All these wonderful things

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 Monday Brief: Sundance Full Throttle, The Cove on the Fast Track and STF Ups It's Staff by 50%

It's Monday morning in Park City (and the rest of the United States) as folks are getting their first solid glimpses of the docu-class of 2010.

We've rounded up the critical reaction to opening night doc RESTREPO, big buzz title CATFISH, world cinema title THE RED CHAPEL and two US competition docs from Oscar winners - Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR SUPERMAN and Leon Gast's SMASH HIS CAMERA.  We'll have more critics surveys of this year's doc class as the week continues.

In other Sundance coverage, the NY Times profiles Participant Media's Diane Weyermann (the company has four documentaries at Sundance this year).  They also describe what happened when Bill Gates showed up at a screening of competition doc A SMALL ACT.  Last week, Movieline's S.T. Vanairsdale reported on the opening day press conference where Robert Redford talked about the departure of Geoff Gilmore and said, "We were beginning to flatline".  Anne Thompson digs further into Redford v. Gilmore.  And remember when we asked back in November "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?".

Meanwhile, away from Park City, life continues.  THE COVE, which before Christmas looked to be locked in a tight Oscar race with FOOD, INC., now seems to be pulling away.  A string of critics prizes, three Cinema Eye Honors (including Outstanding Feature) and a win Sunday night at the Producers Guild - along with the sense that FOOD, INC. just isn't trying that hard - seem to suggest that Louie Psihoyos' film is on the fast track for the Academy Award.  Anything can happen, of course - we don't even know who the five nominees are going to be.  But unless there's some kind of huge momentum shift when the nominees are announced (to Agnes Varda per chance?), more and more industry folks now seem resigned to a COVE win.

Our own thoughts on this year's Cinema Eye Honors, along with links to others' coverage is here.  More coverage since then by Tom Roston on the POV Blog, Hammer to Nail's Michael Tully, nominations committee member Tom Hall, IFC's Alison Willmore, Movieline's Airsdale and About.com's Jennifer Merin.  Further, POV Intern Alice Rhee writes about playing Mad Libs with Albert Maysles and being inspired to tell her own stories and Bob Alexander of Cinema Eye founding sponsor Indiepix posts his welcome remarks from the ceremony.

You can find pictures from this year's ceremony and afterparty along with this year's winners at the Cinema Eye wesbite.  [Kudos again to Cinema Eye's amazing 2010 design team - Ben Chlapek and Ryan Nelson.]

With Sundance having cleared its first weekend of premieres, some spring festivals are now locking in their schedules, ready to soon announce their own fest line-ups.  Columbia, Missouri's True/False Film Festival has announced six titles for this year's festival, including Laura Poitras' THE OATH, Lixin Fan's LAST TRAIN HOME, Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman's THOSE WHO REMAIN, Kaspar Astrup Schröder's THE INVENTION OF DR. NAKAMATS, Don Hahn's WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY and Marshall Curry's RACING DREAMS.

And finally, much congratulations to our friends and colleagues Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen, who welcomed their son Bez Powers Neihausen on Saturday.  There are photos and a (humorous, not-at-all-graphic) blow-by-blow of the arrival on the Stranger Than Fiction blog, where Thom notes that mother and father decided to forgo having the event documented on camera.  Here's a raised glass to the growing familia.

The Pre-Christmas Brief: THE COVE Leads the Laurels, LA DANSE Breaks Into the Top 20 and the Docs of Hopenhagen

We are winding down for the year and our posting over the next two weeks will be intermittent at best.  But we'll be back in the New Year with our look back on 2009, including our favorite films, nonfiction heroes and the issues that defined our community.

During the holidays, we will be twittering the important (and occasionally trivial) doc news (there will also be utterly incomprehensible nonsense), so if you aren't following us yet, now's as good a time to start as any.

But before we go...

