Here is Michael Moore’s most recent entry on his new film “Sicko”, which is apparently so controversial it might even be confiscated by the US government before this weekend’s premiere in Cannes.
“Friends! It’s a wrap! My new film, “Sicko,” is all done and will have its world premiere this Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival. As with “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” we are honored to have been chosen by this prestigious festival to screen our work there.
My intention was to keep “Sicko” under wraps and show it to virtually no one before its premiere in Cannes. That is what I have done and, as you may have noticed if you are a recipient of my infrequent Internet letters, I have been very silent about what I’ve been up to. In part, that’s because I was working very hard to complete the film. But my silence was also because I knew that the health care industry — an industry which makes up more than 15 percent of our GDP — was not going to like much of what they were going to see in this movie and I thought it best not to upset them any sooner than need be.
Continue reading ‘Michael Moore’s “Sicko” to premiere at Cannes’
The Guardian carries an in-depth story about the BBC Panorama journalist who has been reprimanded for losing his temper during the making of a documentary into the Church of Scientology. John Sweeney has apologised for the outburst which prompted criticism of the BBC after having been placed on YouTube (courtesy of the Church of Scientology). The BBC held an internal inquiry but said Sweeney had not breached any guidelines. That is hard to imagine - watch this incredible clip or read the full article here.
The East Silver Doc Market 2007 will take place at the prestigious 11th Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival between October 23-28. The documentary film market is currently accepting submissions - the deadline is 30 June 2007. Registration is free for all eligible films which were produced in 2006–2007 and are subtitled into English. East Silver, the Jihlava festival and the East European Forum have a joint mission to promote outstanding Eastern and Central European documentaries and to improve the conditions of fllm production.
Introducing Freespeech.org - a leading online documentary channel, which buys and screens quality documentaries for its 130 million plus audience. Everyday, FSTV presents fiercely independent documentaries, experimental films and short videos. Enriching and inspiring, these programmes feature hard-to-find voices and perspectives. The documentary subjects range from criminal justice systems to women’s shelters; or from globalization, through genetic engineering to international peacekeeping. Free Speech TV broadcasts 2 new hours of its “Alternative Voices” strand every day.
Following the recent release of two of his new films, Iraqi documentary film director Basim Kahar says Iraq today is no longer recognisable to his generation of secular artists.
“Khatoun (the Ladies)” tells the stories of 62 Iraqi actresses who left Iraq in phases, most of them after the US invasion four years ago, while “Ambassador in a Cafe” is about Abu Haloub, a leftist Iraqi exile who has for years been going to Rawda cafe in Damascus, and sits at the same table every day. Kahar says this breed of artists and intellectuals, once highly respected, is becoming extinct in an Arab World which is turning more Islamic.
“Baghdad has become wrapped in a turban and wearing a beard,” Kahar told Reuters. “Abu Haloub and the 62 actresses who represented Iraqi femininity and joy in theatre, cinema and television do not belong to the ‘new Iraq’.” The US invasion, he said, had ushered in a dominant political class allied to clerics who are wiping out a tradition of art and secular thought that survived even the stifling ideology of the now-deposed Baath Party under Saddam Hussein.
Read more of this Reuters article here.
