Archive for April, 2007
Filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky has begun working on a 2-year documentary project with Landmine Action on a major landmine clearance attempt in the Western Sahara. The project is based in Tifariti – deep in the Western Sahara, some 2,000 km south-west of Algiers – the capital of the so-called ”Liberated Zone” where the ground is laced with about seven million landmines and thousands of unexploded munitions. The film is being produced by the London-based production company Tourist with a Typewriter Ltd. Read more about the project on Taji’s blog.
The New York Times carries an article today about the fate of documentary films made in or on Iraq. Apparently, many Iraq-themed films, including John Laurence’s recent “I am an American Soldier,” which follows members of the elite 101st Airborne Division on a year-long tour of duty in Iraq, have had a difficult time finding a distributor.
“The film has been seen by some people in the distribution business and they all tell us that Iraq war films don’t do well,” Laurence told journalists before his film’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York this week.
Laurence is an established journalist and war correspondent who covered Vietnam and was embedded with US troops in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. He said he did not intend for his film to take a clear pro- or anti-war stance. “We set out to make a film from the soldiers’ point of view that was not going to be political,” he told the New York Times. Continue reading ‘Iraq films are difficult to sell in US’
The second edition of Doku Arts, the Berlin-based documentary film festival focusing on art films, will take place in September 2007. The organisers are now accepting submissions – the deadline in June 1. The festival is a new European platform for international films on art. “While the focus lies on documentaries, there is also the chance to see films that are between fiction and documentary,” says the festival brochure. For more detailed terms of entry and festival regulations, look up the festival website at www.doku-arts.de or contact info@doku-arts.de.
A Danish documentary film about the attempt to convert a castle into a Russian Orthodox monastery received top honors on April 15 at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, California. “The Monastery” was directed by Pernille Rose Gronkjær, and was given both the Best Documentary and the Emerging Artist awards. The best short film award went to “Cross Your Eyes Keep Them Wide”, directed and produced by Ben Wu.
Here is the full list of winners:
FULL FRAME GRAND JURY AWARD: The Monastery, Directed by Pernille Rose Gronkjær. Produced by Sigrid Helene Dyekær ($20,000 in lab services for a tape to film transfer, or the option of lab services to be used in a two year period from Alpha Cine Labs, Seattle.) The Grand Jury Award recognized this film as the best feature from the documentary film community this year.
FULL FRAME JURY AWARD FOR BEST SHORT: Cross Your Eyes Keep Them Wide. Directed and produced by Ben Wu. ($10,000 in film stock. Provided by Kodak.) The Jury Award for Best Short is awarded to a film 40 minutes or less in length. Honorable Mention: Zo is dat (The Way It Is) Directed by Elizabeth Salgado. Produced by Frieder Wallis.
Continue reading ‘“The Monastery” wins Best Documentary at Full Frame’
The highly acclaimed British feature documentary “Deep Water” is now available on DVD. Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s, the documentary is the true story of Donald Crowhurst, a free-thinking electronics inventor who enters the first solo non-stop, round-the-world yacht race.
Crowhurst entered the race in the hope of winning a cash prize from the Sunday Times to aid his failing business. However, early on in the voyage he encountered difficulties and secretly abandoned the race while reporting false positions. The British media celebrated him as the likely winner of the race, but the grim reality was that he gradually went insane and eventually committed suicide.
The film has been produced by the London-based APT films, and distributed in cinemas by Pathe. Check out the film’s trailer here.
Buy the film from Amazon.co.uk
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The recent festival success of the feature-length documentary “Invisibles” suggests that cooperation between non-profits and the film industry, which has so far been frowned upon, might have a tangible future. In a beautifully directed ensemle of 5 short films, the “Invisibles” tells us about human tragedies that have been pushed off the headlines by Iraq and other major humanitarian disasters in the world.
The “Invisibles” was produced by leading Spanish actor Javier Bardem in collaboration with the Spanish section of “Médecins Sans Frontières” which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The film is made up of five short documentaries, each directed by a leading name in the film world: Isabel Coixet, Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Wim Wenders, Mariano Barroso and Javier Corcuera.
In the cinematic “Letter to Nora”, Isabel Coixet interviews victims of sleeping sickness – a disease which currently affects 18 million people in Latin America. In his contribution, Fernando León de Aranoa portrays the plight of children in Uganda. Mariano Barroso contrasts the use of eflornithine in Africa and the world’s fashion capital, Paris. In his short film, Javier Corcuera examines the long-term effects of post-war trauma. Meanwhile, Wim Wenders travels to Congo to explore the issue of mass rape during the civil war.
Watch the film’s trailer on the website of the Spanish distribution company.
In summer 2007, Europe will continue to be the centre of the universe for those wanting to see some fresh documentaries. All upcoming festivals have lined up an impressive international repetoire of documentary films. Here are the dates and links:
- Munich International Documentary Film Festival (May 3-11) – Click here for the programme
- Madrid Documentary Film Festival (May 4-13) – Click here for the programme
- Cracow Film Festival (May 31- June 5) – Click here for the programme
- “Message to Man” International Documentary Film Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia (June 15-22) – Click here for the programme
Continue reading ‘Itinerary for documentary festival hoppers’
