| Organizer negotiates challenge of scheduling True/False festival | | Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 2:54:14 PM by Blog57 Team | | Every year, Columbias True/False Film Festival brings in dozens of feature and short documentary films. Theyre shown at multiple locations, and all are accompanied by a representative, usually a director. In some ways, trying to set a schedule for a four-day event like this is like trying to round up horses. This is a fairly insanely complicated process for us, said David Wilson, who is in charge of the fourth annual documentary festival. What makes scheduling the festival difficult, Wilson said, is organizing it around the directors schedules. True/False organizers also must take into account the potential popularity of a particular film so it can be scheduled without big conflicts. Then theres trying to figure out where to show a film and when to show it.... | |
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| | | US deaths in Iraq war hit 3000 | | Posted Monday, January 01, 2007 12:56:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | Bush, who is in the midst of reassessing war strategy for Iraq, did address the conflict yesterday in his New Year's message to the nation: "In the New Year, we will remain on the offensive against the enemies of freedom, advance the security of our country, and work toward a free and unified Iraq." As the death toll has mounted, debate over the war has intensified, with deep divisions in Washington and across the nation on how to proceed. Public disapproval of the war is high, and polls show that most people expect US deaths in Iraq to continue into the new year. In thousands of towns and communities in New England and across the nation, the lives lost in Iraq have exacted a more private toll -- a mourning that begins in funerals and memorials, then bleeds into everyday lives.... | |
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| | | 'Gitmo' documentary breaks little new ground | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 2:58:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh's "Gitmo: The New Rules of War" is one in a growing cottage industry of films dealing with the US-led invasions Iraq and Afghanistan. It joins the likes of Michael Winterbottom's feature "The Road to Guantanamo" and "Gunner Palace," a documentary by Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker. But it ultimately adds little to the ongoing autopsy of America's military misadventures in the Islamic world. Casting a wide net over interrogation tactics at both the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, "Gitmo" narrows its focus to the case of one Swedish detainee.Screened Friday during the Docu Days film festival in Beirut, "Gitmo" begins as the father of Mehdi Ghezali erects a cage on a square in Malmo, Sweden, dons an orange jumpsuit and pulls a hood on his head to protest his son's detention in Guantanamo (nicknamed "Gitmo" in US military speak).... | |
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| | | Learning with a lens: Class proposals include one on documentary films | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:11:51 PM by Blog57 Team | | NORWALK - Teachers won't be the only ones making history come alive if a new documentary film class gets approved by the Board of Education for next school year. "History in the Making: Creating Documentary Films" was one of 16 proposed classes for 2007-08 at last night's school board meeting. .... | |
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| | | INDUSTRY BUZZ | | Posted Sunday, November 05, 2006 10:59:52 AM by Blog57 Team | | Everybody Loves Sacha: Jay Roach has directed some big comedies, including the "Austin Powers" films and "Meet the Parents" and its sequel, but he's never seen anyone quite like Sacha Baron Cohen. Roach produced "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which the British actor poses as a racist, misogynist TV reporter "interviewing" real people in a cross-country tour of the United States. Cohen stayed in character during filming and has continued to play the part offscreen at press events in Cannes, Toronto, Washington, Los Angeles and London. "I actually think what Sacha is doing is actually pretty new," Roach says by phone from London, where he watched Cohen, as Borat, entertain the crowd at the film's premiere. "Last night I thought people might say, 'OK, snap out of it,' but the opposite is true.... | |
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| | | Mangalore: St. Aloysius College to Organize Screening of Short ... | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 1:06:09 PM by Blog57 Team | | Mangalore, Oct 27: The Department of Journalism, St Aloysius College, Mangalore, has organised a documentary films screening show on Sunday 29 October, at 11.00 a.m. The film screenings are a part of the week-long National Level Documentary Filmmaking Workshop held by the Department of Journalism. The films package consists of four short documentary films made by the participants of the workshop. The topics of the documentaries are interesting and extremely relavant to our day-to-day life. They relate to havoc created by bad roads in Mangalore seen through the eyes of common people, the recent Mangalore riots, Sultan Battery and neglect, and a Day in the Sea (tales of fisher-folk). All these documentaries make extensive use of footage from actual locations. They are a representation of the forgotten aspects of our lives - experience, struggles, and perspectives of common people.... | |
