All these wonderful things

Steve James' Epic Nonfiction THE INTERRUPTERS Takes Sheffield Jury Prize

The hugely successful, first summer edition of the Sheffield Doc/Fest wound to a close this morning as delegates began to take trains back to London and as the festival's presented it's awards in a lively ceremony at the Showroom Cinema.

And when it was all over, it was THE INTERRUPTERS, Steve James' extraordinary look at a team of gang violence preventers in Chicago, that took home the Special Jury Prize, the top award at Sheffield.  It was the first major festival award for THE INTERRUPTERS, which premiered out of competition at Sundance and which received the Jury Prize from the Miami Film Festival in March (Full Disclosure: I was a member of the Miami jury, along with Sheffield Director Heather Croall).

The jury win by THE INTERRUPTERS solidifies the belief that the film will be a strong, and perhaps the leading, contender for end-of-the-year awards and honors.  The film is certainly one of the best nonfiction features in recent years and a classic example of verite filmmaking that has largely been supplanted by the more constructed work of the past decade.

The Special Jury also an honorary mention to Alma Har'el's BOMBAY BEACH, which received the World Documentary Competition prize at Tribeca earlier this year.  BEACH and fellow Special Jury competition title CALVET, a world premiere here, were two of the most buzzed about films at this year's festival.  Other films in the Special Jury competition included AT NIGHT I FLY, Barbara Kopple's GUN FIGHT, Sundance award winner HELL AND BACK AGAIN and IDFA 2010 champ POSITION AMONG THE STARS.

Sheffield Doc/Fest Takes JUSTIN BIEBER Seriously, and So Should You

Let's get one thing straight, right off the bat.  Jon Chu's JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER will not cure disease.  It's a bit long (there's a saggy middle section that could have been whipped into better shape) and the central conceit - a build-up to the tween heart-throb's big concert at Madison Square Garden - is, as they say, paper-thin.

Further, most music docs have the benefit of an artist's long history to reflect on, a career and personal arc that includes the ups and downs of year's of hard touring and music biz shenanigans.  Halfway through NEVER, I came to the abrupt realization that Justin Bieber's entire career has been shorter than production on my current film. 

That said, NEVER SAY NEVER, which had its major film festival debut here at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK after a hugely successful stateside theatrical release (#4 all time), is a film that announces early on that it intends to be much, much better than it has to be.  And by the end, the film delivers so many moments of pure, giddy joy that most of the docmakers who saw it (including more than a few repeat viewers) were bouncing through the streets of Sheffield for hours afterward.

I say most, but I did not say all.  At least a couple seemed to view the film with hostility and there were a number of others I spoke to later in the evening who openly scoffed at the film.  Indeed, check the film's IMDb page and you will see a string of 1-star reviews from folks who hate NEVER SAY NEVER, hate Justin, hate the screaming girls who love him so much.

So why did I and a number of others (who have not, as far as I can tell, taken leave of their senses) fall for this 3-D ode to a 16 year old whose music I did not recognize (nor did I find it particularly catchy)? 

Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011: Head Programmer Hussain Currimbhoy on the Move to June and This Year's Hidden Gems

[Morgan Spurlock kicked off this year's Sheffield Doc/Fest last night with the Opening Night screening of POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD.  Photo by Michelle Heighway from the Sheffield Doc/Fest Flickr page.]

With the inaugural summer edition of Sheffield Doc/Fest now up and running, it's past time to run an interview that we did in the last couple of weeks with Sheffield's Head Programmer Hussain Currimbhoy. 

We were curious about how the switch to summer changed his programming process (particularly since he just did this last November) and asked him to tip off some titles from this year's programme.

We just arrived in the UK and are about to head up to Sheffield (once our bag catches up with us).  We'll have more about this year's festival in the coming days.

