All these wonderful things

TORONTO 2011: Thom Powers on Mavericks Premieres from Maysles & Demme Plus PALIN, PARADISE LOST 3 and "the sexiest Wiseman film ever made"

Earlier today, the Toronto International Film Festival announced the line-up for its Mavericks program, and our eye went immediately to THE LOVE WE MAKE, a decade-in-the-making look at Paul McCartney's organizing of The Concert for New York, a charity response to 9/11, directed by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan. 

The film is set to air on Showtime on September 10 (TIFF opens on the 8th), and McCartney showed up via satellite recently at the Television Critics Association summer press tour to talk about the film - and about his history with the Maysles:

"I first met Albert and his brother David," McCartney recalled, "when we came to America, came to New York, and they were filming us." Their manager, Brian Epstein, had been approached by the Maysles brothers with a pitch to film them in a new way: cinema verite.

"Well, we were very big fans of that," McCartney continued. "That was kind of happening in Europe at the same time it was happening in America. So we loved the idea." And when the quartet met the duo, the Maysles brothers sealed the deal when the Beatles asked what the filmmakers wanted them to do. The reply: "We want you to just ignore us."

McCartney smiled widely. "We thought that was the best piece of direction we'd ever received. 'Oh, ignore you? Yeah, we can do that. I can ignore anyone.' So we did, and we just had a great time. And they were right to direct us in that way, because we completely forget they were there. And so the film is very natural. We'd be in our hotel rooms, talking to deejays, talking to each other. And they would just be behind the couch, filming very quietly."

We talked with Mavericks Programmer (as well as the Documentary Programmer at TIFF) Thom Powers about the new Maysles film, plus the latest collaboration between Jonathan Demme and Neil Young, as well as some of the major titles in the previously announced TIFF documentary line-up, including the very current - and apparently in furious re-edit mode - PARADISE LOST 3.

All these wonderful things: The thing that jumped out at me immediately in the things that you are announcing (today) is, of course, the Maysles/Paul McCartney film.  Do you have any more to say about that?

Thom Powers: Well, you know, it's not often that I see a 16mm, black and white film these days that's brand new.  It's kind of exciting and even more exciting when Al Maysles is behind it.  I really think one of the things that stands out in this film is that quality of Maysles' camera work.  It's shot just a few weeks after September 11, and everyone is a little dazed.  One of the most memorable moments of the film to me is the scene where Bill Clinton comes backstage to say hello to McCartney.  And you have to remember that Clinton has only been out of office for 8 or 9 months and Maysles has a way of capturing that moment that feels very loaded with subtext.

TORONTO 2011: Doc Premieres from Herzog, Wiseman, Demme, Gibney, Spurlock, Yu, Hustwit, Fricke, Broomfield & Churchill and Berlinger & Sinofsky

[A scene from Davis Guggenheim's new U2 documentary FROM THE SKY DOWN, which was previously announced as this year's TIFF Opening Night film.]

[Editor's Note: Charlotte Cook checks in from London with her thoughts on this year's Toronto International Film Festival documentary line-up.  We'll have more on this in the coming days.]

The majority of documentaries playing at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival were announced Wednesday. We had already learned that this year’s festival would be special for documentaries when Davis Guggenheim’s U2 doc, FROM THE SKY DOWN was announces as the first documentary ever to open TIFF.  Also previously announced was Cameron Crowe’s 20-year history of another popular rock band, PEARL JAM TWENTY.

As we have come to expect, TIFF pulls no punches with a programme full of big name directors such as Werner Herzog, Jonathan Demme, Morgan Spurlock, Alex Gibney and Fred Wiseman.

Gary Hustwit brings the final part of his design trilogy (which began with HELVETICA and OBJECTIFIED) with URBANIZED, which ventures into how the design of our cities and buildings affects our lives. Another Part Three joining the line-up is PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky which is already building anticipated buzz.

Mark Cousins’ THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY clocks in at 900mins (15 hours), but is likely to be a joy for the completist documentary nerds among us.

It’s great to see the excellent THIS IS NOT A FILM (IN FILM NIST) by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi, which premiered at this year’s Cannes after being smuggled into the country on a USB stick buried inside a cake due to Jafar Panahi’s incarceration and current working ban.

Other eagerly anticipated films are Jessica Yu’s LAST CALL AT THE OASIS, which looks at the current water crisis and Ron Fricke's sequel to Baraka, SAMSARA. One of the most talked about before premiering, and likely after, is SARAH PALIN - YOU BETCHA! by Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill.

