All these wonderful things

LA Judge Rules Dole Must Pay BANANAS!* Filmmakers for Wrongful Lawsuit

In a victory for documentary filmmakers and First Amendment advocates, an LA judge has ruled that food giant Dole must pay $200,000 to cover the legal expenses of the filmmakers of the 2009 documentary BANANAS!* after filing a defamation suit against the filmmakers that Dole later dropped in the face of international outcry.

The long and twisted case began last summer when Dole tried to stop the world premiere screening of BANANAS!* at the Los Angeles Film Festival after a different judge ruled that the court case profiled in the film (which accused Dole of sterilizing Nicaraguan workers) was based on fraudulent activity by the film's protagonist lawyer.  The LA Film Festival went ahead with the screening, despite threats from Dole, but removed the film from competition and set it amidst a conversation about documentary filmmaking practices, all of which set off a controversial debate over that very question.  Throughout, BANANAS!* director Fredrik Gertten sought to rally filmmakers to his cause, finding more success internationally than in the US, particularly in his home country of Sweden, where a concerted effort by the country's parliament and business-led boycotts of Dole led to the company dropping its suit against the filmmakers.

Gertten, who told us at the recent CPH:DOX festival in Denmark that he is at work on a documentary about the case, released a statement celebrating the judge's decision:

"We are extremely happy and relieved with the court's ruling after this year-long struggle. Corporations such as Dole must respect freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. These conglomerates have unlimited resources available to them to get their messages out, while independent filmmakers who are under attack while trying to uncover the truth, have very limited means to defend ourselves."

2010 Film Fests (Part Two): Taking Another Look at Hot Docs, Sarasota and LAFF

Yesterday, we wrote about two of our top film festivals for documentaries that we traveled to for the first time in 2010.

Of course, traveling to fests isn’t just about the new discoveries.  Our visits this year to several other top festivals re-ignited our thinking on their top status.

At #4, Hot Docs is such an obvious and easy choice that it might be hard to be impressed (this year was our third trip in a row).  But something about returning to Toronto in the spring once again reminds one of just why the festival works so well.  One can’t help but be wowed by the programming - a truly thoughtful selection of international titles selected by Sean Farnel - and the way in which the festival is constantly trying to rethink the long-tired panel templates. 

This year, we were also struck by the ease of seeing both films and a global coterie of docu heavyweights.  This latter point might be our own process - for some reason Toronto is a city that took us a long while to find our legs in - and maybe this is the year that everything seemed to click.  But attending Hot Docs this year felt somehow cozy and, it goes without saying, Toronto's docu-loving crowds just cannot be beat.

Sarasota (our #20), on the other hand, might be easier to overlook – but overlooking Sarasota would be a huge mistake.  Sarasota is, in our minds at least, a kind of perfect festival: a terrific and nearly completest look at the best films of Sundance and SXSW (the latter selected by Sarasota prior to their potential breakouts in Austin) as well as a handful that either premiered earlier or had been neglected by the bigger “name” festivals that preceded it.

As is the case with many of our favorite festivals, there are travel issues (and hotels near the main festival venues are few and far between – most folks were lodged in airport hotels) and there’s going to be some considerable walking involved (unless you get smart and ride some of the free bikes the festival secured), but Sarasota remains one of the big American “experience” festivals, the kind of place you tell stories about months and years later: like when a group of (nameless) documentary filmmakers feared they might have left another (nameless) documentary filmmaker to drown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2 AM; or when the bar of the (nameless) resort hotel opened back up after closing at 1 AM when the owner realized that several (nameless) indie film stars were boozing in the lobby with hula hoopers and drag queens; or when Patti Smith belted out “Gloria” five feet in front of this (not nameless) filmmaker in a small restaurant bar.

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.

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.

2009 IN REVIEW: The Year in Nonfiction Heroes

Yes, yes, we know.  It's February 1 and we're still looking back at 2009.  Call us belated, call us procrastinators, but we still have a word or three to offer about the year that's now a month past.  Last year we offered a list of ten folks who've made the community a better place in 2008.  Here's our list of 2009's nonfiction heroes:

Cinereach

2009 marked the year that Cinereach broke through as a major grant player – but with a significant twist.  Their first high profile film, OCTOBER COUNTRY, was known less for its social justice/liberal agenda perspective than for its artistry.

Sean Farnel

Through his seafar blog, the guru of Hot Docs gave readers an unvarnished and thoroughly revealing look at the process behind programming a major documentary festival.  By examining his own process so publicly, Farnel gave filmmakers a unique opportunity to understand what happens throughout a curator’s year – from fests to submissions to hundreds of index cards thump tacked to a wall.

The Board of Film Independent

There were those who deplored the actions of Film Independent and the Los Angeles Film Festival in their handling of the controversial documentary, BANANAS!*, but we found the organization’s dedication to screening the film – even in the threat of lawsuit – courageous.  For those who believe otherwise, rest assured there are plenty of film festivals and organizations that wouldn’t have taken the risk.