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| | | Documentary Uncovering America's Oldest Music Form to Debut on Georgia Public Broadcasting | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 7:01:58 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Georgia-produced feature documentary, "Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp," debuts Nov. 13 at 10 p.m. on Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB). The first in-depth look at the history, music, and traditions of Sacred Harp singing, "Awake, My Soul" explores the oldest surviving American music, popularized in recent hit films such as "Cold Mountain" and "Gangs of New York." Sacred Harp singing is a form of Shape-note a cappella music rooted in the rural Deep South which is more than 200 years old. The documentary offers a glimpse into the lives of modern shape-note singers, who still sing from The Sacred Harp, a 160-year-old hymnal first published in Georgia in 1844, which preserves some of the oldest songs in America. "As we researched Sacred Harp singing over the last seven years for this project, we have seen a renewed interest in this musical tradition, even in the academic community which has historically rejected it," said Matt Hinton, film director and religion professor at Morehouse College.... | |
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| | | Indian films nominated for AFFF 2006 | | Posted Friday, October 27, 2006 10:58:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | Ten Indian films and documentaries were among the 22 nominated for the second Asian Festival of First Films (AFFF 2006) awards in Singapore. The other 12 films and documentaries were from China, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. They would be competing for the best awards in nine categories: film, director, producer, actor, actress, script/screenplay, cinematographer/editor, documentary and documentary director. The films were selected from a record 330 submissions from 60 countries, nearly 40 percent more than the total number of entries received for the inaugurated festival last year. Indian actor Kunal Kohli, Hong Kong's Alex Law, Philippines' Raymond Lee, Taiwan's Daw Ming Lee and Sirkka Moeller from the United Kingdom spent more than 300 hours reviewing the submitted films and documentaries for the final nominations.... | |
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| | | Documentary about Leyla Zana on Youtube | | Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 10:55:12 PM by Blog57 Team | | London (KurdishMedia.com) 22 October 2006: Someone posted a documentary about the Kurdish female leader Leyla Zana on Youtube. It's very interesting how video websites like Youtube are turning into a platform for political activism and promotion of the ethnic Kurdish identity. The documentary is a biography of Leyla Zana (born May 3, 1961) and its made by the Kurdish-Canadian filmmaker Jiyar Gol, who is originally from Sinne in Kurdistan Rojhelat (Iran). He has created several movies about North- and South-Kurdistan. This 10- minute biography of Leyla Zana tells more about this dedicated Kurdish Parliamentarian who was imprisoned for 11 years simply for speaking Kuridsh in Turkish National assembly. She was a three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Leyla Zana was even awarded with the 1995 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, but was unable to collect it until her release in 2004.... | |
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| | | MOVIES WITH LOCAL TIES: Premiere screenings for 2 films | | Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006 6:57:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | There's a lot of local movie news to report, including two films with premiere screenings. First, Charlotte's Synthetic Fur Productions will show "Cold Storage" at Ballantyne Village Oct. 23-26 at 7:40 and 9:50 p.m. Tony Elwood ("Killer," "Road Kill") directed this thriller about a woman who goes missing in the Appalachians; her sister and ex-boyfriend search for her and find themselves in a bizarre backwoods world. It stars Nick Searcy ("Cast Away"), Matt Keeslar ("Scream 3") and Joelle Carter ("American Pie 2") and features a number of Charlotte-based actors, including Jeff Pillars, Rebecca Koon, John W. Love Jr. and Brett Gentile. Ballantyne Village is at 14815 John J. Delaney Drive, near the intersection of Johnston Road and Ballantyne Commons Parkway.... | |
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