Music films are a crapshoot. The fans like it. The fans hate it. The filmmaker is a huge fan and can’t see the faults in the band…or the film. Someone who’s never heard the music before finds the film boring. Someone who’s never heard the music before finds the film fascinating. You know you’ve got […]

Back on April 7th (I know…I’m a lazy blogger) I went to the Academy’s Documentaries of Dissent, Part II. It’s nice that the Academy does so much to expose docs throughout the year, the Oscar’s Docs series, the Academy/UCLA Documentary Series and this, The John Huston Lecture on Documentary Filmmaking. The idea was to get […]

Yesterday Full Frame announced their awards for the 2006 edition of their documentary film festival. As far as North American doc fests go, there’s Full Frame, Hot Docs, Hot Springs, Silverdocs and a handful of others. So when I read the list of winners…I was disappointed. Not because the films aren’t good, there’s just nothing […]

Brian Brooks reports in indieWIRE today: The Sundance Institute announced that Cara Mertes has been named its new director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. In her new position, Mertes will oversee all of the initiatives of the program, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, the annual Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory, the annual Documentary […]

Reading my daily dose of indieWIRE something caaught my eye. Blog suicide. I clicked on it thinking it would be about: A) when you don’t write anything for over a week even after having attended a documentary event at the Academy B) when you spend all your time writing your blog and no time working […]

realscreen is relaunching as an online magazine. It’s a great resource and the first issue is a free download!

AFI’s FIFTH ANNUAL MUSIC DOCUMENTARY SERIES presented by Audi WEDNESDAYS AT 8:00 PM, APRIL 5 – MAY 11, ARCLIGHT HOLLYWOOD Crooning, rapping, head-banging, jamming–the energy of a live set, the complexity of the creative process, the enigmatic essence of a rock god or goddess. Celebrate the power of music on six consecutive Wednesdays this spring–April […]

That’s the title of Caveh Zahedi’s most recent biographical pic. I started reading Zahedi’s blog today. It’s really interesting. His discussions with Mark Cuban and open letters are both scary and eye opening. As independent filmmakers and DIY-ers his blog is an important peephole into film distribution and its constant changes today.