from PR Newswire.

Are you passionate about sharing your documentary and having it broadcast on television? With just five weeks to go, TVO is calling upon Ontario’s new generation of documentary filmmakers to exhibit their creative skills with the introduction of the inaugural Doc Studio Contest.

TVO is challenging aspiring and accomplished filmmakers, artistic visionaries and amateur film buffs across Ontario to think about all that can happen in five minutes, and then to capture it on film. Inspired by filmmaker-in-residence Alan Zweig (Vinyl, I Curmudgeon, Lovable, A Hard Name), TVO’s Doc Studio Contest dares participants to reveal “Life in 5″ – a memorable moment, a shift in perception, a secret no one else could uncover – through an interview-based, five-minute film.

“Asking filmmakers to submit a documentary under five minutes in length forces them to hone in on the true essence of a story,” says TVO’s supervising producer, Jane Jankovic. “The Doc Studio Contest is all about capturing what moves us and illuminates our lives and our world. There are thousands of untold stories out there. I can’t wait to see what we get.”

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by Geoffrey Macnab.

It is not often that film companies preparing new movies need to set aside thousands of dollars in bribes, and for buying blood-diamonds, in their budgets. This was what happened to Lars von Trier’s Zentropa when the Danish outfit set to work on its new feature documentary, The Ambassador (which premieres in Sundance this month).

The film, largely shot in Liberia and the Central African Republic, follows the faltering attempts of its director, the satirical journalist Mads Brugger, to gatecrash the nefarious world of African diamond-smuggling.

Brugger’s plan was to “operate freely beyond all moral boundaries while still being a respected member of society… what I am talking about of course is life as an African diplomat.”

Read the rest of this article from Independent.

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by Linda Barnard.

American filmmaker Robin Hessman says the best part of making a documentary is “the detective work.” And her spadework paid off with reels and reels of home movies that opened a window on life for the last generation of kids to grow up in the Soviet Union.

Her film, My Perestroika, opening Friday, follows five former elementary school classmates in Moscow who are now approaching or in their 40s as they look back on their Soviet childhoods and coming-of-age under glasnost in the new Russia.

Read the rest of this article from Toronto Star.

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by Marcia G. Yerman.

From October 11 through November 8, PBS has showcased the five-part groundbreaking series Women, War & Peace– an examination of the impact of armed conflict upon the lives of women. With narration by actors Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Alfre Woodward, and Geena Davis, each hour profiles individual accounts about Bosnia, Afghanistan, Liberia, and Colombia.

The final episode presents an overview of how the landscape of war has shifted from combat between nations-states and their soldiers, to a scenario of “intimate killings” in which women “bear the brunt of small arms and light weapons” devastation.

A co-production of THIRTEEN and Fork Films, in association with WNET and ITVS, the series was created by executive producers Abigail E. Disney, Pamela Hogan, and Gini Reticker. I had the opportunity to speak with Hogan by telephone about her role in the series, and to learn the back story on the project.

Read the rest of this article from Huffington Post.

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by A. O. Scott.

Much of the time, a documentary is a movie with something to say and a lot of people talking. The current boom in nonfiction filmmaking has been fed, to a large extent, by the impulses of advocacy journalism, according to which the job of the filmmaker is to bring attention to a problem in the world and to assemble experts and eyewitnesses qualified to explain it.

While there is nothing wrong with this model — and much to admire about films that seek to instruct and inspire their audiences — it can be wearying and limited. There is so much social concern, so many talking-head interviews wrapped around snippets of archival footage, and, too often, not enough art.

Read the rest of this article from the NY Times.

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by Leslie Stonebraker.

While there is debate about when, exactly, the first film screening occurred, there is no arguing its genre. Whether the Lumiere brothers’ 1895 “Exiting the Factory” or Louis Le Prince’s 1888 “Roundhay Garden Scene” or the Edison workers’ undated camera test “Monkeyshines No. 1,” the earliest films were all documentaries. Simply by pointing a camera at it, these moving pictures made everyday life seem incredible.