Film critics are continuing to pile on the end-of-the-year honors, most recently with the Chicago Film Critics being the latest group to throw their hats in the ring for ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, the St. Louis Film Critics going for CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and the Florida Film Critics lining up for THE COVE.  Spreading the love a little bit further, those rapscallions at the Satellite Awards awarded their Best Documentary prize to EVERY LITTLE STEP.

We're keeping track of all of this year's major honors - from festival jury prizes to critics awards - on our 2009 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll.  At the moment, THE COVE is way out in front with the most laurels, with substantial support from film critics groups proving the difference.  ANVIL, BURMA VJ and FOOD, INC. also have a strong showing.

Further signs that the year is almost done - the docs have nearly cleared out of the art houses as Oscar bait comes to town.  According to Box Office Mojo, the only feature documentary to make more than $3,000 total in North American theaters this weekend was Frederick Wiseman's LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET.  That film took in $27,500 on 25 screens this weekend for a total box office take to date of $342K.  That's enough to edge LA DANSE into the Top 20 Nonfiction Box Office for 2009, replacing UNMISTAKEN CHILD (which quietly doubled the take of FLOW to become the highest grossing doc yet for Oscilloscope Laboratories).

An interesting piece of box office trivia - THE COVE looks to end its theatrical run with a box office take of approximately $850K - nearly the exact same box office total for 2007's SHARKWATER.

The Monday Brief: Critics Love Them Some COVE, Grant Deadlines & Oprah Takes the Doc Plunge

Good afternoon and apologies for a slightly late (and abbreviated) Monday brief - a combo of internet failures and trying to stay on top of the Top 25 Film Festival list (as well as my real job(s)).

As the midday sun hits Los Angeles, the orgy of film critics prizes is in full effect and it's pretty clear that the early favorite for crix nods will be Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE.  Just this weekend, it picked up prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics (which split the award between COVE and Agnes Varda's THE BEACHES OF AGNES), the Boston Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online and even the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (which also gave two awards to Varda - the Lifetime Achievement and Perseverance Award).  11 days ago, THE COVE picked up the Best Documentary laurel from the National Board of Review.

Only today did some critics groups start to break away from THE COVE, as the New York Film Critics gave their doc prize to OF TIME AND THE CITY and the Southeast Film Critics awarded FOOD, INC. (which previously picked up the DC Film Critics award), with THE COVE as runner-up.

This is setting up and interesting dynamic heading forward, with THE COVE seemingly the critics choice and FOOD, INC. sweeping the major pre-Oscar documentary awards (winning at the Gothams, nominated for the IDA, the Spirits and Cinema Eye), where THE COVE was mostly shut out (it leads Cinema Eye nominations with 7 but was bypassed by the other awards).

Also today, the Broadcast Film Critics named their 5 nominees.  In addition to front-running COVE and FOOD, they nommed ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT.

And at the European Film Academy's Awards on Saturday, Peter Liechti's THE SOUND OF INSECTS: RECORD OF A MUMMY received the Documentary Prix Arte.  The film is up for Cinema Eye's new Spotlight Award.

The Monday Brief: Exhaling the Week That Was, Sundance Advice, Toback's Extortion Charge & Varnum Goes on Hiatus

Deep breath.

After a week filled with all kinds of documentary developments, we're now settling into a week that's slightly less packed.  Today, the Sundance short films are announced and on Sunday, the Los Angeles Film Critics are scheduled to announce their 2009 winners.

Already the DC Film Critics jumped to the front of the line last night by announcing FOOD, INC. as their winner (it had earlier been revealed as one of five nominees along with ANVIL!, THE COVE, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and GOOD HAIR.

Another winner yesterday? Oscar shortlister MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN, which won the Best Documentary award at the British Independent Film Awards.

If you haven't been paying attention this week, you missed a humdinger, what with Sundance announcements, Gotham & IDA winners, Spirit nominations and the like.  If you missed any of it, here's a recap:

We unveiled The Horse Race and examine FOOD, INC.'s Oscar chances in light of a big week ahead, just before...

