Big Congrats to Filmmakers
Big congrats to several of my hard-working story consulting clients whose docs are winning awards, delighting audiences, and screening on public television (starting tomorrow)!
Director Bonnie Rich saw her personal doc Life is Rich on a big cineplex screen, reporting “the story flows so much better now—and there was still plenty of laughter in the theater”. Her film won the Audience Award at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
My Dear Children is a harrowing untold history of the pogroms that won Best Documentary at the Harrisburg Jewish Film Festival. Co-directed by LeeAnn Dance and Cliff Hackel, it was selected by American Public Television and will be released beginning September 4th. Go team!
Erin Palmquist’s moving film From Baghdad to the Bay won Best Doc at Cinequest and Best Film at the Outshine Film Festival. She’s just getting started!
And I’m thrilled that The Corridor, a film I consulted on through San Francisco’s Fine Cuts program, will be broadcast on KQED’s Truly CA series at 8pm Pacific this Friday, June 22nd.
Directed by Richard O’Connell and Annelise Wunderlich, The Corridor could claim a superlative: revealing the first high school operating within an adult jail. The filmmakers had acquired amazing access. And veteran editor Linda Peckham was hard at work, masterfully cutting copious observational footage.
Here’s how Wunderlich described my involvement:
“Karen came in to consult at an early stage of our edit, when we were struggling with an overly complex structure and an ensemble of many characters. She helped us anchor the storyline around a few key characters and build stronger arcs for them — clearly establishing the stakes for their ‘quests’ much earlier in the film.”
I hope you check out The Corridor, which won the 2017 San Francisco Film Critics Award for Best Bay Area Documentary. Congrats to Linda, Richard, Annelise and all the crew!
Finally…not every film has to win awards or broadcast on PBS to be successful. Big congrats to director Mary Umans, whose film Displaced about Ukrainian immigrants recently screened to more than a hundred members of her primary audience. “It was incredibly quiet throughout the film,” Mary said.
Afterwards, “A man came up to me and said I had passed the test. His mother (who had a reputation for being extremely judgmental) asked whether the events described happened as portrayed, and his mother replied that from beginning to end, the film got it right.”
Now that’s a triumph for history!
To all my dear directors that I haven’t mentioned recently (yet)…please remind me or let me know about your successes, big and small!
