Sundance Channel

PUSH GIRLS premieres Tuesday April 17th

Sundance Channel — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:40:22 +0000

Sundance Channel rolls out its spring season with the groundbreaking docu-series PUSH GIRLS, premiering April 17^th at 10p E/P. PUSH GIRLS, a new series from producer Gay Rosenthal (Ruby, Little People, Big Word), traces the lives of four dynamic, outspoken and beautiful women who, by accident or illness, have been paralyzed from the neck or the waist down.

2012 Sundance Film Festival Award Winners

Sundance Channel — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:07:33 +0000

Sundance Institute this evening announced the Jury, Audience, NEXT <=> and other special awards of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony, hosted by Parker Posey in Park City, Utah. An archived video of the ceremony in its entirety is available at www.sundance.org/live. “Every year the Sundance Film Festival brings to light exciting new directions and fresh voices in independent film, and this year is no different,” said John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival. “While these awards further distinguish those that have had the most impact on audiences and our jury, the level of talent showcased across the board at the Festival was really impressive, and all are to be congratulated and thanked for sharing their work with us.” Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “As we close what was a remarkable 10 days of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, we look to the year ahead with incredible optimism for the independent film community. As filmmakers continue to push each other to achieve new heights in storytelling we are excited to see what’s next.”

Photos: Joe Berlinger takes Sundance Channel UNDER AFRICAN SKIES

Sundance Channel — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:00:53 +0000

Director Joe Berlinger has covered the West Memphis Three, Metallica and the oil industry. For his latest film, UNDER AFRICAN SKIES, he teemed up with Paul Simon to revisit the iconic album GRACELAND. Don’t miss the photos in our gallery: UNDER AFRICAN SKIES

Sometimes NIMBY is good: ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:48:11 +0000

"Not in my backyard" - it's an attitude environmentalists frequently encounter when proposed renewable energy installations move closer to becoming real ones. The Cape Wind project, for instance, has encountered stiff resistance from wealthy part-time residents of Cape Cop who, while supporting renewable energy in general, don't want their view spoiled. That's a fairly easy example of the NIMBY attitude to dismiss, as are those involving resistance to most wind projects. But what if a coal or nuclear plant was planned for nearby? Would you want to be "downstream" from either of those? Would the label NIMBY seem fair for those who protested such development? If you think so, you may want to check out ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA, which premieres on January 23rd at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance Film Festival follow up: HELL AND BACK AGAIN

Whitney Kimball — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:18:01 +0000

Well, the Oscars got something right. Though they overlooked Sundance 2011’s other top doc HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, HELL AND BACK AGAIN is on this year’s shortlist. Director Danfung Dennis documents the story of 25-year-old Nathan Harris, a Marine Corps sergeant who was severely injured in Afghanistan. The film follows his recovery and transition back to life back home in North Carolina. Cut jarringly with Dennis's own footage from behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, HELL delivers a violent jolt back home. This winner of Sundance's World Cinema Jury Prize and World Cinema Cinematography Award is still in theaters, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go now.

Get your Sundance premieres right here: From Spike Lee to Bruce Willis and Lizzie Olsen to Ice-T

Sundance Institute — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:25:28 +0000

Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the out-of-competition Premieres and Documentary Premieres sections of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival will be held January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival.

BAG IT: when plastics get personal

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:21:15 +0000

Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

After watching the trailer above, you may well have already characterized BAG IT as another activist documentary that does that Micheal Moore thing of setting an "everyman" out on a journey of exploration, learning and that final "ah ha" moment. And to some degree, you'd be right. Jeb Berrier (the face of the film) describes himself as an "average American," one who doesn't give a lot of thought to the impact of his consumption choices. You may think "Okay, I know where this is going," and again, you'd be half right. While director Suzan Beraza does follow in Berrier's footsteps much like a Moore or a Morgan Spurlock follow in their own, she allows room for the journey to take whatever twists and turns come up...

BUNDLED, BURIED & BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: short doc about the physical landscape of the Internet

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:06:33 +0000

Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors from Ben Mendelsohn on Vimeo.