All these wonderful things: First, I want to ask you about the the logistics of changing to June and how it affected your programming practices.  Were there films that you saw for November but you told the filmmakers, we want to hold off on showing this until June?  And how important were festivals like Sundance or SXSW in terms of putting potential films on your radar?

Hussain Currimbhoy: There were some titles I was eye-balling, stalking if you will, starting from around June 2010. But I knew they would not be ready for November. Because of the new time slot there were a lot of unknowns from a programming point of view. Since I began in 2007 the film submissions season gradually received more and more submissions. We are used to receiving 1200-1500 unsolicited submissions a year and I figured, OK, we might get half of that since we have less time, it's over the Christmas holidays, and despite making plenty of noise about it, some sources might not know we moved to June.

So what happened? We still got well over 1200 films! I admit it was rather... absorbing to get through that many films with the previewers with much less time. But we managed to get some beauties out of the submissions.

Indeed the Sundance and SXSW programmes were vital and ultimately a particularly rich well for us because we could access the films quickly and were able to capitalise on the media buzz and distributor interest the festivals raised for their films. Instant classics like BEATS, RHYMES, LIFE; THE INTERRUPTERS, HELL AND BACK AGAIN, BECOMING CHAZ – these were films I fell in love immediately and I remember just grinning like an idiot all day and feeling over the moon when I confirmed them for Doc/Fest. I also nabbed some glorious docs from Berllinale like BOMBAY BEACH and MAMA AFRICA. Hot Docs and Tribeca Film Festival were also very important to the programming pools.

Securing the films from filmmakers I look up to made me feel like the move to June was working. It felt good and it felt right, you know? It was like asking a really hot girl out, thinking there was little chance she would say yes, then – cut to: having dinner with the really hot girl and feeling like you da man!. As we got bigger, vital and powerful films I realised that this mad move to June was not so mad. it would clearly expand the profile and enhance relevance of Doc/Fest, not just in the UK but internationally. As a programmer what excited me was realising that the possibilities of programming choices seemed fresher, manifold and just more interesting. It was actually invigorating to investigate new veins for films.

ATWT: What's been the best thing about the move so far and has the short window between November's fest and next month's fest been the biggest challenge?

HC: The Doc/Fest team discussed the move to June quite some time before we announced it, so we were all mentally prepared – that is the most important thing when one embarks on an endeavour like this! The mental energy was there, but the body was saying: dude, read a book, please! It was hard to find the energy to start viewing so soon as the festival can knock it out of you for weeks after ward. That was perhaps the hardest thing for me - going straight back into vewing after November. I opened submissions right after the festival and found myself glued to the screen(s) while reassessing what filmmakers schedules were. I was on annual leave too in December, that really didn’t help the work load!

Peter Richardson on Filming His Powerfully Quiet Prize-Winner, HOW TO DIE IN OREGON

Before I saw Peter Richardson's HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, I'd heard over and over that it was a incredibly difficult film to get through.  In our now-annual interview in December, Sundance programmers David Courier and Caroline Libresco described the film to me as "devastating". There were reports of walkouts at Sundance (where the film won the Grand Jury Prize) and HBO's Sheila Nevins, the film's Executive Producer, even told the New York Times that the film was so wrenching, that "half her staff...refused to watch the whole film".

“Nobody wants to stare death in the face, and that’s the reason nobody wants to see this film,” Ms. Nevins said over breakfast at the nearby Canyons Ski Resort. “Don’t get me wrong — it’s very harsh, a very hard watch. But ultimately it’s an important film about courage, about dignity, about compassion.”

So you might imagine my trepidation in watching the film, which I did for the jury at this year's Ashland Film Festival (we, too, awarded HOW TO DIE our Grand Jury Prize, and not because of the regional topicality).  I mean, watching people die?  Who wants to do that?

I won't lie to you and say that I wasn't affected by the film for hours afterward or that, more than two months later, images from the film don't continue to haunt me. 

