All these wonderful things

Halfway Thru 2010, THE OATH Leads in Honors, OCEANS Leads in Cash

We're more than six months into 2010, a year that is proving remarkably rich for documentary film, with a strong list of titles vying for festival (and future critics') laurels and for box office success.  We unveiled our 2010 Nonfiction Honor Roll in May (it's now updated to include more recent festivals like Silverdocs, LAFF and Edinburgh) and today we kick off the 2010 Nonfiction Feature Box Office.  [The latter is called a Top 20, but since it's still early as far as the theatrical year goes, we've currently just got the top 10.]

Laura Poitras' THE OATH still commands the Honor Roll, with 7 awards from top festivals, including a Best Documentary win at Edinburgh.  Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL is a close 2nd with 6 prizes, including the Cinematic Vision Award at AFI Silverdocs and the Documentary Grand Jury prize at Seattle.  Other films with awards from multiple festivals include BUDRUS, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, A FILM UNFINISHED. FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, GASLAND, LAST TRAIN HOME, MY PERESTROIKA, PRESUMED GUILTY, RESTREPO, STEAM OF LIFE, THUNDER SOUL, WAR DON DON and Lucy Walker's Audience Award favorite WASTE LAND.

In theatres, Disneynature's release of OCEANS still leads the year, with nearly $20M in box office, followed by BABIES with nearly $7.5M, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (about to cross the $3M threshold) and JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, currently at $2.3M.  Both RESTREPO and Oliver Stone's SOUTH OF THE BORDER have shown solid numbers in thus far limited release.  Frederick Wiseman's LA DANSE was a surprise box office hit released in late 2009.

The Monday Brief: A Strong Start for RESTREPO, A Good Move for LAFF and 8 For Oscar

For all intents and purposes, the documentary year - though just half over - has reached a wrap point.  The films of the first half of the year have come to the end (or nearly have) of their festival runs.  Nearly every major American documentary festival showcase has come and gone.

Time now to take our only major break in the year - the two-plus months between the festivals of June and the unveiling of fall titles in Toronto, which then kicks off a busy theatrical season, the lead up to the European fests of late October and November and awards season.

Speaking of, here's a piece of Oscar trivia you might be interested in:

In the past five years, only one film - last year's THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS - wasn't screened by this point in the year and went on to be nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar.

So, chances are, we've already seen this year's five nominees. 

And while your scanning this year's titles in your head (THE OATH, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, LAST TRAIN HOME, A FILM UNFINISHED, GASLAND, INSIDE JOB, THE TILLMAN STORY are just a few that figure to play in the mix) you might wonder which of this year's most popular titles (OCEANS, BABIES, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK) might be able to crack through the Academy's "serious ceiling".

And you might look at this week's box office returns to see how one film, which may be one of a few frontrunners at this point, happened to do with audiences...

That film is Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's RESTREPO and the answer is, quite well actually.  Buoyed perhaps by Junger's literary star-power (if not its Sundance Grand Jury prize, which has been hit and miss in terms of theatrical payoff for docs recently), RESTREPO opened this weekend to more than $15K on each of its two screens, battling back the notion that folks aren't clamoring for nonfiction (or fiction for that matter) pieces about current US wars.  The film - currently only in NYC and LA - heads to SF, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia in time for the Independence Day weekend.

Sticking with box office for a moment, two of the aforementioned successes - Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg's JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK - continued to do well at the North American box office, according to estimates at Box Office Mojo.  EXIT picked up nearly another $75K in its 11th weekend, taking its cume to $2.65M.  And JOAN scored another $365K in its 4th weekend, for a total-to-date of $716K.  That film is now in 86 theaters and may hit the $1M mark after this coming holiday weekend.

But perhaps the biggest heat around a documentary film this past week centered on the television debut of one of the year's best and most important films, Josh Fox' GASLAND.  We have a full post up today about the natural gas industry's attempts to smear Fox and his film.