I guess Senator Ted Stevens really was onto something when he described the Internet as a series of tubes. Ben Mendelsohn created this masterful short documentary, BUNDLED, BURIED & BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, that pulls back the curtains to give us a fascinating look at the actual, physical infrastructure of the digital "cloud" that we increasingly inhabit (and which permits the existence of lolcats). "He takes us inside 60 Hudson Street in New York City, a nondescript building that houses one of the major nodes of the Internet on the east coast." I've walked by this building many times throughout my eight years in NYC (Can I call myself a New Yorker yet?) - probably even while writing a tweet - but without realizing I was passing the main hub that makes this whole Twitter thing possible.

Gandhi’s KUMARE and other documentary tricks

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:57:31 +0000

On the heels of CATFISH and I’M NOT THERE comes Vikram Gandhi’s KUMARÉ, the SXSW Audience Award winner that should be showing up in theatres sometime this Spring. The director calls it "compassionate rule-breaking," and his exploration of spirituality definitely breaks the rule of disclosure. A dozen or so people are hoodwinked into becoming spiritual disciples of someone they believe to be an Indian guru, but who's really just a 30-something Columbia grad in India making his first film - that, and he happens to be named Gandhi.

Weekly movie trailer roundup: Harry Potter’s not over yet

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:40:11 +0000

Because the books are so beloved, the movies so successful and the fans still reeling in post-Potter malaise, Warner Bros. is releasing one final (and this is really it guys, for real, I swear) look back with the real behind-the-scenes story, the true making-of, the 48-minute documentary only available on the DVD purchased at Target, WHEN HARRY LEFT HOGWARTS.

THE RHYTHM OF RUTLEDGE: a tiny town attracts big thinkers

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:45:17 +0000

You can certainly be forgiven if you've never heard of Rutledge, Missouri. The Mennonite town of about a hundred people is miles from anything resembling a major highway, and surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland in Northeastern Missouri (though it's kind of famous for its flea market, I hear). Despite being tucked away in a pretty conservative part of the state, you might call Rutledge the hub of a (relatively) quiet revolution: three alternative communities, all with an ecological bent, have been founded (and are running just fine) within 1-2 miles of the town in the last 40 years...

Remembering activist Wangari Maathai through film

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:21:18 +0000

It's been a tough couple of months for heroes of the environmental and sustainability movements. Sustainable business pioneer Ray Anderson passed away from cancer in August, and now Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Nobel peace prize laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement has also lost her own battle with the disease. Described as "a force of nature" by the executive director of the United Nations' environmental program, Maathai recognized connections between environmental degradation, poverty and women's rights in her home country, and she aimed to address all of these issues through one of the simplest of acts: planting trees.

How to improve documentaries – here’s the truth

Michael Musto — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:40:22 +0000

Audiences have become obsessed with filmed tellings of the truth, even if they’re not always all that truthful, but there are some familiar traps documentaries fall into that remove luster from the genre and threaten to make them more like schlockumentaries. To avoid these pitfalls in the future, I propose the following doc-ing guidelines:

A UFO “Welcome Center” in South Carolina

Blair Pfander — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:48:03 +0000

Hopeful cloud-gazers will love the strange new documentary by Michael and Morgan Livingston, WELCOME TO PLANET EARTH. The film, which clocks in just under ten minutes, tells the peculiar tale of Jody Pendarvis, a self-proclaimed "alien ambassador" who maintains an enormous UFO Welcome Center on his front lawn in Bowman, South Carolina. Pendarvis clarifies his mission to the crew during the film's opening shots, in case they'd somehow missed the giant, wooden spaceship behind them. "I welcome people from other planets - not this one, k?" The rest of the film follows Pendarvis through a tour of his spaceship, from the Command Center - an amalgam of plastic lawn chairs, christmas lights and old TV monitors - to the Lookout, a circular room on the top level with a porthole window in the ceiling. "This used to be a bedroom, where the aliens could come and stay and sleep," Pendarvis explains. "This is an air bed so they can just blow it up and be comfortable."

5 reasons why WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? still matters

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:45:31 +0000

If you've taken a look at the schedule for The Green programming this month (and the rest of what's on Sundance Channel this week), this Sunday's showing of WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? may have caught your attention - and even had you scratching your head a bit. After all, aren't electrified vehicles now alive and well? The Nissan LEAF (a fully electric car) and the Chevy Volt (a plug-in hybrid with a 40 mile all-electric range) are getting lots of attention, and boutique automakers like Tesla are still plugging away (so to speak). Gearheads are converting their own cars to electricity and even offering the service to others. And director Chris Paine's next film is called REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR. Doesn't all of this prove that this five-year-old documentary is already dated?