The Top 25 Film Festivals for Documentaries, 2nd Edition - #10. Los Angeles

Previously: #9. SXSW

#10. Los Angeles Film Festival

Our take: Known for its filmmaker retreat and its hospitality, the LA Film Festival remains one of a handful of major US fests that draws major industry attention.  It also has the richest prize in festival-land - $50,000 for the winner of the Best Documentary award.  LAFF's Westwood location gives the event a contained vibe that's often missing from large, big city festivals and the programming staff was always adept at balancing the needs of LAFF's Hollywood neighbors with its art house crowd patrons and guests.

The downside: Of all the fests in the top 10, the one with the most uncertainty.  This year's LAFF was noticibly scaled-back from previous years, with even the famous filmmaker retreat held in a nearby hotel rather than at Skywalker Ranch as in previous editions.  Transitions (beginning with the ouster of Rich Raddon and last summer's departure of Rachel Rosen - producer Rebecca Yeldham and film critic David Ansen have come in) have led some to wonder what might be next.  And during this year's festival, members of the press began to speculate that the festival may soon depart its Westwood home. 

Important recent premieres: OCTOBER COUNTRY, AFTER THE STORM, BRANSON, BANANAS!*

Selection of US films screened at 2009 Fest: BIG RIVER MAN, ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES, CONVENTION, THE COVE, FACING ALI, NO IMPACT MAN, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, SOUL POWER, WHICH WAY HOME

Our coverage of the Los Angeles Film Festival here.

The Monday Brief: Sundance! Spirits! IDA! Gothams! Is This the Biggest Week of the Year?

The Monday Brief is back and just in time - as a month full of European mega-fests comes to a close (and VIDEOCRACY takes Sheffield, TRASH HUMPERS shocks Copenhagen and LAST TRAIN HOME conquers Amsterdam) and what may just be the biggest week of the year...

The Gothams kick off the award season in New York tonight as high profile docs FOOD, INC., GOOD HAIR and TYSON take on underdogs MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER and PARADISE.  In addition to those, festival favorite OCTOBER COUNTRY is up as the sole nonfiction title in the Films Not Yet Playing at a Theater Near You category. 

Here's a piece of trivia - in the five years that the Gothams have awarded a Best Documentary prize, the winning film has never gone on to win the Oscar, which is pretty good news if you're betting on THE COVE in March.

For the first time, the Gothams will be streaming live here, starting at 8 PM eastern tonight.

Then early tomorrow - probably before some Gotham revelers have gone to bed - Film Independent will announced nominations for its Spirit Awards.  Worth watching - will FOOD, INC. sweep the major doc award nominations prior to the Oscars?  Will the Spirits act (consciously or no) as a corrective on some of Oscar's snubs (I'm looking at you ANVIL, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC and SEPTEMBER ISSUE)? 

Also worth watching are the nominations in the Truer Than Fiction category, which recognize films and filmmakers who have not yet received the attention they deserve.

Then, on Wednesday, the dam will fully break as the Sundance Film Festival announces its competition films for 2010.  Here's what we know already - after what many agreed was a lackluster 2009 festival, next year's Sundance is shaping up (on paper at least) to be a barn-burner for docs.  At least three films from Oscar nominated filmmakers are on tap, along with 2 new films from folks who took Sundance by storm with their previous features, plus a veteran Sundance filmmaker is back as producer on a debut feature.

And that's not even including LAST TRAIN HOME, the IDFA-champ that everyone and their mother expects to show in Park City (along with 2 or 3 or more titles from the just-wrapped European doc circuit).

By the way, if you haven't checked it out yet, gander at the newly re-designed Sundance fest website, which leads off with a retro graphic manifesto:

"REBEL.  This is the renewed rebellion.  This is the re-charged fight against the establishment of the expected.  This is the rebirth of the battle for brave new ideas.  This is Sundance, reminded.  And this is your call to join us."

That's a whole lot of "re" words. 

And what does it say, exactly, that John Cooper's first year at the helm begins with the declaration that Sundance needed a rebirth and a re-charge?  (Although, again, after last year, you won't get much argument from these's parts.)  Slogans aside, the week's first peak at this year's line-up will give our first clues as to whether there's a true revolution (a "re" word they didn't use) afoot.

Dole Drops Lawsuit Against BANANAS!* Filmmakers

The Dole Food Company just announced that it was withdrawing its defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers of the documentary BANANAS!*, that screened amidst controversy in June at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

The move by Dole comes directly after two weeks of strong support in director Fredrik Gertten's home country of Sweden.  First, members of parliament screened the film and voiced support for Gertten, largely on free speech grounds.  Later, two Swedish grocery store chains announced that they wanted meetings with Dole to discuss the lawsuit and a Swedish hamburger chain dropped Dole fruit salad from their menu in protest of Dole's actions against Gertten and producer Margarete Jangard.

In a statement just released, Dole directly references the action in Sweden as the reason for the company withdrawing its lawsuit:

"Dole made its decision in light of the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden, although it continues to believe in the merits of its case. Dole strongly believes in freedom of speech and expression, which are so important in Sweden and the United States.

"While the filmmakers continue to show a film that is fundamentally flawed and contains many false statements we look forward to an open discussion with the filmmakers regarding the content of the film," said C. Michael Carter, Dole`s Executive Vice President and General Counsel.

Much more about the recent developments can be found at the filmmakers website.