All these wonderful things

Charles Ferguson Wins the DGA Documentary Award for INSIDE JOB

Saturday night in Los Angeles, Charles Ferguson picked up the DGA Award for INSIDE JOB, winning top honors from a field that included Davis Guggenheim (WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN'), Alex Gibney (CLIENT 9), Lixin Fan (LAST TRAIN HOME) and Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger (RESTREPO).

The presentation of the award picked up some unexpected humor/irony as presenter Helen Mirren lamented the poor financial state of documentary filmmakers just before presenting the award to Ferguson, who a decade ago sold his software company to Microsoft for more than $100 million dollars.

The DGA win is an important one for the Oscar-nominated INSIDE JOB, which was regarded as this year's Oscar favorite after its debut last May at Cannes, but which, in terms of major awards, had only scored a New York Film Critics Circle prize prior to Saturday, where it narrowly topped the surging EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (also Oscar-nommed).  EXIT director Banksy was not nominated for the DGA award.

Other than the NYFCC, the few times that INSIDE JOB has gone head-to-head with EXIT, neither film came out the victor.  Both were nominated for Audience Choice and Production at the Cinema Eye Honors (JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK and LAST TRAIN HOME took those awards, respectively, although EXIT did win two awards including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature) and for the Broadcast Film Critics Award (where WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' won).  JOB was nomned for the Gotham Award, but lost out to THE OATH.

Sundance 2011: HELL AND BACK AGAIN and HOW TO DIE IN OREGON Win Grand Jury Prizes

Danfung Dennis' HELL AND BACK AGAIN, a buzzed about Afghan War doc from the UK, was the big winner tonight at the Sundance Film Festival, picking up two awards in the World Documentary competition - the Cinematography Prize and the Grand Jury Prize.  The US Documentary Competition winner was the HBO documentary HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, which was directed by Peter D. Richardson.

Update: Stephen Saito reminds that HOW TO DIE IN OREGON qualified last year for the Documentary Feature Oscar, so it will not figure into next year's race.

Directing prizes went to Jon Foy for RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES (US) and Oscar winner James Marsh (World) for his latest film, PROJECT NIM (which was picked up just prior to the fest by HBO and cemented a theatrical release via Roadside Attractions just days ago). 

Special Jury prizes went to the IDFA Champ, POSITION AMONG THE STARS, by Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich (World) and the crowd pleasing BEING ELMO, directed by Constance Marks.

SENNA (World) and BUCK (US) grabbed the Audience Awards.  A full list of winners after the jump.

Unraveling the Myths Behind SUPERMAN's Oscar "Snub"

Lots of folks were working overtime this morning, trying to reason out why Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' didn't get the Oscar nomination that so many (including us in our final predictions) forecasted. 

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood website blames it the politics - arguing Guggenheim is learning "the price a political apostate pays in Hollywood for straying off  the liberal plantation".  Says John Nolte

"But how could America’s teachers unions not have been thrilled with the news that Guggenheim's damning indictment of the devastation they have brought down upon America’s public school system and millions upon millions of children was snubbed by the Academy this morning?"

The conservative National Review agrees that the omission was "extremely disappointing" (it also opines for the lack of THE LOTTERY as well), but stops short of calling it a liberal blacklisting.

The Washington Post (writing from a hometown in which some of 'SUPERMAN' takes place) said it was because the film "was not good/accurate enough to be selected" and levels a number of truthfulness claims at the film.  The AP's Jake Coyle also speculates along that line, saying it went missing "perhaps because some experts deemed it an inaccurate exaggeration of charter schools".

Dave Karger at Entertainment Weekly says it's because the Doc Branch is so "quirky".

And finally, in a conversation with the Washington City Paper's Benjamin Freed, Oscar blogger Scott Feinberg goes to the old saw that Doc Branch voters are "older, retired and perhaps less in touch", even though he acknowledges that that hardly explains the nomination for EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (or the creatively made GASLAND).

So there's the theories - liberal bias, accuracy and that quirky, old, retired documentary branch.

Wrong on all three counts.  Here's why WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' didn't get nominated today:

Reactions from Oscar Nominees Tim Hetherington and Banksy

Just got off the phone with Oscar nominee Tim Hetherington, co-director of RESTREPO who confessed to not sleeping much last night.  He relayed that someone recently asked his co-director, Sebastian Junger, whether getting nominated for an Oscar was foremost in his mind when he was shooting in Afghanistan and Junger replied, "Well, actually the foremost thing in my head was not to get killed."

