Archive for February, 2007
A few days ago, BBC 2 aired a much talked about Litvinenko documentary, “My Friend Sasha: A very Russian murder.” The film has been in the news not just for its unseen footage of the poisoned Litvinenko, but also for the threats its Russian director, Andrei Nekrasov, received during the film’s final cut for the BBC programme, Storyville.
Here is what series editor Nick Fraser said about the film on the Storyville website: The director “doesn’t attempt to ’solve’ the Litvinenko murder. Instead he re-creates Litvinenko’s life and, more importantly, his consciousness. And he tells us how terrifying it is to be an intelligent, critical individual in contemporary Russia. The real subject of the film is Nekrasov’s admiration for Litvinenko, who was a remarkable and courageous man.”
Continue reading ‘The Litvinenko documentary everyone’s talking about’
Tonight, Britain’s Channel 4 is launching a new documentary series on children who were born with extraordinary IQ levels. Trying out a unique new format, the producers behind Child Genius will follow the children as they develop over the coming years, and will air one episode every year.
Among the selected children are 10-year old Aimee, who was the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Royal College of Music, and 11-year-old Michael who was reading Shakespeare and learning Mandarin when he was 5. Yesterday’s Guardian ran a great interview with Michael, who has just delivered his third fantasy novel to publishers.
The 2005 French documentary entitled “The Armenian genocide” is making headlines after being distributed as a free gift in this week’s European edition of Time magazine (reaching over half a million readers).
Co-produced by ARTE, the 52 min. film seems to be a well-assembled and convincing historical account of the mass deportation and extermination of Armenians by the Ottoman government between 1915 and 1917. But its latest distribution “deal” might raise a few eyebrows (especially in Turkey).
Time magazine’s decision to promote the documentary was a direct consequence of a rather odd blunder on behalf of the magazine. In its June 6, 2005 issue, Time Europe inserted a Turkish DVD as a paid advertisement, containing a segment on the fate of the Armenians under Ottoman rule.
Continue reading ‘Political advertising: DVDs on the Armenian genocide’
The second edition of the European Independent Film Festival will take place on the weekend of March 16-18 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The event brings together hundreds of independent filmmakers, distributors, producers, agents, talent scouts and film enthusiasts.
Competition in the documentary feature and short categories is open to all European documentaries made with less than 50% participation by a major studio or television broadcaster. The films can be in any language with subtitles in English or French. Many of the films screened at the 2006 festival found distribution deals straight away. The final deadline for film submissions is February 9.
For more information on the programme and on-line submissions, go to www.ecufilmfestival.com
Filmaka.com has announced a call for 1-3 minute films - this month’s topic is “Mistaken Identity.” Uploaded short films are juried by award-winning filmmakers including Werner Herzog, Neil LaBute, Paul Schrader and Wim Wenders.
Filmaka is a subscription-based online competition, which gives early-career filmmakers from around the world an opportunity to show their short films to industry professionals. The films are first voted on at the “entry level” (by fellow filmmakers), and then go to a jury for final selection. Submissions are accepted in 10 languages, and the annual grand prize is a feature film contract.
Narratives, documentaries, and music videos are welcome as long as the filmmaker owns rights to all content submitted. Visit http://www.filmaka.com to read the submission guidelines and terms & conditions.
Now that the whole world is talking about climate change, watch again the 2005 BBC documentary (available on Google video for free) which adds another layer onto the discussion by looking at the phenomena of “global dimming”. The film reveals that the man-made air pollution has reduced the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth, meaning that all global warming statistics and forecasts could have been wrong. In fact, climate change could be an even greater threat than previously thought.
The death toll that global dimming may have already caused is thought to be massive. Climatologists argue that the reflection of heat has made waters in the northern hemisphere cooler. As a result, less rain has formed in key areas and crucial rainfall has failed to arrive over the Sahel in Northern Africa. The African famines of the 1970s and 1980s were caused by these failed rains, and thus Western industrialised nations are directly implicated in these tragedies. “What came out of our exhaust pipes and power stations [from Europe and North America] contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa,” an expert says in the film.
Read the full story here.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (George Bernard Shaw)
This is the quote the filmmakers behind the “An Unreasonable Man” are using to intrigue audiences into watching a new documentary about the man who many hold scapegoat for the wrongheaded US policies of the past six years.
Ralph Nader ran for the US presidency three times (1996, 2000, and 2004) and has been increasingly criticised for his “idealistic” attempts to introduce a third political party into the US political representation system. Directed by Steve Skrovan and Henriette Mantel (once Nader’s office manager in Washington) the film focuses on the divisive race in 2000, in which Nader was excoriated for “stealing” votes which might have enabled Al Gore to defeat George W. Bush.
Continue reading ‘Ralph Nader documentary opens in US’
