All these wonderful things

The Brief: OCEANS and Bansky Reap Box Office Rewards, THE OATH Caps an Award-Winning April and Tribeca in Progress

We're dead in the middle of the spring festival onslaught, with Tribeca and San Francisco just hitting their mid-points, IFFBoston about to wrap its event and Hot Docs getting ready to kick-off tomorrow.  We went on our own mini-fest-tour earlier this month (Ashland and Sarasota - more on this later, but let's just say our assessment bore out) and we're trying to get our footing before we head up to Toronto next week.  So much is happening, and here's a brief sample in a mid-week brief...

It was a big weekend at the theatrical box office for OCEANS, the new film from Oscar nominated filmmaker Jacques Perrin (WINGED MIGRATION) and distributor Disneynature.  The film took in just over $6M for the weekend, after an Earth Day debut at the top of the charts on Thursday.  That takes the film to $8.4M so far, with expectations that the film will reach the $10M mark by today.  OCEANS took in nearly $5K per screen, which was the best average in the top 10.

Mystery seems to be paying off huge dividends for EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the curious documentary from the anonymous artist known as Banksy.  The film has taken in an $390,000 from a handful of screens (it expanded from 8 to 11 this weekend) for the best per screen average of any film in release, according to indieWIRE's weekly box office report, which also gives the back story of EXIT's unusual DIY release by sales rep John Sloss and a team that included Richard Abramowitz.

Also from Abramowith, Tom DiCillo's Doors documentary, WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE, took in another $24K in its third weekend, taking that film's total to just under $165,000.

As mentioned, Tribeca is heading for its closing weekend, with much of the doc talk surrounding the unstoppable force that is Alex Gibney.  With two completed films (and a segment of omnibus doc FREAKANOMICS) at this year's fest, Gibney made a huge splash with his not-yet-completed UNTITLED ELIOT SPITZER FILM (we summed up the press coverage here) over the weekend.

But Gibney wasn't the only news at Tribeca.  indieWIRE's Brian Brooks examines a potential controversy in the wake of Deborah Scranton's EARTH MADE OF GLASS.  Cinematical's Christopher Campbell has a review of FREETIME MACHOS (which is also headed to Hot Docs).  And at Movieline, S.T. Vanairsdale has a recap of the Q&A following Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's popular JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK.  POV's Tom Roston finds that the Rivers doc changes his mind about the subject.

As the other April fests start wrapping up, it's worth noting the exceptional run Laura Poitras' THE OATH is having.  It began the month with a Special Jury Prize at Full Frame, and followed that with two Grand Jury notations - at Sarasota and at IFFBoston.  The film is heading to Hot Docs and then to the IFC Center where Zeitgeist will kick off its theatrical run next Friday.  We'll be hosting the LA premiere at Cinefamily on May 18. 

We finally got a chance to see THE OATH In Sarasota and it's a knockout, subtle and brilliant with one of the best scores in a documentary in years.

Two more of our favorite docs of 2010 also scored at Sarasota and Boston.  Josh Fox' GASLAND, which has been getting deserved raves all year, received the Special Jury prize in Sarasota and Jeff Malmberg's terrific, complex MARWENCOL picked up the same award at IFFBoston.  All three films will rank among the best in nonfiction in 2010.

Stuff worth reading:  Yance Ford recaps her experience at Full Frame and considers the once and future festival.  Raphaela Niehausen writes about Steven Soderbergh's appearance at Stranger Than Fiction for his Spalding Gray doc AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE.  Anthony Kaufman considers the "documentary fictions" of the Soderbergh film and the Banksy doc.  Kaufman also writes about the STF screening of Doug Block's latest THE KID GROWS UP.  And completing his doc trifecta, Anthony writes about "art docs" for IFC.com.  And finally, a post over at the IDA's news blog on a recent Supreme Court decision sparks a debate on first ammendment freedoms and animal cruelty.