LAFF and Silverdocs have both wrapped (we had the winners yesterday) for 2010.  LAFF has since announced their Audience Awards, with prizes going to both Mark Landsman's THUNDER SOUL (Documentary Audience Award) and Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith's PRESUMED GUILTY (International Audience Award).  We're also pleased to note that OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" music video (which we had a hand in) picked up the LAFF Audience Award for Music Videos.

WO AI NI MOMMY and THE WOMAN WITH 5 ELEPHANTS Top Silverdocs; LAFF Jury Picks MAKE BELIEVE

Two of the year's top festivals for documentary film announced their award winners yesterday - nearly simultaneously on opposite sides of the US - with Silverdocs juries selecting Stephanie Wang-Breal's cross-cultural adoption film, WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY), and Vadim Jendreyko's THE WOMAN WITH FIVE ELEPHANTS, a film about the translating of five great works by Dostoyefsky into German, for their US and World Competition Prizes, respectively, while a jury in Los Angeles chose J. Clay Tweel's MAKE BELIEVE, a competition film about young magicians, for its top prize and $50,000 grant.

LAFF will announce its Audience Award winner today, Silverdocs will reveal its on Monday.

The juries at Silverdocs handed out a awards in six categories on Saturday.  Noticeably missing was Silverdocs' Music Documentary prize, which was apparently cut from this year's festival.  Also cut was the amount of prize money for the winners - $5,000 instead of last year's $10,000.

Jeff Malmberg's festival favorite, MARWENCOL picked up the festival's fourth Cinematic Vision Award, while the Writers Guild Documentary Screenplay award went to Yael Hersonski's Hot Docs champ A FILM UNFINISHED.

Silverdocs' line-up of short films looked particularly impressive, and from that list, the shorts jury chose Andy Taylor Smith's THIS CHAIR IS NOT ME.

Full list of prize winners, including special jury prize winners, after the jump.

The Monday Brief: JOAN RIVERS Opens Big, A Legal Break for Berlinger, Sheffield Moves to June and the P.O.V. Power List

First off, apologies for the break in posting.  Between traveling to New York, working on various projects and the start of the Los Angeles Film Festival, I've found myself starting several posts (including the last two Monday Briefs) only to watch them go unfinished.

Truth is, this summer might be somewhat light in our coverage around these parts, although we're gonna endeavor to stay on track this month to cover two of the year's most important festivals for documentary - LAFF, which launched seemingly successfully in its new downtown digs last Thursday, and Silverdocs, which kicks off tomorrow...

In the interim, there's been a lot of news in the documentary world - shifting dates for a top festival, a legal victory for a noted filmmaker and a list that does what lists tend to do: get people talking.

But the past two weekends, the biggest headlines in the doc world were made by a film that premiered at Sundance...

Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's docu-portrait, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, was the big winner at the specialty box office the past two weekends.  Opening a week ago at 7 theaters (but as indieWIRE noted - on three separate screens at NYC's IFC Center), the film took in an estimated $24,368 - the biggest per theater debut for a doc this year.  In its first weekend, the film took in more than $170K, more than the combined total take of Stern and Sundberg's previous two (critically acclaimed and super serious) docs, THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT and THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK.

In its second weekend, the film cooled off only slightly as it expanded to 29 screens, managing a still strong average of just under $8K per screen, bringing its grand total thus far to more than $475K.  According to Peter Knegt's iW piece, IFC Films plans an aggressive rollout for the film, expanding to the top fifty markets by the 4th of July.  It could be the doc of the summer (at the box office at least), and seems likely to become the 4th $1M doc of 2010 (following BABIES, OCEANS and EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP).

Also fairing quite well last weekend was Madeleine Sackler's charter schools documentary THE LOTTERY.  Variance Films released the doc on a single NYC screen to a potent $17K+.  THE LOTTERY screened at this year's Tribeca Film Festival and a handful of top regional fests (Sarasota, IFFBoston, Cleveland among them) before its quick and successful theatrical launch.

This weekend saw the release of another Sundance doc, 8: THE MORMON PROPOSITION, the first out of the box for Red Flag Releasing.  Released on 16 screens, the film took in an average of more than $3K.