The line-up is also notably drawn from a multitude of different countries, with Bulgaria, Cambodia, Chile and Austria to name a few.

Talking to CP24, Toronto's Documentary Film Programmer Thom Powers said of this year's line-up "It's kind of an insane embarrassment of riches."

The full documentary line-up so far is below, with more to be added:

THE BOY WHO WAS KING by Andrey Paounov (Bulgaria)
CAPRICHOSOS DE SAN TELMO by Alison Murray (Argentina/Canada)
ARIRANGA by Kim Ki-Duk (South Korea)
COMIC-CON: EPISODE IV - A FAN'S HOPE by Morgan Spurlock (USA)
CRAZY HORSE by Frederick Wiseman (France/USA)
DARK GIRLS by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry (USA)
DUCH, MASTER OF THE FORGES OF HELL by Rithy Panh (France/Cambodia)
FATHERLAND (TIERRA DE LOS PADRES) by Nicolás Prividera (Argentina)
FIRST POSITION by Bess Kargman (USA)
FROM THE SKY DOWN by Davis Guggenheim (USA)
GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING by Corinna Belz (Germany)
GIRL MODEL by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon (USA)
I'M CAROLYN PARKER: THE GOOD, THE MAD, AND THE BEAUTIFUL by Jonathan Demme (USA)
IN MY MOTHER'S ARMS by Atia Al Daradji Mohamed Al Daradji (Iraq/Netherlands/UK)
INTO THE ABYSS by Werner Herzog (USA)
LAST CALL AT THE OASIS by Jessica Yu (USA)
THE LAST DOGS OF WINTER by Costa Botes (New Zealand)
THE LAST GLADIATORS by Alex Gibney (USA)
PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (USA)
PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE by Stephen Kessler (USA)
PEARL JAM TWENTY by Cameron Crowe (USA)
PINA by Wim Wenders (Germany/France)
SAMASARA (Originally from Sanskrit) by Ron Fricke (USA)
SARAH PALIN - YOU BETCHA! by Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill (UK)
THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY by Mark Cousins (UK)
THE TALL MAN Tony Krawitz, (Australia)
THIS IS NOT A FILM (IN FILM NIST) by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi (Iran)
UNDEFEATED by Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin (USA)
URBANIZED by Gary Hustwit (USA and UK)
WHORES' GLORY by Michael Glawogger (Austria/Germany)
THE YEAR OF THE TIGER (EL AÑO DEL TIGRE) by Sebastián Lelio (Chile)

BIEBER Doc Hits $68 Million, #6 All-Time, Spawns Wild Oscar Forecasting

JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER, the year's first docbuster, is wrapping up its 4th weekend in theaters, now positioned as the #6 highest grossing nonfiction feature of all time.  NEVER took in another (estimated) $4.3M since Friday and is set to close in on the $70M range by next weekend. 

That would put the film in the company of the three films that currently reside at #3-5 on the all-time chart: MARCH OF THE PENGUINS ($77M), JACKASS: NUMBER TWO ($73M) and MICHAEL JACKSON THIS IS IT ($72M).

The success of NEVER and the surprising positive reaction it spawned from some in the documentary world (Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim was even set to direct the film for a while), has led to some fairly fun back and forth on Twitter and elsewhere - but apparently some are starting to wonder if NEVER has what it takes to go all the way to the Oscars next year.

In a bizarre and fact-free article in the Hollywood Reporter, Shirley Halperin hears "from a source" that buzz from the various Oscar parties suggest that NEVER could be a serious contender for next year's Doc Feature Oscar:

“You’d be surprised at the caliber of people who came up to Justin at the Vanity Fair party at the Sunset Tower, most of whom had seen the movie and loved it,” says an insider. “There was even talk of putting it up for an Oscar next year in the documentary category. People appreciate that it’s not just a kids’ movie.” (THR’s Bill Higgins also noted Bieber was the star who awed the other stars at the Vanity Fair bash. The young singer would chat with someone and the buzz would immediately be: “What is Mick Jagger talking to Justin Bieber about?”)

Belieb It! Justin Bieber's 3D Concert Doc #2 Nonfiction Opening Weekend All Time

WIth estimates of the $30M weekend, the new Paramount 3D concert documentary JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER jumped onto the list of the top 10 nonfiction features of all time (it currently stands at #8) and is now the number two concert film ever, behind MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT.