...FOOD, INC. wins the Gotham for Best Documentary and...

...is nominated for a Spirit Award in the same category, giving it the rare pre-Oscar sweep of major doc award nominations.  Others up for Best Feature include probable spoiler ANVIL!, MORE THAN A GAME, OCTOBER COUNTRY and WHICH WAY HOME.

The IDA unveils seven of its winners four days before the Friday ceremony which ultimately crowns ANVIL! as its Best Documentary Feature.  The love at the IDAs and probable love at the Spirits makes us wonder if we shouldn't reconsider ANVIL's very remote Best Picture chances.

In the midst of all this, THE COVE gets some love from the National Board of Review.

Sundance unveils a stellar competition line-up as well as a promising out-of-competition slate.

And finally, two leading Cinema Eye nominees - BIG RIVER MAN and LOOT - open at the IFC Center in NYC and a couple of cranky conservatives try to exact some kind of revenge on Al Gore and AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and the LA Times bungles the story.

The Sundance announcements always bring mixed emotions - the excitement of a whetted appetite for what's coming next year and the knowledge that literally thousands of filmmakers were disappointed not to hear Park City's clarion call.

Filmmaker Magazine's Scott Macauley addresses those who received the form emails:

"The first thing: for a few days, forget about it. Don’t think about your film. This weekend go out to a concert, or a museum, or a park. Watch football. Probably don’t go to the movies. If you were obsessively refreshing this site or Indiewire all week to see the Sundance list, take a break from not only your film but film itself.

Next week dive back into it. And as you do so, recognize the one thing you now have that all those Sundance filmmakers don't: time. Time to take a second look at the film, screen it, refine it, finesse, or perhaps just find the right post-production vendor. Time to fine tune the DIY marketing and distribution plan that you really wouldn’t have been able to pull together by mid-January."

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.

The Monday Brief: THIS IS IT and MRS. GOLDBERG Make 2009 Biggest Doc Year Ever

Greetings from London...where we await tomorrow night's Grierson Awards, Wednesday's kickoff of Sheffield Doc/Fest 2009 and Thursday's announcement of this year's Cinema Eye Honors Nominations...

The big doc news worldwide this weekend has been the massive success of MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT.  The behind the scenes look at what was to be Jackson's big comeback tour launched last Wednesday with nearly $7.5M in ticket sales - the seventh best one day take for a nonfiction feature all time (only FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and both JACKASS films had higher grosses).  Friday, the studio estimates that the film made $7.85M, which would be the sixth best day ever.

Further, THIS IS IT became the fourth nonfiction to lead the theatrical box office for the weekend.  Estimates say the film took in more than $21M this weekend (which brings its total cume to $32.5M.  International figures already put the film over $100M in its initial bow.

Strangely, bizarrely, breathtakingly, there has been a campaign by some to declare the film's box office take a huge disappointment.  Nikke Finke seemed to get there first, quoting unnamed studio rivals declaring that Sony had overestimated the film's potential.  (Sony had reportedly paid $50M for the rights.)

David Poland knocks down that nonsense - and hard:

"Anyone still pushing the idea of THIS IS IT as a disappointment should be publicly ridiculed. Aggressively...

And let's not pretend it's innocent. "Projections by the studio were not met" is reporting a fact. "Disappointment" is claiming an emotion that reflects the intent to slap back at the feeling of having been set up for more. Plus, reporting what other studios are saying as though they are impartial observers is another remarkable break in trust with readers."

Look for THIS IS IT to become the highest grossing nonfiction title of the year sometime Tuesday.

Elsewhere in the theatrical box office (and decidedly a more quiet success), Aviva Kempner's YOO-HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG passed the $1M theatrical box office mark.  She previously scored at the box office with her 1999 documentary THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG.

With that, GOLDBERG becomes the 12th nonfiction feature in 2009 to make more than $1M - and that sets a new record for nonfiction features.  Previously, the breakthrough year of 2004 led with 11 films passing the $1M threshold.  