Segueing out of the theatrical box office, news continued to break last week in the Joe Berlinger/Chevron/CRUDE footage case.  And this time the news was good (at least for anyone who cares about documentary)...

A federal appeals court granted Berlinger a temporary stay in the case and will soon rule on his appeal of the lower court judge's decision that he must turn over his raw footage to Chevron.  This means Berlinger won't have to turn over the footage immediately, which would have been the case if the appeals court had denied his petition for a stay.

Berlinger's lawyer, Maura Wogan, told the NY Times that if the court hadn't granted the stay, "(Berlinger) would have been forced to turn over this material before the appeal was heard – he would have, in effect, lost his right to an appeal."

Berlinger will join filmmaker Morgan Spurlock for a special Stranger Than Fiction this Tuesday at NYC's IFC Center.  The event will be a benefit for Berlinger's legal defense fund.

But perhaps the biggest news of the past week was announced with relatively little fanfare.  Confirming rumors that have been circulating for months (we even included them in our festival profile last December), Sheffield Doc/Fest announced that their 2011 edition will be held in early June.  That means two Doc/Fests in Sheffield separated by little more than seven months (they will still hold this year's event the first week of November).

The (Post-Holiday) Brief: Silverdocs and LAFF Previews, 86 Films Eligible for Cinema Eye and CONVENTION in NYC

Hard to believe but it's June 1...

The beginning of June is also the end of something, the end of the first half of our documentary year - one that begins with the announcement of the Sundance line-up and the annual gathering of the doc world in Amsterdam.

Six months ago we were just hearing about LAST TRAIN HOME, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, THE OATH, RESTREPO, GASLAND, 12th AND DELAWARE, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and the rest.  Now, with last week's announcement of the Silverdocs line-up, that six month stretch starts to wrap itself up.

Not that we won't hear about the above films for the rest of the year (we will, particularly at awards season), but Silverdocs signals the changing of the guard, the last major, domestic festival gasp for many of the creme of 2010's documentary crop and the first glimpse of a few films that will be stalwarts on the fall festival tour.

And the beginning of June reminds us that the unveiling of the Toronto line-up, when the fall season really begins in earnest, is less than two months away.

Summer is here.

Silverdocs will kick off its 8th edition in just over three weeks, leading with opening night omnibus doc FREAKONOMICS and closing with Amir Bar-Lev's THE TILLMAN STORY, both of which should be of strong interest to the DC-adjacent crowd.  Competition titles include several festival favorites, including Doug Block's THE KIDS GROW UP, Alexandra Codina's MONICA AND DAVID (which won Tribeca), Robin Hessman's MY PERESTROIKA, Julia Bacha's BUDRUS, Yael Hersonski's A FILM UNFINISHED (which won Hot Docs, Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith's PRESUMED GUILTY and Christian Frei's SPACE TOURISTS.

Silverdocs will also share a few competition titles with it's cross-country rival LAFF, which gets the jump this year by opening five days earlier than Silverdocs.  Los Angeles is set to premiere Malcolm Murray's CAMERA, CAMERA and Aaron Schock's CIRCO, both of which will then head to Silver Springs.  The two fests will also offer Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, the first time we've seen that film screen since it debuted in Park City earlier this year.  They'll also share FREAKONOMICS, TILLMAN, Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL, Sam Green's UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS, Mads Brügger's THE RED CHAPEL, Alexandre O. Philippe's THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS and others.

If I were headed to Silver Springs this year, I'd certainly want to catch Stephen Kijak's STONES IN EXILE - the 60 minute making-of "Exile on Main Street" doc which made such a splash in Cannes, as well as Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood's ON COAL RIVER, which chronicles a community action against Massey Energy prior to that company's coal mine disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.  Plus, there's a terrific line-up of 40+ shorts, including a few of the best shorts we've seen in years - Sergio Oksman's NOTES ON THE OTHER and Vance Malone's THE POODLE TRAINER.