Best of Kickstarter, 9/12: THE HAPPY FILM

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:23:03 +0000

We’re starting off the week with a new Kickstarter projects so good we’re not including any others. What am I talking about, you ask? What’s this Best of Kickstarter thing we’ve been blogging about every Monday? Well, it seems like everyone is pitching their idea to Kickstarter. We think that’s great, but with great power comes great responsibility, and while the 23-person Kickstarter team does their best to filter out the winning projects from the thousands and thousands of proposals they receive, there are still hundreds of thousands of new projects that launch each week. That’s a lot of ways to spend your hard-earned five bucks. Too many ways, actually. How can one person sort through it all? Relax, we’ll do it all for you.

Okay, so remember when I told you about Stefan Sagmeister's latest project, THE HAPPY FILM? Of course you do (just nod politely to validate me)! And remember when I said you should contribute, so you went to the website and looked around all confused because you couldn't find the 'donate now' button? Well, live in confusion no longer, my friend. The happy dudes behind THE HAPPY FILM have now made it really easy for us to help them fund their movie by making it an official Kickstarter project.

Weekly movie trailer roundup: SHUT UP LITTLE MAN and OUR IDIOT BROTHER

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:30:01 +0000

With today's release of SHUT UP, LITTLE MAN and OUR IDIOT BROTHER, it's officially a Sundance festival weekend! Regardless of my obvious affiliation and personal bias, I'm pretty darn excited for these two, so excited, in fact, that I actually used an exclamation mark to express myself (I never do that). I didn't go to the festival last January and aside from these two trailers, not a teaser or clip have I seen.

Snoozing through the most exciting food in the world in EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:00:20 +0000

In a lecture given by El Bulli's Ferran Adrià to his new crop of fledgling cooks, he tells them at the food at El Bulli is less about taste and more about concept. When it comes to avant garde cooking, Adrià is the leader of the pack. Until he shut down his restaurant this July, he would regularly close it for half the year to conduct experiments with his core team in Barcelona, and the reopen six months later it to diners who gladly shelled out $500 for one of Adrià's epic 35-course meals.

A Surge In Serge Gainsbourg’s legend

Michael Musto — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:11:37 +0000

Except for the time Meryl Streep played a rabbi, the coolest man with an accent on screen, as of next week, will be Serge Gainsbourg. The French composer of hypnotic jazz-pop in the 1960s is the subject of GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE, in which Eric Elmosnino plays the guy complete with all his quirks and multitalents.

Joyce McKinney: the psychopath beauty queen in Errol Morris’ TABLOID

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:15:22 +0000

In 1977 Joyce McKinney, a Miss Wyoming beauty queen, flew to England, kidnapped her former boyfriend, Kirk Anderson - a Mormon missionary - and drove him to a cottage where she tied him to the bed and raped him repeatedly in an attempt to become pregnant. According to McKinney, however, Kirk left with her willingly and the two proceeded to have the best weekend of their lives. She didn't get pregnant either way, a failing she attributes to the evil Mormon brainwashing that made Anderson impotent. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you haven't seen TABLOID, the latest from veteran documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (FOG OF WAR, THE THIN BLUE LINE). Extensive interviews with the very camera un-shy McKinney, as well as with the tabloid reporters who followed the case, a young ex-Mormon and even a Korean dog cloner, make this hands down the most entertaining documentary I've seen all year. And since Anderson refused to be interviewed (no surprise there), you're naturally left puzzling over what really happened long after.

Ray Anderson on film

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:00:54 +0000

Last week, sustainable business pioneer (and a personal hero of mine) Ray Anderson lost his battle with cancer. Founder and longtime CEO of Interface, Ray was a pioneer from the outset. A commercial flooring company, Interface brought the carpet square to the United States. At age sixty, after nearly two decades of success, Ray could've retired to a house on the golf course and lived out his golden years in luxury. Instead, after reading Paul Hawken's "The Ecology of Commerce," this established businessman had an epiphany (or, as he liked to call it, a "spear in the chest" moment): he had found success and made his fortune by plundering the Earth's resources. Ray committed himself and his company to big, hairy, audacious goals concerning their environmental impact, and made amazing strides in an industry that's traditionally been very resource and energy intensive.