Hetherington said that the big question in the film getting or not getting the nomination was whether the film would continue to have an active life for another couple of months - and he expressed hope that the film might be able to play a part in the discussion over the US' Afghanistan policy.

"We wanted to make a film that didn't divide people along partisan lines.  We knew if we'd made a politcized film, it wouldn't have had the reaction it had.  Sebastian and I care deeply about what's happening in Afghanistan and we wanted to reach as many people as possible.  (It's important to remember that) we are at war.  This film is about something that's happening right now, in the present."

Meanwhile, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Director Banksy, who now can add Academy Award nominee to his CV, just issued a statement through his publicist:

"This is a big surprise. I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me."

In December we did interviews with Banksy and with Hetherington & Junger.  We'll add more nominee reactions to this space as they come in.

And the nominees are...

Well, we went four for five in our predictions (we had a feeling that either INSIDE JOB or WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' would be a surprise omission, but we backed the wrong horse...). Back in November, we were also 4-for-5 (we didn't have RESTREPO or SUPERMAN on the list, but we did have INSIDE JOB). 

Lots of folks were guessing that it would be a year full of the biggest films of the year, but our usual formula of 3 box office successes, one international film and one issue film held true.

Here's who will vie for the final round and the big golden man:

For Best Documentary Feature:

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz

GASLAND
Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic

INSIDE JOB
Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

RESTREPO
Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

WASTE LAND
Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

The Day Before: Predicting This Year's Oscar Doc Feature Nods

Early tomorrow morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil the five feature films that will stand as this year's Documentary Feature representatives on Oscar night.  We've been talking for months about what a great year this has been for documentary - and it was amazing last week to be able to celebrate that year at Cinema Eye - but for many folks, it's this list of five that will forever stand for the year in documentary 2010.

But who makes the list?

One thing that many Oscar watchers miss about this part of the Documentary Feature voting is that the process allows branch members to show their support, as well as their dislike, of each of the 15 films on the shortlist.  Voters have ranked all 15 films on a scale of 6-10, with 6 being the lowest.  If there's more than a couple voters (and it may not even take that many) who give that low score of "6" to a film, it's enough to remove it from contention.

And because the vote is cast in secret without a jury or committee process to allow for cajoling and persuasion, in theory at least, voters can feel safe scoring down a film without needing to justify it to the group.

But there's no telling whether the voters - nearly all of them documentary filmmakers themselves - will actually hand out those low grades.

That's what makes this year - with some films that provoke very strong reactions - particularly difficult to call. 

Since Oscar's final five has never been - in its history - culled from the top five money makers, it's highly unlikely that you will see a list of five drawn exclusively from the top hits: WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN', INSIDE JOB, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, RESTREPO and THE TILLMAN STORY. 

Here on the blog, we look at history and note that it's likely that three of these top films will make the list - and we'd frankly be lying to you if we said with any assurity which three films it will be.

Thoughts on This Year's Cinema Eye Honors

Well, that was fun. 

We wrapped the fourth annual Cinema Eye Honors 6 days ago at the newly re-opened Museum of the Moving Image (where we were still inaugurating some of their equipment and where not everything, including the thermostats, were fully operational) and now things are slowly but surely getting back into regular gear, at least around these parts.

I'm beginning to think that I should just hang a sign on the blog come the top of January that reads "Gone Fishin'" or something...

For the rest of the doc world, Cinema Eye was but one event (or series of events), a stop en route to Sundance or to tomorrow's Oscar nominations or to whatever the next festival or party or envelope opening comes to call.

But for those of us who've been working behind the scenes on this year's ceremony, this year was something really quite special.

While I always love the event/ceremony, and it's great to see so many friends, colleagues and people I admire, this year was particularly important to us as it marked the first time that we produced the event entirely by ourselves.  We obviously had a lot of help - people who gave of their time and talents, sponsors who contributed cash and bottles of gin and spaces in which we could hand out very heavy, seemingly-dangerous trophies.

But this year was a truly hand-made event and it resonated personally because I knew how much work we all had put into it.

I so fortunate to have a great team, particularly my partners Nathan Truesdell and Esther Robinson.  The three of us have been meeting and talking and conspiring over ways to pull off Cinema Eye 2011 pretty much since the day after Cinema Eye 2010.  And I'd be lying if I said that we weren't already talking about Cinema Eye 2012.