Silverdocs is also gonna fete Frederick Wiseman (although they don't have his latest, BOXING GYM, which was just at Cannes) and will screen Oliver Stone's SOUTH OF THE BORDER, a profile of South American heads of state, which should make some kind of news, one suspects.

We will be covering the Los Angeles Film Fest, which will host large outdoor screenings of the GEORGE LUCAS doc and Mark Landsman's THUNDER SOUL and one of the first (if not the first) post-Sundance screening of Mark Lewis' 3-D doc, CANE TOADS: THE CONQUEST.  LAFF makes its move from Westwood to downtown Los Angeles (HQing itself at the LA Live complex) and while we weren't big fans of this year's LA Live-based Spirit Awards, we're cautiously optimistic about the relocation of the film festival.

Five months into 2010 and the Cinema Eye Honors team (full disclosure: once again I'll be a co-chair for the 2011 event) has announced the 86 films that are already eligible for next year's awards - and most of the above named film titles (save for the recent premieres) are on the list.  I can't get in the business of predicting which way Cinema Eye is going to go (not only that, I'm a relatively poor soothsayer as far as nominations for that event goes), but I'm very excited about that list of films - as well as by a bunch of stuff going on behind the scenes that we will be announcing later this summer.

The Joe Berlinger/CRUDE/Chevron case continues to unfold, as Berlinger's lawyers make their case for overturning the judge's decision (that he must turn over raw footage to Chevron) to an appeals court.  Chevron, for their part, issued a press release this week that, in part, details their arguments related to the Berlinger case:

"The U.S. federal court proceedings in which Chevron seeks hidden evidence of corruption and misconduct captured by filmmaker Joe Berlinger have also centered on evidence of collusion in connection with the (Ecuadorian court appointee Richard) Cabrera’s damages report. Parts of Berlinger’s film CRUDE show plaintiffs’ lawyers Steven Donziger and Pablo Fajardo working with Carlos Beristain, one of the supposedly neutral experts on Cabrera’s team, at a focus group meeting related to Beristain’s supposedly independent health survey Cabrera relies on Beristain’s survey for his assessment of $9.5 billion in damages for excess cancer claims. While, at the direction of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Berlinger edited the DVD version of Crude to conceal Beristain’s involvement with the lawyers, the unedited scene remains in a recently released internet version of the film. This documentation of collusion supported Chevron’s successful argument to a federal court in New York that other Crude outtakes should be reviewed for further evidence of misconduct. In its recent order, the New York court ruled that the fact that this scene was cut from the final version of the DVD at the direction of plaintiffs’ lawyers is a fact suggestive of an awareness of questionable activity."

Stuff worth reading: 11/4/08 director Jeff Deutchman talks to indieWIRE about the collaborative filmmaking behind his doc (it screens at NYC's Stranger Than Fiction on June 15), which includes contributions from Margaret Brown and Henry Joost.  There are reports that Warner Bros. plans to turn Jody Lambert's festival hit OF ALL THE THINGS into a narrative feature, with Steve Carrell being chased to play Lambert's songwriting dad, Dennis.  indieWIRE has the scoop on the weekend indie box office and doc wise, the story continues to be EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP - now at $2M and still climbing.

Finally, point of personal privilege: CONVENTION, the film I made at the 2008 DNC with fellow filmmakers Steven Bognar, Daniel Junge, Laura Poitras, Julia Reichert, Paul Taylor, Nathan Truesdell and David Wilson (as well as producers Britta Erickson, Shirley Moyers and Jenny Chikes), opens this Friday at the IFC Center and a number of us will be on hand all weekend to toast the theatrical premiere and take your questions.  A couple press pieces to note:  indieWIRE re-runs their article from last summer with Brian Brooks quizzing yours truly on the making of the film.  NY Magazine nicely calls the film "wonderfully counterintuitive...a generous portrait of the true face of modern democracy—if Robert Altman made documentaries, this is what they might look like."  Previously, Variety's Eddie Cockrell said it was "a bipartisan, upbeat celebration of democracy's delicate membrane and can-do spirit".  There's some other raves out there, but we'll spare the piling on (you can also find a negative review or two of the "nothing newsworthy happens" variety, which one might argue is beside the point, but one might also be biased).