Full Frame 2010: ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE Wins 2 Prizes, Awards for RESTREPO, THE OATH, WASTE LAND & More

Earlier today at a brunch in Durham, North Carolina, awards winners were announced for the 2010 Full Frame Film Festival, where the big winner was Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath's ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE.  The investigative yet personal film about atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge took both the Grand Jury Prize and the Emerging Filmmaker Award. 

The unusual but not unprecedented double win for ENEMIES (Pernille Rose Gronkjær accomplished the same feat with THE MONASTERY three years ago) is the latest kudo in a long string of festival laurels, beginning with being a finalist for the Grand Jury Prize at IDFA (where LAST TRAIN HOME took top prize) and a World Documentary Special Jury Prize at Sundance (where THE RED CHAPEL was the winner).  [LAST TRAIN HOME was in competition at Full Frame but THE RED CHAPEL did not screen in Durham.]

The Full Frame victories suggest a awards season push (a la last year's BURMA VJ) later this year for ENEMIES.

In addition to handing their top prizes to ENEMIES, the two separate juries also agreed on Runner Up prizes for Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's RESTREPO.  The Afghan war drama was handed a Special Jury Prize in the Grand Jury section and an Honorable Mention for Emerging Artist.  RESTREPO won the US Documentary Grand Jury prize at Sundance.

Laura Poitras' festival fave THE OATH (soon to be released by Zeitgeist) also received a Special Jury Prize in the Grand Jury section.  The film about two members of Al Qaeda won the US Documentary Cinematography Award at Sundance.

Meanwhile, Lucy Walker's WASTE LAND picked up the Audience Award, continuing an impressive streak of wins for the profile of Brazilian artist Vik Muniz.  The film had previously won the Audience laurels at Sundance and Berlin and will be in theaters later this year from Arthouse.

Full Frame 2010: ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, LAST TRAIN HOME, THE OATH & RESTREPO Amongst 16 Grand Jury Hopefuls

This year's Full Frame Film Festival kicks off in Durham, North Carolina this Thursday with an impressive slate of nonfiction features and shorts set to screen at the venerable nonficiton film event.

Always worth watching are the Full Frame Awards, announced at the casual and fun Sunday BBQ, where a number of prizes (some catering to a very specific social justice/thematic topic niche) are handed out.  Specifically worth noting is the Grand Jury Prize, which for the past six years has always gone to a film that ends up being nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar (but never winning) unless said feature is eliminated from Oscar consideration due to the old rogue international television screening bugaboo.  To wit: BURMA VJ (2009), TROUBLE THE WATER (2008), THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG AND THE NUN (2007 - not eligible for Oscar nomination), IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (2006), MURDERBALL (2005 - shared with SHAPE OF THE MOON, which was not eligible), and CONTROL ROOM (2004 - not eligible for Oscar nomination).

This year, 16 films will vie for Full Frame's top award, including Sundance winner RESTREPO and IDFA champ LAST TRAIN HOME.  Jury members Stephanie Black, Doug Block, Micha X. Peled and Gita Pullapilly will sort it all out.  This year's contenders:

12TH AND DELAWARE
Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

LA BELLE VISITE
Directed by Jean-François Caissey

CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY
Directed by Alex Gibney

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
Directed by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath

GENIUS WITHIN: THE INNER LIFE OF GLENN GOULD
Directed by Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont

I AM SECRETLY AN IMPORTANT MAN
Directed by Peter Sillen

LA ISLA - ARCHIVES OF A TRAGEDY
Directed by Uli Stelzner

ITO - A DIARY OF AN URBAN PRIEST
Directed by Pirjo Honkasaio

LAST TRAIN HOME
Directed by Lixin Fan

MY PERESTROIKA
Directed by Robin Hessman

THE OATH
Directed by Laura Poitras

THE PLAYER
Directed by John Appel

RESTREPO
Directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

SUMMER PASTURE
Directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker

TODAY IS BETTER THAN TWO TOMORROWS
Directed by Anna Rodgers

WASTE LAND
Directed by Lucy Walker

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, LAST TRAIN HOME, MY PERESTROIKA, RESTREPO and TODAY IS BETTER THAN TWO TOMORROWS are also among the twenty films that will vie for the Charles Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award, to be juried by Aron Gaudet, Ivy Meeropol and Jenny Warburg.  Those films are:

AHEAD OF TIME
Directed by Bob Richman

CAPITAL
Directed by Maxim Pozdorovkin

DIARY OF A TIMES SQUARE THIEF
Directed by Klaas Bense

DIRTY BUSINESS: "CLEAN COAL" AND THE BATTLE FOR OUR ENERGY FUTURE
Directed by Peter Bull

DIVINE PIG
Directed by Hans Dortmans

THE EDGE OF DREAMING
Directed by Amy Hardle

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
Directed by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath

FAMILY AFFAIR
Directed by Chico Colvard

GARBO: THE SPY
Directed by Edmon Roch

GENERATION EXILE
Directed by Rodrigo Dorfman

GOOGLE BABY
Directed by Zippi Brand Frank

LAST TRAIN HOME
Directed by Lixin Fan

LOUIS SULLIVAN: THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
Directed by Mark Richard Smith

MY PERESTROIKA
Directed by Robin Hessman

PROMISED LAND
Directed by Yoruba Richen

REGRETTERS
Directed by Marcus Lindeen

RESTREPO
Directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY
Directed by John-Keith Wasson

TODAY IS BETTER THAN TWO TOMORROWS
Directed by Anna Rodgers

WAR DON DON
Directed by Rebecca Richman Cohen

All films in the New Docs section of the festival are eligible for the Audience Award and for the Center for Documentary Studies Award.  The fest will also present awards for Best Short, Best Student Film as well as awards for Human Rights and for depiction of Religion/Spirituality.

All full list of this year's films (including films playing out of competition) can be found at the Full Frame website.

The Monday Brief: A Week of Doc Sales, Controversy at RealScreen Summit and Why is True/False Secret Screening a Sundance Prize Winner?

Good morning, let's get right to it...

The seeds of deals that were beginning to be sown in Park City, began to come to fruition last week, with three major announcements for Sundance docs (and at least two more due to announced shortly). 

First up was the sale of out-of-competition buzz favorite CATFISH to Relativity Media and Rogue Pictures (with Brett Ratner helping to broker the deal and taking on Executive Producer duties).  Next, IFC grabbed Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern's JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, followed quickly by a pact for Amir Bar-Lev's THE TILLMAN STORY with The Weinstein Co.

Those sales come as the film year hums merrily along (with Sundance turning into Rotterdam so to turn into Berlin) and slates and programs are announced for the next round of fests.  We covered SXSW's line-up last week (see here, here and here), there were also program announcements for True/False (more on that later) and Thessaloniki.  

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country (and prior to the snowpocalypse), Washington DC was abuzz with this year's RealScreen Summit - the annual reality television confab that draws broadcasters and nonfiction producers (and those who want to be) and charges a sizable fee for supplying the proximity.  Those of us in the documentary film world have long known of the Summit and it's trade magazine namesake, RealScreen, as a kind of corporate 2nd cousin twice removed.  While they may brand themselves as "the best in non-fiction" on their website, a banner ad for RealScreen's "factual entertainment awards" - "the first truly global celebration of factual entertainment excellence!" - and headlines about reality stalwarts Endemol and ex-NBC programming chief Ben Silverman's "newly formed multimedia company" tell you that RealScreen's heart is really in reality strips.

The Monday Brief: Wrapping Sundance, Our Oscar Predictions and Can THE COVE Break the DGA Curse?

Holy cow, it's February already?  That means we are 1/120 of the way through the twenty-teens.

More the the point, with the wrap of Sundance yesterday, we now have a sense of where the year is heading and some of the films we'll still be talking about next year at this time.  Think about it, by this point last year we already had our first looks at Oscar shortlisters THE COVE, FOOD INC., THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS, BURMA VJ, VALENTINO and EVERY LITTLE STEP (the above a mix of Sundance and Toronto '08 titles).  Which films from this year's Sundance will we be still talking about in early 2011?