Cindy Meehl’s BUCK

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:29:03 +0000

Cindy Meehl’s BUCK is a horseman’s story. A character portrait featuring trainer Buck Brannaman - probably one of the best looking modern cowboys you’ll ever see (never mind his beautiful wife and daughter), BUCK is a story of self-realization. This coming-of-self angle may be why the film has been winning awards all over the place and crossing over to audiences who don’t give a lick about horses. That’s me, really (a rider I am not), but I have to say I wasn’t as charmed as I wanted to be. I took my son and had to explain beforehand that much of the movie was going to concern the fact that Buck had been mentally and physically abused by his alcoholic father. (“What’s abuse?” asked my son. When I told him some children are beaten he looked at me earnestly and said, “You and daddy don’t do that.”) Buck’s journey from foster child to world-class horse whisperer who revolutionized the way horses are trained is definitely interesting, but this is a case of slight overhype. “Much of the movie - too much of it - is just Buck in the corral, riding, working with ropes and flags, conditioning a horse to behave,” says Orlando Sentinal critic Roger Moore.

The Perennials Project: building bridges in a shifting world

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:25:20 +0000

Those of us in the green space may tend to equate the term "sustainable community" with practices like the growth of neighborhood farmers markets, the integration of renewables into a town or city's energy mix or the presence of innovative green businesses. Behind all of these practices, of course, are people committed not only to a more environmentally benign way of life, but also to the viability of their communities. An eclectic group of young creatives has redefined the word "perennials" to describe the people at the forefront of creating healthier, more livable communities. The Perennials Project will explore these people who, according to the project's website, are "working toward a sustainable future by bridging divides."

THE HAPPY FILM, support the new doc by Stefan Sagmeister

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:20:18 +0000

Watch the smile-inducing trailer.

What does it mean to be happy? How do we measure it? Is happiness like a muscle we can flex at will, and if so, "is it possible to train our mind in the same way we train our bodies?" A short while ago, artist and designer Stefan Sagmeister decided to put these questions to the test with a three-part practice involving meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy and prescription drugs - and make a documentary about his experience called THE HAPPY FILM. Through experiments and explorations ("from the sublime to the ridiculous") loosely based on his pivotal book "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far," Stefan will test "once and for all if it's possible for a person to have a meaningful impact on their own happiness."

VOICES OF THE TRANSITION: the transition movement comes to film

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:33:29 +0000

Voices of the Transition - english Trailer from les jardins on Vimeo.

Feeling paralyzed by news of environmental challenges like climate change, water shortages, and biodiversity loss? Fed up with political inaction and posturing on these issues? Groups of people around the world have decided to take matters into their own hands, and the transition movement represents efforts to by towns, villages, and even countries to adapt to changing environmental circumstances, to lighten their impact, and to even create more meaningful ways of life.

IF A TREE FALLS: THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:00:08 +0000

The term eco is thrown around a lot these days, preceding a mind-numbingly long stream of words like -friendly, -chic, -tourism, and the ubiquitous -tote. But rarely do we hear it in conjunction with terrorism, as in eco-terrorism, the subject of Sam Cullman and Marshall Cury's documentary IF A TREE FALLS, which won the U.S. Documentary Editing Award at Sundance this year.

THE LAST MOUNTAIN: one community’s fight against mountaintop removal

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:03:54 +0000

When did you first hear the term "fracking," the shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a decades-old natural gas extraction technique that's come under scrutiny from both activists and governments alike? It was probably around the time of the release of Josh Fox's GASLAND (which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival). No doubt that director Bill Haney and the producers of THE LAST MOUNTAIN (an official selection at Sundance this year) hope their activist documentary will bring similar attention to the practice of mountaintop removal by coal mining companies... another extraction method that's been in use for years, and received a ton of attention within environmental and activist circles, but that hasn't hit a tipping point in terms of general awareness of the damage it does to Appalachian communities in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky (as well as watersheds that feed huge portions of the Eastern US).

Robyn Documentary

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:41:10 +0000

Robyn, the prolific and innovative Swedish pop singer, is the subject of a new hour-long documentary. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the life and professional evolution of a child star to an iconic force. It is in four parts – click through to the next part after each part ends.