But this film is not an impossible watch and you shouldn't shy away from it when it premieres on HBO tomorrow night.  For such a loud subject, HOW TO DIE IN OREGON is a quiet, sensitive, beautifully made film that reveals Richardson to be a tremendously gifted artist.  I'd go further than that: the relationship that Richardson formed with his key subject, Cody Curtis (and her family) is what making documentaries is all about.

The moments, late in the film, that Richardson and Curtis and the camera share are some of the most complex, moving shots I've seen this year.  Without words, they convey a range of emotion.  That we get to see them is due to one thing: Richardson knew to keep the camera on.

I had the chance to query Richardson as part of a panel discussion in Ashland and also through a few questions at him during The Soapbox open forum I hosted at Hot Docs.  I asked him last week if I could re-visit some of those questions via email.

All these wonderful things:  Can you talk a bit about the genesis of this project and any trepidation you might have felt at the onset?  Obviously you must have known that one of the keys to getting the film you wanted would be to find someone or multiple someones who agree to let you follow their death process.

Peter Richardson: The actual inspiration for the film came in a rather serendipitous moment.  It was 2006, the morning I was leaving for Sundance with my first film, CLEAR CUT: THE STORY OF PHILOMATH, OREGON.  I was leaving the airport hotel in Portland early that morning and as I opened my door and looked down I saw the USA Today that had been delivered.  The above-the-fold headline on the right-hand column (as I remember it) announced the US Supreme Court ruling upholding Oregon's Death with Dignity Law.  The law had been challenged by the Bush Administration, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and was ultimately upheld in a split decision.  And this happened to be the morning that decision was announced.  So I saw that headline and it was very clear to me in that moment that I should make this film. 

It was about a year later that I actually started production. During that time I was on the festival circuit with CLEAR CUT, so I had a lot of time to think about this film, read a lot and research.  And also really question whether I was up to the task of making it, knowing what a difficult journey it would be personally and emotionally, and also question in a way whether the film “should” be made – what would the people who appeared in the film ultimately gain from their participation, and how could the film be made in a compassionate and respectful manner when dealing with such an incredibly intimate, private and emotional subject.

Sheffield 2011: MeetMarket Director Charlie Phillips on the State of the Festival Pitch

[WINNEBAGO MAN director Ben Steinbauer pitches at the 2009 MeetMarket at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Photo from the Sheffield Flickr stream by Jacqui Bellamy.]

One of the things that made Sheffield stand out a few years ago was their deviation from the traditional pitching forum concept and a move toward a more personalized, one-on-one exchange between filmmakers and potential funders.  They called it the MeetMarket.

The concept was brought to Sheffield by Festival Director Heather Croall, a creation from her time at the Australian International Documentary Conference.  Since then, the MeetMarket concept - having decision makers prepare in advance by watching clips of films and reading proposals, followed by meetings with filmmakers on projects they have interest in - has begun to spread to other festivals, leading many to wonder if the days of the IDFA-style pitch forum are behind us (or should be, in any case).  Amongst the MeetMarket success stories: THE ENGLISH SURGEON, KINGS OF PASTRY, THE SOUND OF MUMBAI, ONLY WHEN I DANCE and this year's festival favorite, GIVE UP TOMORROW.

We exchanged some questions and answers with MeetMarket Director Charlie Phillips recently - talking about the current state of festival pitching concepts as well as the MeetMarket's European focus.

All these wonderful things: When you were first talking about having this kind of industry, pitching element, how important was it to you to not do a traditional pitching forum?  And how has it changed since it's inception?

Charlie Phillips: I can't take all the credit for the format of it because Heather invented it when she was at the AIDC in Australia, and then brought it to the UK in 2006 for her first Doc/Fest. But I can certainly say that since I organised my first MeetMarket in 2008, we've intensified the personal and bespoke attention we give to everyone. I know that in '06 and '07 there were a lot of educated guesses going into the matchmaking, whereas from '08 onwards, it's been more 'true' matchmaking in the sense of spending all year gathering information on the needs of buyers and documentary-makers, seeing what they're doing, and what they need, and then using that long-term intelligence as well a short-term wishes for meetings to create something that's really reacting to specific personal needs and not some general idea of what the industry needs or what will play well on a stage.