A word of caution to folks celebrating RESTREPO's grand jury win at Sundance - only 3 films in the past decade won the Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize and went on to be nominated for an Oscar.  Can you name them? (answer a little later in our broadcast)

If you were hearing the buzz out of IDFA (and from certain quarters it was deafening), one can't help but be surprised that Lixin Fan's LAST TRAIN HOME failed to pick up a single award in the World Cinema Documentary competition.  The jury for that strand (which included filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown and Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival director Asako Fujioka) seemed to value films that made them laugh - aside from editing winner A FILM UNFINISHED and special jury prize recipient ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE), they heaped prizes on three films (THE RED CHAPEL, HIS & HERS and SPACE TOURISTS) that were notable for their use of humor.

The Top 25 Film Festivals for Documentaries, 2nd Edition - #13. Full Frame

Previously: #12 True/False

#13. Full Frame

Our take: The small town doc fest experience began in Durham more than a decade ago and Full Frame still has its partisans - not just the filmmakers who screen but documentary veterans and a smattering of industry who are happy to take the short flight to RDU from New York to for a little Southern hospitality in the Spring.  The new filmmaker hotel is a great addition - walking distance from everything rather than a schlep out to the research triangle.  The neighborhood atmosphere around the convention center gets a little better every year.  People are really rooting for new programmer Sadie Tillery and most thought that 2009 was much-improved...

The downside:  ...but there's still a sense that Full Frame hasn't fully found its footing after three years of off-season tumult - the high profile departures of founder Nancy Buirski and programmer Phoebe Brush and the fest's ongoing search for a new Executive Director.  The lack of a high-profile presence representing the festival within the community reminds everyone of Full Frame's unique and seemingly archaic programming committee, primarily made up of local academics.  Would it hurt them to have a late night party scene?

Important recent premieres: OWNING THE WEATHER, SONS OF CUBA, VOICES OF EL-SAYED, LOWER NINTH WARD,

Selection of films screened at 2009 Fest: BURMA VJ, 45365, ART & COPY, THE WAY WE GET BY, OBJECTIFIED, FOOD, INC., THE COVE, THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, O'ER THE LAND, REPORTER, UNMISTAKEN CHILD, ROUGH AUNTIES, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, EVERY LITTLE STEP

Our coverage of Full Frame 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.

The Monday Brief: The OBAMA Doc Hunts for Oscar, Spirit Awards Move Off the Beach and What if You Made a John Hughes Doc and John Hughes Died?

Good Monday morning to you, with summer winding down and the fall festivals seeming to be nearly upon us, but in the documentary feature world, August means Oscar qualifying...

Like lots of other folks with films set to debut later this year (or even later), HBO moved to qualify its forthcoming Obama documentary BY THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA by screening it theatrically in New York and Los Angeles.  And while the pay network took some lumps last year for hiding its theatrical run of ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, this year's qualifying took place in the sunshine, or at the Sunshine, to be exact.

Opening Friday and screening through this week, BY THE PEOPLE is playing at New York's Sunshine Cinema in SoHo and at LA's Laemmle Sunset 5, and while it's pretty clear that HBO didn't go to a lot of effort to screen the film for critics (note the lack of reviews at Rotten Tomatoes), they aren't screening the film in Pasadena or on W. 181 Street either (God bless, you know I do love Pasadena, so no offense).  So mazel tov. 

The limited response thus far from those who have written about the film seems positive, if not glowing.  The Chicago Tribune's political writer Lynn Sweet writes that the film is "an important historical document" because of the exclusive access that filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sands had to the campaign, and argues that we shouldn't expect a film like DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus' classic THE WAR ROOM, writing, "THE WAR ROOM didn't have Clinton".