For us, Cinema Eye is about celebrating collaborations and recognizing the work of the entire team that makes these movies that we love.  So, it's kind of essential that the three of us know how to riff off of each other, to know when to push and pull, and to trust in the others' core belief about the thing that we are doing (which, in our minds at least, is more than about handing out trophies).  Because Esther and I get to stand on the stage and crack-wise, it's important to emphasize that this is truly a 3-headed monster and that Nate's contributions to Cinema Eye throughout the year have been intrinsic to its success.

Beyond my two co-conspirators, we have a great crew of extended family, led by our nominations chair Sean Farnel and our advisory board chair Andrea Meditch.  The two of them, as well as our numerous advisors (special shout outs to Matt Dentler, Thom Powers, Rachel Rosen, Debra Zimmerman and Ryan Harrington), keep steering us down the right path.

This year, we had special assists from Brian Geldin, Lainey Hughes, Jennifer Razor, Ingrid Kopp, Natalie Difford, Maxyne Franklin, Robert Greene, James Benson, Bernardo Britto and Michael Forstein.  We had our amazing design team - our art director Ryan Nelson and our lead illustrator Ben Chlapek who created all the amazing graphics for this years films.  Plus we had the onstage talents of The Quavers (T. Griffin, Catherine McRae and Dennis Cronin) who kicked off the show with an excerpt from Sam Green and Dave Cerf's UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS, narrated by Mr. Green himself.

Finally, I can't forget our sponsors, without whom there would have been no Cinema Eye this year - particularly our partners at the Museum of the Moving Image (David Schwartz and Rachael Rakes) who dealt with us even as they were still opening their doors, but also everyone at the Documentary Channel, the Economist, HBO Documentary Films, A&E IndieFilms, SnagFilms, POV, Abel Cine Tech, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hot Docs, Camden International Film Festival, Hudson Hotel, Danish Film Institute, Maine Distilleries and the Film Sales Company.

You'll get to see the fruits of this labor - in slightly abbreviated form - when the ceremony airs on the Documentary Channel (available on DirectTV, Dish and some cable systems) this Sunday night at 8 PM eastern and pacific.

I don't think it matters if the winners are known; the on-camera reactions and the speeches - particularly the one you may have read about from Banksy - are more fun to watch than just reading the recaps, as good as many of them were.

But if you're interested in other's thoughts/recaps about this year's event, you can find them from Brian Brooks at indieWIRE, Matt Singer at IFC, Steve Pond at The Wrap, Scott Macauley at Filmmaker Magazine, Jennifer Merin at about.com and Melena Ryzik at The New York Times' The Carpetbagger blog.

One last, personal, note:  As I said before we announced the final award of the evening, I want to congratulate all of this year's nominees.  We talk a lot about what an extraordinary year it was, but I don't talk as often - here on the blog, at least - about how inspiring, how personally rejuvinating, the artistic achievements of this year have been.  So while Cinema Eye is centered around this idea of voting and winning and being nominated, I want to send my personal thanks to the filmmakers of 2010 and thank them for the numerous ways in which they call on me to be a better filmmaker.

DGA Nominates Fan, Ferguson, Gibney, Guggenheim, Hetherington & Junger for Doc Award

The Directors Guild has announced its nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for 2010 and indieWIRE has the list.

In short - many of the big names left standing on Oscar's Documentary Shortlist are noted by the DGA: Charles Ferguson for INSIDE JOB, Alex Gibney for CLIENT 9, Davis Guggenheim for WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' and Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for RESTREPO.  The fifth nominee is Lixin Fan, whose LAST TRAIN HOME leads all nominees for next Tuesday's Cinema Eye Honors.

The DGA rarely syncs up with the Oscars - last year's win by THE COVE's Louie Psihoyos at both is the exception that proves the rule - and usually includes at least one wild card nominee that seemingly comes out-of-the-blue.  Not this time, however, as the DGA went more mainstream in their choices than is their tradition.

The DGA Awards take place Saturday, January 29 in Los Angeles.

 

Jeff Malmberg on His Artistic Process & Inspirations for MARWENCOL and Bypassing the Oscars

Note: This is the fifth in a series of interviews with the makers of some of my favorite documentaries of 2010.

It's almost becoming traditional that there is a documentary each year that is the SXSW breakthrough, a portrait film that comes from nowhere to take the Grand Jury Prize in Austin and then comes to define the new wave of intimate, personal documentary filmmaking.  First Jennifer Venditti's BILLY THE KID, then Bill and Turner Ross' 45365, and now Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL, the latter a humanistic portrait of a man who, following a massive brain injury, finds himself creating new worlds out of G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls and World War II fantasia.