THE BICYCLE CITY: how two wheels empowered a community

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:05:41 +0000

The Bicycle City. Trailer from Greg Sucharew on Vimeo.

Here in the US, bicycles generally fall into the category of "alternative transportation"... meaning an alternative to a car. Bikes are also alternatives in Rivas, Nicaragua... but, in their case, it's an alternative to walking. Decades of war and political strife in the Central American country have left basic infrastructure and economic opportunities in ruin; in Rivas, providing citizens with bikes -- about 20,000 over twenty years -- has allowed them to create opportunities for themselves uncommon in many parts of the developing world. The documentary THE BICYCLE CITY focuses on the role these bicycles have played in reinvigorating this coastal town. Currently in post-production, director Greg Sucharew's film tells the story of how non-profit Pedals for Progress brought all those bikes (generally used ones from the US) to Rivas... and how they're changed the socio-economic outlook for its residents.

Ventriloquy gets a hand in new doc

Michael Musto — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:09:35 +0000

Mel Gibson in The Beaver isn’t the only dysfunctional person with his hand up a puppet these days. The new documentary Dumbstruck has five of them—and they’re all rather likable despite the way they tend to mess up their human relations in favor of bonding with the playthings that have become their lifeline and livelihood. The ventriloquists are extremely varied—from entry level to hugely successful—but they all seem to follow a certain pattern: they have all had loneliness issues. They find comfort in their puppets, even if they have constant one-upmanship debates with them. And they usually have to deal with disapproval from relatives who’d way prefer that they settle down with actual humans.

Vimeo of the Week: Through The Middle

Bradford Shellhammer — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:24:31 +0000

Through the Middle from Clouded Vision on Vimeo.

Clouded Vision's Through the Middle is a wonderful and short documentary showing a barber shop and its decline. It is a bittersweet goodbye letter to another time and another place where industry and prosperity once thrived. It's a perfect snapshot of what it's like being a small business owner during a recession. Simon James Lane and Tom Sweetland's film is profound and pint-sized. More on the film:

The Fresh Kills landfill comes to film

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:51:38 +0000

A couple of year ago, I took a look at New York City's 20+ year plan to transform the closed Fresh Kills landfill into the city's largest park. That plan represents the end of the story: for years, residents and leaders on Staten Island worked to get the landfill closed... with some even threatening "secession" from the city over the health hazards and sensory displeasure created by the US' largest dump.

BLACK RODEO – bucking broncos with the Queen of Soul

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Last night we sat down around the boob tube to watch the recently-released documentary BLACK RODEO. (What can we now call our flat screens to disparage them and our mildly comatose activity staring at them? The Bean Screen? It just doesn’t have the same ring.) BLACK RODEO is a 1972 doc on an all-black rodeo in NYC – it delves into the history of black involvement in building the ranch-laden West, and boasts some amazing footage of cowboys gone crazy on bulls gone wild, all to an amazing soundtrack of James Brown and Aretha Franklin. It’s not your typical red neck “That is one rank bull!” commentary … it’s bucking broncos with the Queen of Soul! Now that’s awesome.

Young filmmakers challenge viewers to “Find Your Footprint”

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:01:29 +0000

The last time I mentioned young filmmakers, I was discussing college students. Turns out they're not the youngest people making environmentally-themed documentaries: the National Geographic and P&G Future Friendly "Find Your Footprint" contest solicited short films from elementary school classes in which the kids shared their ideas for conserving natural resources.

Gay self-hating re-examined in new film

Michael Musto — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:57:31 +0000

Mart Crowley’s landmark play The Boys in the Band was first produced in 1968, a year before the Stonewall rebellion changed the face of modern gay movement with defiance and pride. In its bitchy and witty portrayal of a group of friends sharing dangerous New York party games that often verge on the sadistic and self-loathing, it represents a darker moment in gay identity—one the LGBT community has long wanted to turn its back on in shame. But enough time has passed that people are more willing to embrace the play (and the 1970 film version, directed by Wiliam Friedkin) as an important step forward in gay representation and catharsis. In fact, Boys has engendered so much new lovin’ that it’s the subject of a documentary, Crayton Robey‘s Making The Boys, coming out this month in an attempt to put the work in its proper historical place. As one of the talking heads in the film—along with Crowley, Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and many more—I’m qualified to make several defenses of the original play.

