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.
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.
