All these wonderful things

A Few Thoughts About This Year's Miami Film Festival

This was the second year in a row that I didn't make it to Park City for Sundance.  I had been toying with the idea of going pretty much even as the festival was starting up, but what with Sundance coming directly on the heels of this year's Cinema Eye Honors (and the multiple snow storms that struck New York while I was on the east coast), the notion of getting myself to Utah and more snow in the midst of recuperating from a months-long project was too daunting.

So, like last year, I eagerly awaited my first opportunity to see this year's new batch of films, no matter if word on the street was that this year wasn't shaping up to be on par with last (when 4 Sundance premieres would eventually make it to the Oscars and a handful of others were considered high profile snubs).

Luckily I'd been invited to participate in two different film festival juries in the first quarter of 2011.  Between the two, I'd end up seeing 13 of the docs that had premiered at Sundance.

I saw the majority of these while at the Miami Film Festival, which I attended last week.  Toronto International Film Festival doc programmer Thom Powers (also responsible for DOC NYC, Stranger Than Fiction and my co-hort in getting the Cinema Eye Honors off the ground) joined the team in Miami this year and invited me to be part of a jury that included Sheffield Doc/Fest Director Heather Croall and Jeremy Kay, the US Editor for Screen International.

One of the Biggest Weeks of the Year Hits Full Steam in Sheffield Tonight

We're in the midst of a pretty momentous week for documentary film: imminently, two major, established international documentary fests kick off their latest edition, a promising newcomer unveils itself in New York City and we’ll be announcing this year’s Cinema Eye nominees.

When you think about it, this week also marks the beginning of perhaps the most jam-packed, three-month stretch during our documentary year.  Think about it, before the next 92 days are through we will know this year’s Oscar nominees, this year’s Spirit Award nominees and the Cinema Eye, IDA & Gotham award winners.  We’ll have gotten our first look at the major docs of 2011 via their premieres in Amsterdam and Park City.  And we’ll know the names of the films that are set to premiere in Austin.

It all begins today when the international documentary contingent braves the London tube strike to travel to Sheffield for the last November edition of Doc/Fest (it moves to June next year – yep, they’ve got another fest to plan starting right about yesterday).  Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK will launch this year’s Doc/Fest, with Stern, Sundberg and Rivers all in person.

Tomorrow night, at the Cinema Eye Roller Disco, we’ll announce the 2011 Cinema Eye nominees in 12 categories: 11 feature and the new award for Nonfiction Short Film.  Each year, the Cinema Eye nominators manage to come up with a pretty remarkable mix of big ticket docs and slightly less heralded, artistic efforts.  In a year heralded by many as the second coming of documentary (due to the huge number of major new works), it will be interesting to find out which films are called out on Thursday.

DOCNYC 2010: Thom Powers Previews the Inaugural Edition of the New Nonfiction Festival in New York

In just 9 days, New York will see the launch of DOCNYC, the new festival birthed from the folks behind NYC's Stranger Than Fiction series (Toronto International Film Festival Documentary Programmer Thom Powers, STF Executive Director Raphaela Neihausen, IFC Center head honcho John Vanco and IFC Center Director of Programs Harris Dew).  It's perhaps the biggest documentary festival launch in over five years and it's grabbing the prime real estate in early November that's soon to be vacated by primo UK Doc/Fest Sheffield.

The first edition is marked by tributes to doc superstars Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, a retrospective of work by one of this year's Honorary Oscar recipients, Kevin Brownlow, and two competition sections - Metropolis, which focuses on New York-set stories, and Viewfinders, which includes the US Premieres of Janus Metz' ARMADILLO, Kim Longinotto's PINK SARIS and Bjarte Mørner Tveit's DISCOVERIES OF A MARIONETTE and the World Premiere of Robert Greene's KATI WITH AN I (following a sneak preview earlier this year at True/False).

We talked to Thom Powers (who was, full disclosure, my co-chair for the first two editions of the Cinema Eye Honors and who serves on Cinema Eye's Advisory Board) about the inaugural festival, his broader ideas for a "nonfiction festival" and what's exciting and scaring him nine days out.

ATWT: I guess I want to start with the other stuff, the non-film elements, because that's one of the things I think is so exciting about DOCNYC and what you're doing, because it's not just films and it's not just panels about films.

Thom Powers: It's not.  Film I would say is an 80 or 90 percent core of what we're doing this year but the longterm goal of this festival is to enrich the other aspects over the years.  And the heart of this is the daylong symposia that we have called Doc Convergence.  That's kind of where I laid down an initial structure for ways in which I want to invigorate this festival with all kinds of different documentary voices, not just filmmakers.  At Doc Convergence we have photographers, including Pulitzer Prize winner David Turnley, we have cartoonists, such as Joe Sacco, Linda Barry, we have people from the world of performance and also writing, such as Lawrence Wright, who did "My Trip to Al Qaeda", which was turned into a film by Alex Gibney, and Moises Kaufman, who's done these documentary-based theatrical works, including The Laramie Project, that was turned into a film.

Gotham Awards 2010 Nominees Include Oscar Hopefuls and Scorsese's PUBLIC SPEAKING

The Gotham Awards have just announced their nominees for 2010 and the five films nominated in the Best Documentary category are:

12TH AND DELAWARE
Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

INSIDE JOB
Directed by Charles Ferguson

THE OATH
Directed by Laura Poitras

PUBLIC SPEAKING
Directed by Martin Scorsese

SWEETGRASS
Directed by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor

INSIDE JOB is one of the frontrunners for next year's Academy Awards and is just now rolling out in theaters in North America.  Both THE OATH and 12TH AND DELAWARE had lower-key theatrical releases earlier this year preceding their television broadcasts (THE OATH on POV and DELAWARE on HBO).  The directors of all three films - Ferguson, Poitras, Ewing & Grady - are previous Oscar nominees and favorites to make this year's Academy shortlist.