But the expense of film stock and the enormous popularity of the infant fictional film invariably led to the creation of movie stars and the entrenched studio system, where every variable from setting to theater projection could be easily controlled for maximum efficiency and a substantive return on investment. Documentaries were relegated to wartime newsreels and exotic travelogues.

The invention of videotape in 1956 nearly revived the documentary with cheaper films and a more expendable stock. But viewers were not too keen on the experimental films of the ’60s. In the end, it took the creation of reality television programing to revitalize the genre. Using video stock meant hours of footage could be taken at relatively low cost, and without actors to pay, the programing quickly became a favorite. The widespread distribution of reality TV made for a public primed to accept real life (or what passes as real life) as incredible entertainment once more.

Read the rest of this article from NY Press.

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by Patricia Sheridan.

A prizewinning documentarian and the star of “Super Size Me,” Morgan Spurlock has turned his attention to branding and advertising in the movie industry with “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.”

The documentary is sponsored by corporations whose products and branding are discussed in the film. He also made “Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?” before the terrorist was found.

The West Virginia native, who lives in New York City with his wife and son, is also hosting the Current TV series, “50 Greatest Documentaries to See Before You Die” (6 p.m. Tuesdays). Excerpts from an interview:

Read the rest of this article from Seattle Times.

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by Andrew Howley.

Two outstanding explorers — filmmaker and alternative-energy proponent James Cameron and marine ecologist Enric Sala — are the National Geographic Society’s newest Explorers-in-Residence. Both were honored today at a special gathering of National Geographic’s top explorers at Society headquarters.

Explorers-in-Residence are some of the world’s preeminent explorers and scientists and represent a broad range of science and exploration; they develop programs in their respective areas of study, carrying out field work supported by the Society. The group includes a geographer, three paleontologists, an archaeologist, a geneticist, conservationists and leaders in several other disciplines.

Read the rest of this article from National Geographic.

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by Eugene Hernandez.

A highlight of Silverdocs 2011 was a chance to sit for a bit to listen to D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, honored last night at the AFI Silver Theater.

Like Albert Maysles, Robert Drew and Frederick Wiseman, Pennebaker and Hegedus are lasting symbols of a exciting tradition of documentary filmmaking. That they continue to make movies and appear at festivals like SilverDocs means that they are still affecting non fiction filmmaking today. These are the grandparents of an ongoing rich movement in American non fiction moviemaking.

Taking the stage last night after an intro by Senator Al Franken, subject of their recent doc, “Al Franken: God Spoke,” Pennebaker and Hegedus talked about their life and work together.

“You’re not going to live forever,” Franken told them, “But your films will!”

On stage later, during a Q & A, Pennebaker and Hegedus bemoaned their ability to raise funds to make their movies over the years. “We are very bad at raising money because we dont know the end of our story,” Chris Hegedus explained. But, Pennebaker said they made a crucial decision early on. That is, to hold onto the rights to their films. He joked that they’ve survived over the years thanks to money they’ve made off of dead rock stars.

Read the rest of this article from IndieWire.

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by Leon Neyfakh.

IT USED TO BE that Errol Morris would come into his office in Inman Square every morning knowing more or less what he and his staff were going to do that day. The scheme back then was simple: Morris’s job was to make documentary films, and he worked on them one at a time.

Things have been different at the office lately. At the age of 63, and with an Academy Award in his pocket for “The Fog of War,” America’s most obsessive nonfiction filmmaker could be forgiven for slowing down and enjoying something that approaches fame.

Instead, he has found himself at a peak of activity, with a new documentary coming out next month, a feature film in the works, and a TV series in mind. And most notably — after 40 long years of writer’s block — Morris has suddenly become a prolific writer, with no fewer than three books under contract with publishers and a series of long investigative essays that appear regularly on the website of The New York Times.

Read the rest of this article from Boston Globe.

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