Hope you can come out this weekend to the IFC Center - say hello.

The Monday Brief: Metz' ARMADILLO is the Latest Dane Success, EXIT is a DIY Phenom and a First Amendment Fund for Berlinger

Happy Monday one and all as the Cannes Film Festival has come to a close (and a certain television show has stopped eating my Twitter feed - God, please) and we head into the beginning of summer (with the June onslaught of film festivals soon upon us...

In the documentary world, the big news out of Cannes this year centered on two films - the premiere of Charles Ferguson's much lauded INSIDE JOB and the latest film from Danish filmmaker Janus Metz, ARMADILLO, which took the Grand Prix at La Semaine Internationale de la Critique.  ARMADILLO is reported to be the first documentary ever chosen for a competition slot in the Critics Week section.

Metz made a mark stateside in 2009 when his LOVE ON DELIVERY and its companion piece TICKET TO PARADISE played at a number of US festivals.  But ARMADILLO, which was one of the projects at CPH:DOX's 2009 Pitch Forum, should make many more doc film fans aware of Metz.  The film, which follows four young Danish soldiers in Afghanistan (shades of RESTREPO)  is already stirring controversy in Denmark over military tactics and reigniting debate there over the country's involvement in that war.

ARMADILLO's triumph further emphasizes (if one needed proof) that Denmark's documentary community is one of the most creative and vibrant in the world.  In the last few years, the Danes have produced such award winning films as THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG AND THE NUN, GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL, THE RED CHAPEL, THE INVENTION OF DR. NAKAMATS and BURMA VJ.

And while Ferguson's INSIDE JOB didn't play in Cannes' main competition (where FAHRENHEIT 9/11 remains the only nonfiction film to have ever won the Palme d'Or), critic Todd McCarthy (no stranger to documentary) suggests that it should have:

"Given the dearth of strong competing entries as well as the scarcity of American pictures this year, it would have been a great boost both to Cannes and the film to include INSIDE JOB in the competition."

We summed up further Cannes crix reax to Ferguson's latest here.  Sony Pictures Classics is due to release INSIDE JOB here in the fall, where box office for current events docs has not been sensational - Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is the only 2009 current events/political docu to break $1M and even that was considered a disappointment by his standards.  In 2008, only the conservative intelligent design flick EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED surpassed $1M.

But non-issue docs continue to find success, at least in limited portions, and it's hard to imagine a more successful recent release - particularly in terms of word-of-mouth - than EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP.  The art world hype vs. reality film by Banksy continues to shake up the North American box office.  Now in 43 theaters, the film declined just 5% from the previous weekend, for an estimated average of $4,721 per screen - which is a better per screen take than any of the films in the box office top 20.

EXIT, whose DIY distribution was profiled by indieWIRE's Peter Knegt last month, now has an estimated cume of $1.6M and seems certain to get to $2M shortly, perhaps by the end of the Memorial Day weekend.

Meanwhile, the spring's two wider releases continue to take in money, even as they begin to cede their screens to the big summer (and pre-summer) films.  Disneynature's OCEANS now stands at $18.5M and looks to close out near (if not over) the $20M mark, while Focus Features' BABIES took in another $700K this weekend and now stands with more than $5M at the box office.

The weekend's major documentary release, Marshall Curry's Tribeca champ RACING DREAMS, seems to have stalled out on its way to theaters.  Estimates have that film taking in just $652 on its 33 screens, a disappointing number to be certain, particularly for a film that debuted with talk of stratospheric success and Oscar nominations.  We finally took in the film at the Ashland Film Festival last month and it seems certain RACING DREAMS will find an audience on television and DVD.

Switching gears (pardon that pun), news continues to unfold in the Joe Berlinger/CRUDE/Chevron case.  Berlinger's lawyers were granted a temporary stay by Lewis Kaplan, the US District Court judge that ruled Berlinger's raw footage could be subpeona'd by Chevron, while they appeal for his decision to be overturned.  Kaplan made clear, however, that he doubted his ruling would overturned.