Malmberg, an editor by trade, came to his debut film the way many novice filmmakers do - a few weekends at a time, shooting a bit and then going back to make enough money to return to shoot some more.  Whatever the process, his final product - an intimate and layered portrait of his subject, Mark Hogancamp - would remind of the films and filmmakers that inspired many of us to make nonfiction (from the Maysles to Errol Morris).

We emailed with Jeff about his process, his relationship with Hogancamp and his decision to bypass the Academy Awards.

All these wonderful things:  One of the things I love about focusing on documentary each year are the discoveries, the folks who just a year ago were still hard at work tying up the edit on their first film - and then, it seems instantaneous, they are an ingrained part of the community.  This is to say that this past year must have felt like a whirlwind to you.

It seems like a natural thing that these discoveries are coming out of SXSW.  What do you think it is about that festival, and about Janet, that a.) finds these films and b.) gives them such a good launch?

Jeff Malmberg: I think Janet is really adventurous in her film taste and really brave in what she programs. It’s easy in retrospect to say that MARWENCOL was a good fit for SXSW, but at the time, it was just this strange little movie that no one had stood up for yet. No one knew how it was going to be received, but she brought the audience to it and shined a light on it. I’ll never forget what she said to the audience when it first premiered – “this is why I do what I do.” She walks the walk, man. Same thing with 45365 the year before – this beautiful film that’s not quite like anything else. Plus Janet’s taste seems like the perfect match for that audience which is really hungry for something fresh and new – and doc seems to be flowering that way these days. My wife [MARWENCOL producer Chris Shellen] is doing a panel at SXSW this year so I get to tag along and watch a bunch of films at the Alamo – I kind of can’t wait to experience that festival as an audience member this time around. When I was in it with a film, I didn’t have enough time or headspace to see all the films I should have.

ATWT: I asked you this question when I dragged you up onstage for the A to Z Chat Show in Sheffield, but can you talk some about your festival experiences this year.  What was your best experience?

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady on Making 12TH AND DELAWARE, How They Divide the Work & Collaborating with HBO

Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with the makers of some of my favorite nonfiction films of 2010...

One of my favorite surprises in a year of great filmmaking came when I sat down at Hot Docs in May to watch Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's 12TH AND DELAWARE.  A film positioned literally in the middle of the abortion debate could have easily been bombastic or one-sided in favor of a pro-choice position.  Instead their film is a subtle, stunningly crafted work that watches as characters on both sides of the divide deal with the women who come to them with unwanted pregnancies. 

As I wrote about the film for Sheffield Doc/Fest:

 

"There is a moment in Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s new film where their protagonist – a staunchly pro-life woman who counsels pregnant women in hopes that they will decide to keep their babies – drops her cover.  In most of the conversations that Ewing and Grady capture, the woman proves masterful at masking her true intent – she seems almost motherly in offering the possibility that there are options other than abortion.  Their subject knows that if she reveals her true feelings, she risks alienating the very women she hopes to convince.  Her effort is all about the soft sell.

But one particular case proves stubborn.  And in trying to sway her, Ewing and Grady’s subject slips.  She pushes too hard, too dogmatically.  And in that moment, she loses her case – and, she fears, an innocent fetus will be sacrificed for her failure.

This moment proves that the power of nonfiction film remains as potent and as vital in 2010 as it has ever been. "

I emailed with Ewing and Grady about their characters, about the process of making 12TH AND DELAWARE - particularly their partnership with HBO Documentary Films, and how they divide up labor when they work together.

All these wonderful things: One of the things that I love about your films is that you tackle a subject that we think we know, one that might be easy to stereotype, and you give us a much deeper picture of that topic than one may expect going in.  I'll admit to wondering what you could bring to the abortion topic before I saw the film, but the truth is that you brought levels of shading that I've never seen before.  What was your process going into the film?

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady: We never set out really to make a film “about abortion,” as we didn’t think we had anything new to add to the discussion, which has become deafeningly loud by both extremes that hijacked the debate long ago. But thanks to the JESUS CAMP kids we had become aware of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, these low profile, anti-abortion centers that have quietly proliferated all over the United States. We had entered one during the making of that film and were confused as to what was happening here. There were ultrasound machines and ”medical” pamphlets but there was something else going on here.  But what? We are so glad we go the opportunity to go back to this subject and get to the bottom of it.