ATWT: Did you feel like the forum concept was broken?

CP: It wasn't so much that there was a feeling of the pitching forum being broken, more that every festival and its dog was hosting a public forum, and they needed to be complimented by meetings that actually got business done and allowed for candid conversations. You'll notice at any public forum how many times buyers will react to a pitch by saying "well, we're meeting later to talk about this" or "we met yesterday and we talked in detail about this" and it just seems like you might as well cut out that showcasing of stagey reactions and go straight to the personal meetings instead. That's not to say that every public pitch only has 'pretend' reactions but there is a lot of disingenuousness in reactions around the table, and that comes from a fatigue about feeling like you should be there rather than it actually being useful. I know that earlier in the decade before MeetMarket existed in its current form, that feeling was even more acute. Now that we're offering these personal matchmade meetings, I think it's actually empowered the big public forums, which now themselves feel more relaxed, smaller and more relevant.

Josh Fox Prepping GASLAND Sequel, Still Fighting Off Gas Industry

[Photo by Karie Currid of the University of Missouri's Maneater student newspaper of Josh Fox speaking last year at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO.]

Last June, as GASLAND was premiering (after months of stellar festival screenings) on HBO, we wrote about the emerging attacks on Josh Fox by allies of the natural gas industry.

When Fox was shortlisted and later nominated for an Academy Award for the film earlier this year, the attacks intensified, with gas industry front groups arguing that AMPAS should deny Fox his nomination because, according to them, the film was factually inaccurate.

Many filmmakers would be off to the next topic and issue the moment the Best Documentary Feature envelope is opened at the Kodak Theatre, but a new article in Rolling Stone by Alexander Zaitchik notes that Fox hasn't stopped his push to outlaw "fracking" and the industry hasn't stopped tracking his every move.

Since HBO picked up the rights to Gasland last June, fracking has come under a level of public scrutiny that the industry – encompassing hundreds of firms involved in drilling, refining, and transport – has spent the last decade trying to avoid. It’s easy to see why. The spotlight on fracking’s risks has seriously retarded the industry push to gain access to the entirety of the nation’s gas reserves. In statehouses around the country, momentum has been slowed and moratoriums proposed and instituted. The stage is set this year for especially raucous public showdowns in New York and Pennsylvania, which sit on the northern tip of the Marcellus Shale, a massive underground gas deposit extending from Southern Virginia to within spitting distance of the New York statehouse in Albany.

The deep politics of gas development will feature prominently in GASLAND's sequel, which Fox is currently shooting for an early 2012 release. It will include cameos from those at every level in the debate, including U.S. senators, small-town inspection officers, and petition-wielding parking-lot activists. “On the one side is a very powerful industry and their political and media allies,” says Fox. “But there are small groups of extremely dedicated activists fighting fracking in every state where it’s a threat. It’s incredibly inspiring to see these mini-labs in democracy in action.”

The article goes on to document some of the industry attacks, led by front group "Energy in Depth", that we wrote about last June.  It also details some of the attacks that have been lodged at Fox by government officials - those supposedly in place to protect the public from ecological dangers. 

Meanwhile, at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood website, conservative docmaker Ann McElhinney has praise for GASLAND's technical prowess ("GASLAND is very pretty, the shots are artistic and the editing is slick and attractive. Josh Fox, the film’s director and narrator, has a soft laid back tone that is alluring and soothing. He can play the banjo and he does."), but claims that the detective work by Fox is lacking:

If he had done any investigation he would find there is no credible, independent evidence that shows fracking for natural gas poses any risk to human health.