Meanwhile, the filmmakers have taken to Kickstarter to attempt to raise $20,000 to support their legal efforts.  As of this writing, the CRUDE First Amendment fund has raised nearly $8K.  Here at the blog, nearly 250 people have signed onto the Open Letter of Support for Berlinger and there is talk bubbling of more high profile efforts in the coming weeks.

And finally: Tom Roston has a list and he's checking it twice.  The former Premiere writer, now contributing to the POV blog, is about to spring a list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Documentary:

"How did I come up with this list? In this case, I defined power by imagining a room full of filmmakers, producers, funders and programmers. If you are a documentary filmmaker, then who would you most want to be in that room advocating for your film? We're talking about the power to get your movie made exactly as you want it — and giving it the best chance to be seen by as many people as possible."

No names just yet, but one wonders if - as tales used to be told about publicists and others scrambling to get clients on similar lists by Premiere and Entertainment Weekly - Roston's mailbox is bulging with "helpful suggestions" right about now.  One also wonders if the list of 50 will be all individuals or whether a group of folks (the Sundance programmers for example) will take a single slot.

This week: Silverdocs announces its line-up.

The Monday Brief: Debunking Brandeis Citation in Berlinger Ruling, BABIES Rule Mother's Day & Hot Docs Wrapping

With the close of Hot Docs yesterday, we can finally exhale after a non-stop stretch of key film festivals that has swallowed up most of spring thus far - and for the majority of us (certainly those not headed to the south of France), we now have a few weeks to rest before the June festival onslaught hits...

That gives us a moment to reflect on the year thus far and the film's that are making an impact.  Earlier today we posted the first edition of the 2010 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll, our annual round-up of festival (and, later in the year, critics and end-of-year) prizes.  No surprise that Laura Poitras' THE OATH - which has seemingly shown up with raves at every major fest this year - leads this year's list, followed by Jeff Malmberg's SXSW sensation MARWENCOL and Lucy Walker's audience fave, WASTE LAND.

But it's a film from 2009 that leads The Brief today and what it may mean for nonfiction filmmakers everywhere...

Many are still trying to figure out just how to react to the surprisingly broad ruling from US District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that may force filmmaker Joe Berlinger to turn over more than 600 hours of outtakes from his film, CRUDE, to the Chevron corporation.  As we noted Saturday, Chevron argued that the outtakes may help them defend themselves in a lawsuit brought by Ecuadorians over water contamination, charges which were detailed in Berlinger's film.

In his decision, Kaplan referenced former Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis' comment that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants", which didn't sit well with Frank Smyth of the Society to Protect Journalists:

"The irony in the judge’s choice of language is as thick as crude...

 

What would the late Supreme Court Justice Brandeis think? He made his famous sunlight statement about the need to expose bankers and investors who controlled “money trusts” to stifle competition, and he later railed against not only powerful corporations but the lawyers and other members of the bar who worked to perpetuate their power."

This news is sure to keep developing in the days and weeks to come.

Meanwhile, after months of slow going at the documentary box office, this weekend saw three major debuts and the continued success of the Disneynature franchise.

The Top 25 Film Festivals for Documentaries, 2nd Edition - #7. Silverdocs

Previously: #6 Berlin

#7. AFI Silverdocs

Our take: The most important US-based documentary festival continues to grow and refine as it heads into year #8. Does a good job of balancing a program that features both premieres and "best of the fests" titles and is strong in programming of international docs.  Probably one of the most industry-heavy US-based events (although there are some US buyers who, for whatever reason, never come) and one that actually draws some international buyers.  Silverdocs is quite good at using its DC-adjacent location in attracting press attention for its major films and the Capitol and all its attractions are just a short train ride away.