WASTE LAND turns garbage into gold

Michael Musto — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:58:13 +0000

Lucy Walker’s Oscar nominated Waste Land is just another documentary about a Brazilian-American artist who travels to his birthland to create portraits of garbage pickers out of recyclable materials. But it’s much more than that. Waste Land is about hope, collaboration, the environment, finding dignity through poverty, and the redeeming qualities of trash. (All those human spirit-y things I never like much under less felicitous circumstances—though I do like trash.)

85-year-old Victor Kaufmann’s legacy: a forest

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:49:37 +0000

Most of us probably view our "golden years" as a time in which we'll enjoy the fruits of a lifelong labors, and perhaps try to make sense of our lifetimes and our legacies. At the age of 75, though, Victor Kaufmann decided to start a project: the reforesting of a parcel of land he'd recently purchased in Lyle, WA. Unfazed by the notion that he would not witness the full fruition of his project -- a healthy, mature forest -- Victor set out to plant ten thousand trees on his land. This Spring, ten years after starting, Victor will put that ten thousandth tree into the ground... and a team of student filmmakers, which includes his granddaughter, will be there to witness and record the event.

A global warming documentary even a greedy bastard could love

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:19:24 +0000

Tried arguing climate change science with someone who doesn't buy it? Yeah, it's tough... and getting tougher. Even as the science itself becomes more clear, fewer people are concerned about global warming and its effects. It's enough to make a good greenie bang his/her head against the wall, or just move to a cave. Or... we could just stop arguing about it.

Sundance documentaries get no love

Nicole LaPorte — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:44:58 +0000

An image from Andrew Rossi’s Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times

One thing that has been nagging us as we consider this year’s Sundance, now that we have time to gather a bit of perspective, is this: for all the talk of movie deals; and all the hooplah made over more commercial-minded films like My Idiot Brother, which, though a very good film, and a very fun film, is not by no measure a great film; why was there so little discussion about the documentary entries at the festival? A category, which in our humble estimation, was exceedingly superior to the feature film category.

Sundance Film Festival: Surveying the Documentaries

Amy Reiter — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:48:45 +0000

Many worthy non-fiction films are vying for attention at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackling subjects as wide-ranging as extreme environmentalism (Marshall Curry’s IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT), pre-Web viral culture (Matthew Bate’s SHUT UP LITTLE MAN!: AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE), terminally ill people who legally choose to end their [...]

7 minutes with The Sartorialist

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:25:17 +0000

This is a thoughtful and beautifully executed (much like his photos) 7 minute documentary and behind the scenes with Scott Schuman aka The Sartorialist. It’s a treat for any fan of his work. I especially liked the moment in the short film when he asked to take a photo of a fashionably dressed woman. You [...]

Sundance Watch List: HOT COFFEE

Amy Reiter — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:34:07 +0000

You know the famous court case in which a woman won $2.7 million (later reduced) after she spilled a cup of burning-hot McDonald’s coffee in her lap? Yeah, I’ve joked about it, too. But lawyer-turned-filmmaker Susan Saladoff has made a movie to help us understand that by ridiculing this case, we’re playing right into the [...]

Two end-of-year docs as antidote to holidays

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 21:56:38 +0000

Are you craving to counteract all that holiday cheer with some good old-fashioned documentary depression? Never fear, two hard-hitters are still in theatres and soon to be on-demand or in your queue. I saw them both in recent weeks and while both hold their end of the bargain to keep up the doc-is-downer reputation, one is a far more complex experience than the other. (By the way, doc had a good year – with CATFISH, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, I’M STILL HERE – filmmakers soon may be able to ditch the downer syndrome and engage nonfiction for what it should be – more diverse in approach, content, tone and negotiation with ‘truth.’) I’m speaking here of INSIDE JOB (Charles Ferguson) and WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (Davis Guggenheim).