SWEETGRASS premiered at last year's New York Film Festival while Scorsese's PUBLIC SPEAKING - a profile of quintissential New York writer Fran Lebowitz - is set to premiere on HBO next month.

Meanwhile, in the Gotham's Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You category - which has, at least recently, featured a single nonfiction film mixed with four fiction features - three documentaries are nominated - Robert Greene's KATI WITH AN I (set to screen in the Viewfinders Competition at next month's inaugural DOC NYC), Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Woods' ON COAL RIVER (which premiered at Silverdocs and recently screened in Camden and at NYC's Stranger Than Fiction) and Lynn True and Nelson George's SUMMER PASTURE (which screened as part of the IDA's DocuWeeks Academy qualifying series this summer).  Those films will mix it up with Laurel Nakadate's THE WOLF KNIFE and LITTLEROCK by filmmaker Mike Ott.

indieWIRE has all the nominees, led by the SW Missouri-shot narrative feature WINTER'S BONE.  The awards will be handed out on November 29.

Toronto 2010: Thom Powers on This Year's Amazing Doc Line-Up

Last week we wrote about this year's pretty stellar documentary line-up at Toronto.  Previously - while he was at the Traverse City Film Festival - we had a chance to talk with Toronto documentary programmer (and full disclosure, our friend and colleague on the first several years of Cinema Eye) Thom Powers about the program.

We were interested in what might be new and unexpected from the veterans in this year's line-up as well as what effect - if any - Thom's role in his new festival (Doc NYC) might have on the program.  Here's our conversation:

ATWT: This has been a pretty high-profile year for well-known filmmakers coming out with new films.  Sundance was chock-a-block full of big name titles and from just the quick look at your list: Longinotto, Morris, Herzog, Gibney, Wiseman, Jørgen Leth, Charles Ferguson, Ondi Timoner – it’s a high profile pack of filmmakers.

Thom: It is indeed.  As the season was kind of rolling out I’d hear Werner Herzog has a new film, Errol Morris has a new film, every week brought a new revelation in that way.  I can’t really think of a line-up I’ve had before that was so packed.  And one of the things in creating this line-up was in making room for some new filmmakers, like we were able to do with THE PIPE and WINDFALL and a film that I want to bring to your attention called THE SOUND OF MUMBAI: A MUSICAL, which is about slum children in Mumbai, India presenting a performance of The Sound of Music with a classical orchestra.  That film had me choked up pretty much all the way through it and it’s actually hard for me to even think about without getting choked up again.

CANNES 2010: Thom Powers Previews a Surprisingly Rich Doc Line-up

The Cannes Film Festival is now in full swing and this year's edition features a surprising strong line-up of documentary titles, including Charles Ferguson's INSIDE JOB, Sophie Feinnes' OVER YOUR CITIES, GRASS WILL GROW, Frederick Wiseman's BOXING GYM and Stephen Kijak's STONES IN EXILE, plus the latest from Danish filmmaker Janus Metz, a regular on the 2009 festival circuit with LOVE ON DELIVERY.

Thom Powers has a preview of all of these and more titles at the Stranger Than Fiction blog.  Powers will be in Cannes scouting for both the Toronto International Film Festival as well as his inaugural DocNYC.  He says that in his five years of attending Cannes, he's seen a steady increase in nonfiction's presence at the fest.

On his Facebook page, Thom is already pointing to the growing row over DRAQUILA: ITALY TREMBLES, a film by Sabina Guzzanti that targets Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's actions after a 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila.  Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi is skipping the festival over Cannes' decision to screen the work.

It's a latest documentary broadside to garner the ire of Berlusconi and his team.  Erik Gandini's acclaimed VIDEOCRACY (winner of the jury prize at Sheffield) screened last year in Toronto and has been a sensation in Europe and censored in Italy.

Thom Powers on the Launch of Doc NYC, New November Fest for Doc Storytelling

Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen, the curator and executive director of NYC's Stranger Than Fiction documentary series, announced today that they will partner with the IFC Center's John Vanco and Harris Dew to launch Doc NYC, a new "festival of documentary storytelling", this November.

The new festival will go head to head with top nonfiction showcase Sheffield Doc/Fest, at least in the first year.

Powers, who is also the Documentary Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival (and, full disclosure, my co-chair for the first two Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking - and current Chair of Cinema Eye's nominations committee), emphasized the festival's subheading to me in a conversation this morning, saying, "A mission of this festival is to cut across the boundaries of medium."

Adding that "we very specifically did not call it a film festival," Powers added that the fest will include writers, photographers as well as those working in radio, spoken word and even documentary comic books, specifically noting the work of Advisory Board member Joe Sacco. 

"Before I worked in film, I worked in publishing for Joe Sacco's publisher and I've aways kept one foot in that world.  I find that the convers I have with them about being documentary storytellers is very similar as those I have with filmmakers, but there are too few opportunities for these folks to talk with one another or to have their work shown together."

Of the overlap with Sheffield, Powers notes that he's had conversations with and has high admiration for Sheffield's leadership team, including Heather Croall and Hussain Currimbhoy, and argues that the nonfiction world is big enough for both festivals.  He added that he'd love for the fests to share titles and have filmmakers travel to both.