(The others, in case you're keeping score at home, are EARTH, THIS IS IT, JONAS BROTHERS, CAPITALISM, FOOD, INC., SEPTEMBER ISSUE, GOOD HAIR, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, VALENTINO, EVERY LITTLE STEP and IT MIGHT GET LOUD.)

Remember all that talk of the doc doldrums just - wow, was that all of a year and a half ago?

The Monday Brief (a Day Later): Much Ado About Zenovich & POLANSKI, Big Weekends for CAPITALISM & MORE THAN A GAME

We were out on the road last week at film festivals in Maine and New York (more on that in a later post) during what seemed like a pretty momentous week on the indie film landscape.  And on Sunday night we were without wireless in the New York countryside, so apologies for delivering The Monday Brief a day late.

We start, naturally, with Michael Moore and his latest, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, which expanded from its successful limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles to nearly 1000 theaters, and true to his reputation as the world’s foremost documentarian, Moore scored pretty big in wide release, taking in over $4.4 million for the weekend.  In doing so, CAPITALISM becomes the third biggest nonfiction of the year (surpassing FOOD, INC. and SEPTEMBER ISSUE and lagging only Disney’s EARTH and JONAS BROTHERS 3D).

But with a per screen average of just under $5K (compared to SICKO's opening weekend average of $10K+, on half the screens), CAPITALISM will need strong word-of-mouth and a solid second weekend hold to match the $20M+ total box office take of his three most successful docs.

Still, while CAPITALISM's numbers may be modest for Moore, they still rank as highly successful for your average nonfiction film.

CAPITALISM was not the weekend’s only success story.  Kristopher Belman’s MORE THAN A GAME, retelling the historic high school basketball season of a team that would include future NBA all-star LeBron James, had one of the top doc debuts of the year.  It took in an average of $13K on 14 screens for an opening weekend cume of $182K, putting it just shy of the top 20 docs of the year.

And RJ Cutler’s THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE had another fine weekend in wide release, grossing $220K on 104 screens to bring its total to just shy of $3M. 

But while those three films were drawing folks to theaters this weekend, another film – just as was the case last week – was perhaps the week’s most talked about documentary: Marina Zenovich’s ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED continued to be in the news in the wake of Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland on 30-year old rape charges in the U.S.

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: Post-Toronto Glow for ART & COLLAPSE, Moore Returns and Are These 5 Films Your Oscar Frontrunners?

The end of the Toronto International Film Festival means the two-month headlong rush toward IDFA is upon us, wherein there will be a major or mini-major film fest on pretty much every single weekend.  So get ready for Atlantic, New York, Camden, Woodstock, Mill Valley, Morelia, Pusan, Chicago, Hamptons, London, DocLisboa, Tokyo, Rome, Leipzig, Jihlava, Sheffield, AFI, Mar del Plata, Copenhagen, Denver, St. Louis, Gijon and, finally, yes, IDFA.  That's at least 23 fests of some import in just 10 weeks.  Hold onto your hats...

But before we plunge headlong into the future fall festival frenzy, we pause to think of this year's Toronto Fest filmmakers, battered and bruised from several days of screenings, press, parties and the roller coaster ride that is a major premiere date. 

While there has yet to be a major sale announced for docs at this year's Toronto Fest, we should remember that some of last year's major TIFF titles (IT MIGHT GET LOUD, MORE THAN A GAME) didn't sell until well after the festival and at least one, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, made very good money going it alone.  But there are rumors of a deal pending for THE ART OF THE STEAL and lots of strong critical praise for COLLAPSE, which probably left the biggest impact of any doc in Toronto.  Check out our wrap on many of the top nonfiction titles at TIFF: COLLAPSE, ART OF THE STEAL, COLONY, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA, HOW TO FOLD A FLAG, CLEANFLIX, HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST AND REBEL and People's Choice Award winner THE TOPP TWINS.