Searching for sustainable community… by bike

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:37:29 +0000

It might be tempting to label the "journey across America in search of ______" motif a cliché... except it still resonates powerfully. From 19th-century travelogues to Kerouac's On the Road to Albert Brooks' Lost in America, the idea of traveling the US as a quest for meaning captures out imaginations, and gives us space for a bit of introspection. Ryan Mlynarczyk and Mandy Creighton went beyond the dreaming about such adventures most of us do, and decided to set out on their own quest across the country... this time in search of sustainable community. In 2008, they ditched almost everything, and set off across the US on bikes to explore ecovillages, communes, collectives... every form of simpler, more sustainable communities they could find. They've visited over 100 communities across the country, and are now pulling footage of their journey into a feature-length film titled WITHIN REACH.

CATFISH

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:51:00 +0000

I saw the nonfiction film CATFISH last week and it was the first time in a good long while that when the lights came up, I looked around … and I said out loud, “I loved it.” Cinema, cinema, cinema. AO Scott said the movie looks like crap and is ethically suspect, and guess what? He’s wrong. New York Magazine said it’s a scam and guess what? Who cares! It’s an incredibly compelling story, real or imagined. And isn’t that the point? Our real and our imagined selves, due to media saturation, are getting closer and closer together; they’re overlapping, so that lives are part performance, part “time off” (that’s the “real”). We perform for Facebook; we perform because someone in the room just turned on a video camera. We perform. That’s not news; we humans have been doing this forever. It’s simply more prominent now that social networking provides the 24 hour stage. THAT’s the point, not where the film falls on the scale of “real.” But I digress.

Green documentary maker asks “What does sustainability mean?”.. after failing to live it

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:50:40 +0000

"Young, creative, passionate college student wants to save the world..." Having been in this line of work for years now, I've received multiple emails that could've used some variation on those words for a subject line. So, when Caroline Savery first got in touch with me in 2008 about her Sust Enable project, a documentary series that would feature her efforts to live in a 100% sustainable manner, the usual two conflicting thoughts arose: "How inspiring!" and "Good luck with that..."

National school lunch program comes to the big screen

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:30:14 +0000

LUNCH: THE FILM may sound like a spoof of some kind, but filmmaker Avis Gold Richards, and her team at Birds Nest Productions couldn't be more serious about their exploration of the National School Lunch Program, and its potential connections to childhood obesity, and the illnesses related to it.

Online gonzo documentary SOUTHERN TIER explores environmental attitudes… on bikes

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:00:59 +0000

Project: Southern Tier PROMO from Jeff Hyland on Vimeo.

Traveling cross-continent by human power isn't new: Peter Jenkins walked across the US in the seventies, and Terry Fox attempted a run across Canada in 1980. Producer Jeff Hyland, along with long-time friend Mike Tryon set out on January 1, 2008 to do something similar: cross the continent by bike along the Southern Tier of the United States. And just as Jenkins and Fox set out on their journeys to answer questions and support causes, Hyland and Tryon's nearly four month bike ride was dedicated to exploring the question "In a world of environmental change, where are we at?"

Support grows for CRUDE team

Amy Reiter — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:10:49 +0000

More organizations have come forward to voice their support for documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger. The director was ordered by a judge earlier this month turn over 600-plus hours of footage shot for his film CRUDE to the oil giant Chevron, which hopes to use the footage to defend itself from the litigation efforts chronicled in the film. Berlinger's lawyers have argued that the filmmaker's material should be protected under journalistic privilege and that, by turning over the footage, he would be violating an understanding of confidentiality with his subjects. Last week, as Berlinger sought to appeal the court's decision, the Writers Guild of America, East, threw its support behind the director, just as the Independent Documentary Association and 20 Oscar-winning directors had done before it. "To accede to such a demand is tantamount to a reporter being told to turn over all of his or her notes and to violate confidentiality agreements with sources," the Writers Guild wrote in an open letter. "As with the members of the IDA, our WGAE members working in the documentary field 'hold ourselves to the highest of journalistic standards in the writing, producing, and editing of our films.' Those standards include the protection of our outtakes, script drafts, research and sources."

Documentary: What happened to the $%!#ing Winnebago Man?

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:23:39 +0000

For YouTube’s 5 year anniversary celebration, guest curator Conan O’Brien selected the Winnebago Man (see above) as a noteworthy video. With over 1.6 million views to date on YouTube, this (hilarious) video compilation of profanity laced outtakes from a 1988 Winnebago commercial starred a very frustrated salesman Jack Rebney, or better known as the Winnebago [...]