All these wonderful things

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.

Smash Doc BILL CUNNINGHAM Gets Ready to Take It on the Road

BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK, the much-buzzed-about documentary about the octogenarian New York street/fashion photographer that has been setting box office records at New York's Film Forum, is set to test the waters around the country this weeked.  Openings in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Missouri and Rhode Island - along with adding additional theaters in the New York and Los Angeles markets - are the first step in a planned expansion that could ultimately bring the film to more than 100 theaters in the US.

In fact, the film is poised to become Zeitgeist's highest grossing documentary since 2004's THE CORPORATION.  The company is well known for being perhaps the most important distributor of prestige docs (THE OATH, LAST TRAIN HOME, TROUBLE THE WATER, UP THE YANGTZE), but they rarely have had a pop breakout like BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK.

The opening at NY's Film Forum was a true sensation, grossing nearly $50K in its five-day opening, which proved a record for the landmark downtown art house.  BCNY topped the previous record holder, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, by a sizable amount - VALENTINO took in $33K in it's first 5-day frame.  VALENTINO, which was self-distributed through Truly Indie and Vitagraph, ultimately took in more than $1.75M.

Oscar Goes Bigger for 2011: EXIT & 4 Other Million Dollar Grossers Lead Shortlist Pack

Yesterday afternoon, the Academy announced its documentary shortlist.  As we mentioned at the time, the headline was that EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP had defied most of the odds to hurdle what we thought would be the most difficult barrier stopping it from winning the Oscar - making the shortlist at all - while the most shocking snub was the failure to advance Laura Poitras' THE OATH, a film that we had pegged as a frontrunner and which had already been nominated for the top award at Cinema Eye, the IDA and the Gothams.

But more about those in a minute.

So, first off, it's not a terrible list.  I've seen a few folks contend that it's off-the-charts bad, and trust me, I've seen off-the-charts bad, and this isn't that.

It's curious, that's certain, but mostly because it's actually the kind of list that I think the Academy has been hoping for for years - a slick, brassy list of 15 that's chockablock full of big films and big directors: there's 5 million-dollar grossers in the bunch (the first time that has ever happened) and that doesn't include the headline-grabbing films about Pat Tillman and Eliot Spitzer and natural gas fracking, nor a just-opening, crowd-pleasing film about Brazilian garbage workers.

That makes at least 9 high-profile titles out of 15, which explains why a number of Oscar prognosticators felt pretty good about this year's list (and their pre-announcement predictions, which had centered on films that had a big theatrical launch and therefore that they'd actually heard of - not usually a good barometer).

A lot of these are big productions, too (which makes sense when you consider that Best Picture at the Oscars goes to the producers, not the directors), and for the first time in several years, many if not most of the big players seem to have a horse in the race - Sony Pictures Classics, Weinstein Co., HBO, NatGeo, Magnolia, Paramount, Cinetic, Oscilloscope (those that don't, like Roadside, either weren't really in the doc game this year or, like Zeitgeist and IFC, missed out with their own high profile titles).

And there are big name directors - two Oscar winners (Gibney and Guggenheim) and another nominee (Charles Ferguson), not to mention perhaps the world's most famous anonymous street artist.

This is the kind of shiny list that a lot of people can be (and likely are) pretty happy with, both inside and outside the Academy.

There are always going to be "snubs".  It's getting so that I dislike even using the word, because a "snub" almost implies that there's something unusual going on.  But if there are 3-5 or more "snubs" every year, it hardly seems novel.  Feels like we need a different word.

IN DEPTH: The Nominees for the 2008 Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking

Brazilian corruption, the US misadventure in Iraq, abortion and tales of two very different monasteries are the themes of the five films nominated for the top prize at the inaugural CINEMA EYE HONORS FOR NONFICTION FILMMAKING. With Sunday’s announcement in Park City, the CINEMA EYE HONORS, a new award for nonfiction filmmaking that grew out of debate here over the Academy’s shortlist in November, stands prepared to exist not as a counter-punch to another organization but as a new tradition within the nonfiction community and an important New York-based annual event for documentary excellence.

Together with my co-chair (and the chair of the esteemed nominating committee) Thom Powers (who by day is Documentary Programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival) and filmmaker Margaret Brown (director of this year’s Sundance competition doc THE ORDER OF MYTHS as well as the well-regarded BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT), the nominations were revealed at a press conference in Park City, sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and our presenting sponsor, IndiePix.

Jason Kohn’s MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) and Philip Gröning’s INTO GREAT SILENCE led all films with six nominations each. Tony Kaye’s LAKE OF FIRE has five. All three films were nominated in the categories of Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking, Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Production and Outstanding Cinematography.

Joining those films in the top category are Pernille Rose Gronkær’s THE MONASTERY – MR VIG AND THE NUN and Charles Ferguson’s NO END IN SIGHT.

Arriving in Park City: There Goes a Fanning

Festival coverage sponsored by IndiePix.

Just arrived in Park City and picked up my press credentials. I usually get up to Sundance on Saturday (only once – 2 years ago – did I get in on Friday) and each year I make the same internal supposition about arriving on Saturday – that I’m avoiding planes packed with Sundancers - only to see that each year I am quite wrong. This particular Delta flight from LAX must be at least ¾ festival folks. You can see the jet trail of self-importance for miles (I’m not letting myself off the hook with that, by the way).

Just as we deplaned and entered the terminal, I heard the words that will haunt the beginning hours of Sundance 2008: "There goes a Fanning." Although it was said with excitement, I'd like to appropriate the phrase and use it to express disappointment or, even, dejection. Like one might say, "don't we have any milk?" or "that's the way the cookie crumbles". There goes a Fanning.

Word has filtered out from Park City, via friends and fellow bloggers that two nonfictions that screened on Day One (Friday) are receiving some very healthy buzz – the competition doc ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED - which Anne Thompson and indieWIRE report has just been acquired by the Weinstein Co. (who will actually distribute it is another matter entirely) and the IDFA winner STRANDED, the latter in spite of an 2 hour+ running time. STRANDED, in particular, seems like a film that we’ll be seeing a lot of in fests that loom on the horizon and its sensational themes – Pane crashes! Cannibalism! Soccer! – seem to make the film an attractive pickup for distribution, even in these troubled box office times.

In addition to the sale of POLANSKI and the healthy buzz for STRANDED, there were two other doc acquistions announced on opening day, perhaps suggesting that the down market is not scaring away distributor. Zeitgeist, the company that had big success in 2007 with INTO GREAT SILENCE and MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES, grabbed UP THE YANGTZE, which, like STRANDED, premiered in Amsterdam.

HBO acquired US television rights for THE BLACK LIST, a doc by photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and film critic Elvis Mitchell.

I dive into everything shortly. Tomorrow we reveal the inaugural nominees (and the name!) for the new honors for nonfiction. Much more on that topic soon.