But McElhinney, who made a counter-Gore docu a couple years ago called NOT EVIL JUST WRONG that had a premiere screening at IDFA, appears to have missed that the recent science is trending toward backing up some of Fox' GASLAND arguments.  As noted in Rolling Stone:

In April, scientists at Cornell published a study suggesting the methane released by drilling and refining gas could undermine the fuel’s credibility as a climate-friendly alternative to coal and oil. Another scientific study, conducted by a team at Duke University and published in a recent issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, officially linked gas drilling to the phenomenon of “flammable faucets”, in which enough gas seeps into the water system that household drinking water can be lit on fire with a match.

HOT DOCS 2011: Sundance Audience Faves SENNA and BUCK Among Best Films of Year

It's been a little over a week since I returned home to Los Angeles after this year's edition of Hot Docs.  I'm a big fan of Hot Docs - it's my fourth year running at the Toronto festival - and I think it might have been my best experience yet.

Part of this is due to the opening of the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  I wasn't at TIFF last year (in fact, cost and timing has combined to make it impossible for me to attend since my own ABOUT A SON premiered there in 2006), so this was my first opportunity to view the new space.  Let me add my voice to the chorus of those who find the new(ish) building remarkable.  In spite of the fact that the gleaming cinema complex is a bit of a hike from the central action of the Hot Docs festival (which remains the Rogers Industry Center on the Victoria College Campus) and seems completely removed from any industry hobnobbing, I was more than content to hunker down in the space for a full day, taking time to get great food and wine in the midst of screenings in the building's technically top-notch theaters.

In fact, being completely removed from industry hobnobbing was actually a selling point.

One of the things that I've found at festivals, and I only have myself to blame here, is that when I actually tuck myself into back-to-back-to back screenings, I have some of my best experiences.  I'm as guilty as anyone of being attracted to the shiny allure of the undiscovered mixer or meal or moment to rest.  But my day at the Lightbox and away from the industry element of the festival helped crystalize this for me.

It didn't hurt that I saw some terrific films.  In fact, I've been pretty lucky this year in that I was asked to serve on juries for the Miami and Ashland Film Festivals and that afforded me the opportunity to see a number of this year's most talked-about films - particularly a majority of this year's Sundance crop.  The two juries I was on gave awards to THE INTERRUPTERS (Grand Jury) and IF A TREE FALLS (Special Jury) at Miami and to HOW TO DIE IN OREGON (Grand Jury) at Ashland.  From these fests, I was also a big fan of James Marsh's latest, PROJECT NIM.  All four were on the docket at Hot Docs as well.

But in Toronto, my great favorites were two terrific portrait films: Asif Kapadia's SENNA, about the Formula One champion racer Ayrton Senna, and Cindy Meehl's BUCK, the audience favorite about Buck Brannaman, the "real life horse whisperer".

Wrapping Up the Spring Docs Box: BIEBERnaut, CATS, CAVE, CUNNINGHAM & I AM

With summer just around the corner, the spring theatrical documentary season is about to wrap up.  On the horizon are a few of the titles that made waves at Sundance this year (we expect big things for BUCK, PAGE ONE and BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE, among others), while a few late spring titles (CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, L'AMOUR FOU) spill over their expansion into the summer months.

So far, 4 of 2011's nonfiction titles have crossed the magical $1 million threshold (with a fifth about to), including two that made it over the top this weekend: Werner Herzog's still-expanding 3D CAVE (which premiered at last year's Toronto Film Festival) and I AM, the big question docu from high concept comedy director Tom Shadyac.  The latter has been nursed by distribtutor Paladin (and is by far the micro-distrib's greatest box office success) and has drawn comparisons to the doc/fiction hybrid WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?, which grossed more than $10M over its long release in 2004.

The other two hits are no big surprise - there's the Biebernaut, NEVER SAY NEVER, which just became the 4th biggest nonfiction hit in history, as well as AFRICAN CATS, the latest in the Disneynature Earth Day franchise.  It looks unlikely that CATS will match the dollars made by its predecessors (EARTH made $34M and OCEANS took in $19), but with a haul of nearly $15M, CATS has surpassed CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY to become the #17 docu of all time.