Full Frame 2009: UPDATED: BURMA VJ Takes Grand Jury, 2 other Prizes as Danes Rule Durham

Anders Østergaard's BURMA VJ, which began its festival life as a back-to-back jury prize winner at CPH:DOX and IDFA, this afternoon won three awards - including the Grand Jury Prize - at this Full Frame Film Festival.  It's success was just the tip of the iceberg Sunday as juries in Durham gave a great number of their prizes to a host of international films, with Danish films and filmmakers leading the way.  If one was needed, it was yet another sign that Denmark's governmental support of nonfiction assures that nation's place at the forefront of European documentary production.  (Two years ago, Pernille Rose Gronkjær's THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG AND THE NUN also won here.)

As we noted Thursday, the Grand Jury winner at Full Frame has gone on to be Oscar or Spirit Award nominated in each of the past four years.

BURMA VJ also received two other prizes - the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award as well as the Working Films Award, which will assist in BURMA VJ's outreach efforts.  The film will be distributed by Oscilloscope prior to an HBO broadcast later this year.

Nati Baratz' UNMISTAKEN CHILD - another film mentioned often at Sunday's awards BBQ - received a Special Jury mention.  CHILD was presented the Full Frame Inspiration Award and was named an Honorable Mention for the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Prize.  CHILD is from Isreal.

The winner of this year's Guggenheim Prize was Oded Adomi Leshem for VOICES FROM EL-SAYED (Isreal).  Sarah and Emily Kuntsler's film about their father, WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE (USA), was - with UNMISTAKEN CHILD - named an Honorable Mention in the category.

The new HBO Emerging Filmmaker Award went to Janus Metz, for his much admired Danish film LOVE ON DELIVERY.  Bill Ross and Turner Ross' 45365 (USA), grand jury winner at SXSW was, with Lee Anne Schmitt's CALIFORNIA COMPANY TOWN (USA), named Honorable Mentions.

Aron Gaudet's THE WAY WE GET BY (USA), a special jury prize winner at SXSW, picked up the Audience Award in Durham.  The Short Film winner was the Danish film 12 NOTES DOWN, directed by Andreas Koefoed.  Honorable Mentions amongst shorts included FLYING SHEPHERD (Romania), directed by Catalin Musat, and LA CHIROLA (Bolivia), directed by Diego Mondaca.

Finland's OIL BLUE, a short film directed by Elli Rintala, received the Full Frame President's Award, while the Kathleen Bryant Edwards Award for Human Rights went to Liz Garbus' SHOUTING FIRE: STORIES FROM THE EDGE OF FREE SPEECH (USA).

Full Frame 2009: BURMA, PUBLIC, AUNTIES Amongst Competition Titles, 2nd Emerging Filmmaker Award Intro'd

The 2009 edition of the venerable Full Frame Film Festival is underway in Durham, NC, with 15 films - including IDFA champ BURMA VJ and Sundance winners WE LIVE IN PUBLIC and ROUGH AUNTIES - competing for the Grand Jury Prize at this year's fest.

The festival also appears to have added a second award for new filmmakers.  While the Charles Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award (won last year by Jeremiah Zagar's IN A DREAM) will continue to recognize first-time documentary filmmakers, this year marks the debut of the HBO Emerging Filmmaker Award, a $5K prize honoring a director and producer at work on their first or second film.  All but 3 of the films up for the new HBO prize are also in the running for the Guggenheim award.

The list of films in the Grand Jury competition - a mix festival favorites and a few stateside debuts - has traditionally been a closely guarded secret (at least until the festival gets underway) for reasons that we've never been able to fully comprehend here.  The festival tends to make the argument that it keeps the list on the downlow for fears that local audiences may not see films that are not in competition.

Grand Jury prize winners at Full Frame often have the inside track for year end awards consideration.  Three of the past four years (MURDERBALL, IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS and TROUBLE THE WATER) the jury winner was nominated for an Oscar.  (THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG & THE NUN, which won in 2007, was DQ'd from the Oscars but was nominated for the Spirit Awards and won the inaugural Cinema Eye for International Filmmaking.)

Competition line-ups for Grand Jury, Emerging Artist and the new Emerging Filmmaker Awards are after the jump.