The downside: While we don't mind the location, lots of folks hate it.  Unlike the other US doc fests, there's a bit of a corporate feeling going on - from that outdoor mall-based setting to the proximity of Discovery to the underlying AFI presence.  Much like IDFA and Hot Docs, the fest has yet to reconcile the relationship between the conference and the festival, leading some to wonder whether those buyers are actually going to any of the screenings (like at Sheffield).  Introduced the Good Pitch last year but otherwise lacks a market or Forum component.  Questions about the future in light of sponsorship changes and a potential challenge from Sheffield.

Important recent premieres: GOOD FORTUNE, JUNIOR, DANCING WITH THE DEVIL, CONVENTION

Selection of US films screened at 2009 Fest: OCTOBER COUNTRY, RACING DREAMS, THE HORSE BOY, THE WINDMILL MOVIE, THE NINE LIVES OF MARION BARRY, MORE THAN A GAME

Our coverage of Silverdocs here.

The Monday Brief: Indie Film in Hell - The Bloodbath, CineVegas & Polanski, But Signs of Hope With Ondi Timoner's Innovations, CAPITALISM, SEPTEMBER & IT MIGHT GET LOUD

Is the entire indie film world going to hell?  That's been the question vibrating through our community for the past several weeks, particularly after a Toronto International Film Festival that was light on sales and a summary paper issued by Anne Thompson, in which she labeled this year's TIFF an "indie bloodbath":

"The old independent market is over. A new one will take its place. But we are smack in the middle between the end of one paradigm and the start of another, and it’s a scary place indeed...

If nobody knew anything before, they know even less now. The one sure thing is that moviemakers will now PAY to get their films released. The few remaining distributors can sit back and wait for movies to drop in their laps, often with P & A funds attached. All hopes of a hot sale at a festivals were dashed this year."

And if you think filmmakers going to festivals have it bad, what about the festivals themselves?  This year has seen an unprecedented upheaval, as five of the top 10 festivals for documentaries saw a change in leadership (Sundance, Silverdocs, Los Angeles, Tribeca and Full Frame) and a number of film festivals found themselves making news - Toronto over its choice of Tel Aviv for its City to City Spotlight, Los Angeles in its battle with the BANANAS!* filmmakers and lawyers from Dole, SF Jewish Film over its screening of RACHEL, Tokyo due to its rejection-then-capitulation/acceptance of THE COVE, not to mention the coup at the Denver Film Society.  And what does it say about the New York Film Festival if most of NYC's indie film cognoscenti took the first flights out of town to be in Austin for Fantastic Fest, just as NYFF was opening?

Now we learn that CineVegas, one of the best regional festivals in the US, will not be back for its 2010 edition (although they state publicly that they will try to return sometime after that) and yesterday  the news that filmmaker Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland as he was en route to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Zurich Film Festival.

Add to all this what any filmmaker on the festival circuit (including this one) can tell you with certainty - for many festivals, the days of largesse have passed.  No travel, no accommodations, no screening fees.  Oh yeah, and if you want more than a couple tickets to your film, you're going to have to pay for them.

Let that sink in for a moment.

SILVERDOCS 2009: OCTOBER COUNTRY & MUGABE Win Top Prizes

Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's OCTOBER COUNTRY took the top US feature prize at this year's Silverdocs.  The win marked a whirwind 24 hours for the directing duo as they officially world premiered the film at the Los Angeles Film Festival Friday night, then flew east to collect their trophy and screen for the first time in Silver Spring.  OCTOBER COUNTRY is one of six films vying for the LA Film Festival's documentary prize; a second screening of the film (and Palmieri and Mosher's return to Los Angeles) comes on Thursday night.

The jury, which included filmmaker Margaret Brown, Tribeca programmer David Kwok and Cian Smyth, program director of the GAZE Film Festival, said in their statement, "We have chosen a film that has resonated with us long after we viewed it. It is a film that is subtle and intuitively creative while presenting important social issues in a surprising way."

In the world competition, jurors (filmmakers Esther B. Robinson & Geoffrey Smith and Hot Docs Programming Manager Karina Rotenstein) selected MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN.  The film, directed by Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson, premiered last month at Hot Docs.

Both filmmaking teams receive $10,000 with their win.

A full list a Silverdocs prizes after the jump.