Tim Hetherington Talks about DIARY at Stranger Than Fiction

Yesterday, in our post about the death of filmmaker/photographer Tim Hetherington, we included his recent nonfiction short, DIARY.  The film has been playing at festivals over the past year (including at Full Frame last weekend), and it screened at New York's Stranger Than Fiction series on February 1.

Here's Thom Powers interviewing Hetherington at the Q&A after the film:

On the Stranger Than Fiction blog, Thom also posted a eulogy for Chris Hondros, the Getty Images photographer who was also killed in yesterday's attack, someone that Powers has known for many years:

He was my favorite dinner companion, possessing a rare perspective on what’s happening in the world, but also a good listener. He was quick-witted. He liked teaching. He took interest in other people’s work. One of his last Facebook messages was to congratulate colleagues who had won awards.

He didn’t have the self-destructive bent that characterizes some war reporters. He could plan ahead. We were plotting an event in Toronto this June to show his Tahrir Square photos. He was going to get married in August. Outsiders might consider his whole profession foolhardy. But I think he considered it a privilege, albeit a dangerous one. He told an interviewer, “you see humanity at its worst, but to me it’s balanced by the fact that you also see humanity at its best. I’ve seen such examples of courage and human generosity.”

There have been a number of tributes to Hetherington and Hondros, including individual posts on the NY Times' LensBlog (Hetherington's is here, Hondros is here).

Tim Hetherington, 1970-2011

[Tim Hetherington, center, at January's Cinema Eye Honors, where he was nominated for Outstanding Production and Audience Choice Prize. Photo by Deneka Peniston.]

This morning, we were devastated to hear the news that Tim Hetherington, the acclaimed war photographer, journalist and Oscar-nominated co-director of RESTREPO, had been killed in Libya earlier today in the besieged city of Misrata.  Hetherington was one of four journalists to be hit by a rocket-propelled grenade - at least two others, including Getty photographer Chris Hondros, were gravely injured and clinging to life.

In an interview the day he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, with co-director Sebastian Junger, Hetherington related that a journalist had asked the filmmakers whether being nominated was something they thought about while filming in Afghanistan.  Junger replied, "Well, actually the foremost thing in my head was not to get killed."

In December, we spoke to Hetherington and Junger about their work on the film and I asked Junger what he had learned from working with Hetherington:

"I learned a lot.  I mean, writers don’t necessarily think in visual terms and, so, Tim was just aware of things.  He was just aware of the visual world in a way that I wasn’t.  Once there was a very boring afternoon and nothing was happening.  There hadn’t been a firefight in a week, everyone was hot and I was just completely zoned out.  And everyone was asleep, everyone in the outpost was asleep practically.  It was like mid-afternoon nap, just the buzz of flies and that’s it.  And Tim was creeping around photographing all the sleeping soldiers.  And for me it was the epitome of a moment where nothing was happening, there was no story to record, and Tim was like, “When do you ever see soldiers asleep, nobody ever sees soldiers asleep.  This is awesome.”  And I realized, oh my God, everything has a value.  So, as a result, I wrote a paragraph about what’s it’s like to be at an outpost where everyone’s asleep.  And that paragraph’s in the book.  So that was just one example of the little ways that we affected each other.  And Tim would think really conceptually about things – as a journalist, I think in a kind of linear fashion and Tim would really think conceptually, like what’s the emotional experience out here.  He would organize his thoughts in a way that wasn’t linear, it was something else.  And that was one of the reasons I divided my book into “Fear”, “Killing” and “Love”.  I was trying to figure out a narrative for the book and literally I was like, OK, do like Tim does.  Think about it conceptually, not linearly.  That’s two of the many things that rubbed off on me."