The weekend take is the second highest weekend gross for a nonfiction film in history, after last year's JACKASS 3D, which was also distributed by Paramount.  For comparison, THIS IS IT had a $23M opening weekend (although it launched on a Wednesday and had already banked $13M by the time the weekend arrived).  JACKASS 3D opened with an astounding $50M back in October.

NEVER SAY NEVER was directed by John Chu (who had previous worked on Disney's STEP UP movies).  Chu replaced Academy Award winner Davis Guggenhim, who had been attached to the project but dropped out reportedly to focus on the release of WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN'.  Coincidentally, the film that NEVER SAY NEVER knocks out of the top ten all-time is Guggenheim's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

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.

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:

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.

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.

 

The Most Honored Documentary of 2010 is EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

After a full year in which Laura Poitras' THE OATH and Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL dominated our Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll with a full slate of festival jury prizes and year-end documentary awards, the onslaught of 2010's various film critics honors have handed the mantle of most honored documentary of the year to Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP.

EXIT now has a full 24 mentions on the Honor Roll - a combination of year-end documentary award nominations and critics prizes - which is 8 ahead of the 2nd place film, MARWENCOL and 10 ahead of Poitras' THE OATH and fellow Oscar shortlisted doc, Charles Ferguson's INSIDE JOB.

Three other Oscar shortlisted features - Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's RESTREPO, Amir Bar-Lev's THE TILLMAN STORY and Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' have 12 mentions each. 

After being absent from the list for most of the year (the film played out of competition at Sundance and Berlin), EXIT sprinted to the top of the Honor Roll chart on the basis of a somewhat surprising critical consensus - surprising not on the merits but because critics have tended to award issue-based docs over more entertaining fare.  Even last year when ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL was making a strong year-end showing among some critics, in the end the awards tended to favor the eventual Oscar winner, Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE. 

Sundance Doc Programmers Libresco & Courier on 2011's Big Themes and How the "Three G's" Led to the Doc Premiere Section

Last December, we grabbed coffee with Sundance programmers Caroline Libresco and David Courier and forecasted the festival that would unveil one month later.  We all had such a good time, we decided to make it an annual event.  So, a week or so ago, we got together for breakfast and talked about this coming year's batch of films and remembered a portion of our conversation from last year that actually might have had an effect on Sundance's program for 2011.

All these wonderful things: So when you finish the selection process and you have that first day off to reflect on what you’ve chosen each year, do you think about themes?  Maybe you think about themes while you’re actually deciding the films, but do you think, “wow, this year there were a lot of these kinds of films” or “this year will leaning toward this or that direction”?

David Courier: We actually haven’t had a day off yet, so… (laughter) But yeah, we do start to think about themes.

Caroline Libresco: And there are things that start to emerge, things we start to notice along the way and after, for sure.  And it’s really actually fun to kind of step back – even just the other day, that was the first time I really stepped back – or the day we talk to our editorial colleagues about ideas, suddenly it was just there.  There were all these interesting connections between the films.

ATWT: Does it sometimes feel like there’s something in the water that leads filmmakers toward certain topics.

DC: Yes.  If you add all the films we didn’t select, oh my God, religion and cults and the fine line between them is so much in the consciousness.  It’s insane. 

CL: And that’s throughout the festival, not just in the docs.

ATWT: Can you pinpoint any specific reason why that is the case this year?  Did something happen two or three or four years ago?

CL: I do think it has something to do with the kind of mounting power over the last decade in this country of the Christian fundamentalist movement, which is now upwards of 60 million people, 1/5 of the country, and its hold on government in the last decade.  How can you ignore it?  But it’s a lot of the (narrative) feature films in the festival and there were lots more that we didn’t end up showing, too.  It’s just fascinating.  Films in the festival like HIGHER GROUND, SOUND OF MY VOICE, SALVATION BLVD…

DC: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, which I just like saying.

CL: THE LEDGE, just a ton of these.  People just trying to make sense of religiosity, of devout Christianity.

DC: Another big theme that’s emerged – a lot in docs, too – is the state of the media and journalism and basically the evaporation of good investigative journalism.  Journalism, the New York Times for instance, used to be “the word” and that’s no longer the case with 24 hour news and the internet and people are struggling to keep up and decide what’s real because there’s no such thing anymore as “the voice”.  So we got a lot of films that deal with that.