey's forthcoming OWN to spotlight documentaries similar to how Oprah had profiled documentaries. RealScreen's Barry Walsh reports:
"The companies say the intent is to provide a multi-platform experience that will include a primetime monthly documentary film series airing on the channel, an "online community experience" and exclusive footage on OWN.tv, as well as the chance for some documentaries to be presented as a nationwide theatrical screening event.
OWN and ro*co say the screening events will aim to provide audiences with a "festival experience" whereby interested communities can screen the films together and participate in live, moderated panel discussions. Also, OWN is planning on spotlighting cinematic docs that can "inspire and entertain" within its programming, which is big news for documentarians and for those looking to get a glimpse at OWN's programming plans. The channel is now scheduled for a January 2011 launch."
Also making news was the acquisition of Barbara Schroeder's TALHOTBLOND by the new studio division, Paramount Digital Entertainment. From Screen Daily:
"The deal is the first of its kind for the division, which will make the film available through download-to-own digital distributors including iTunes and Amazon following the broadcast premiere on MSNBC on December 13."
TALHOTBLOND was a finalist for the First Appearance prize at this year's IDFA (it went to COLONY).
Finally, Basil Tsiokos points us to a bunch of news and deadlines related to various documentary grant programs: ITVS Senior Manager Richard Saiz guides applicants through the Open Call process, SF's Film Arts Foundation announces a $25K post-production grant and the European Documentary Network foreshadows upcoming grant deadlines.
Coming this week here on the blog: more documentary festival madness, part two of our conversation with Sundance's David Courier and Caroline Libresco and a bunch of Cinema Eye news.
I loves me some Cove too!
Posted by: JW | December 14, 2009 at 07:49 PM
shucks, it aint really fair is it that there's two classes now: the sharks (Disney Nature, Disney concert movies & Michael Moore) and then everybody else which is where the personal, groundbreaking films like ANVIL, BEACHES OF AGNES, ORDER OF MYTHS are.
Posted by: sami | December 14, 2009 at 07:52 PM