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Applying To Film Festivals – 10 Do’s and Don’ts
October 24, 2019
‘Tis the season for submitting to film festivals! You may be considering festivals, applying to festivals, and who knows, perhaps already excited about the festivals you’ve been accepted to. These 10 “Do’s” and 5 “Don’t” come from my colleague Jon Reiss. I hired Jon to help distribute my own film and have recommended him and his company 8 Above to many filmmakers. Jon wrote the book Think Outside the Box Office and is the distribution leader at the IFP Filmmaker Lab. While this email is longer than most I send out, I wanted to get you all this info in…
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Positive But Not Pollyannaish
September 25, 2019
We’ve been busy this summer crafting documentaries that audiences want to see! Here are three examples of positive-but-not-Pollyannaish films that are soon headed for distribution. Imaginary Walls addresses racism through protagonists who actually do something about it: foster a movement of “racial healing circles”. Next up is Karen Akins’ El Susto! We also cut the trailer for this inspirational investigative documentary (!) about Big Soda in Mexico. As I sat through a recent special screening with the film’s characters, I felt proud of director Anita Casalana for her vision and sensitivity. We edited the film and cut the snappy theatrical…
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Not A Doom and Gloom Film
September 16, 2019
What docs do you watch when you’re not working on one? I’m excited to see the new HBO documentary Alternative Endings. It’s about dying, but as Psychology Today reports, it’s “not a doom and gloom film”. On the other hand, there’s Roberto Minervini’s What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? I’ve read conflicting reviews. According to critic Lillie Ross, it’s a race documentary that “wallows in tragedy but offers no solutions”. This collection of interviews with black people in Mississippi and Louisiana is, in Ross’s eyes, “the most unproductive type of sociopolitical film, especially in today’s climate, in…
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Writer Available for Fall Film Grants
August 15, 2019
‘Tis soon the season for a slew of film grant deadlines, beginning with the Sundance Documentary Fund, which closes October 20th. I have a new, talented writer on board, and we’d love to help you prepare your application. We’ll describe your synopsis, style, and treatment in the language of funders. Please email me if you are interested. Other Fall grant deadlines include: HotDocs Ted Rogers Fund, applications open Sept 4 – Nov 13 Roy W. Dean Film Grant, October 31 Fledgling Fund, Fall deadline TBA soon Ford Foundation JustFilms, accepts letters of inquiry year-round
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Are Positive Docs A Passing Fad?
July 3, 2019
Happy early July 4th to American readers! Six months ago, Variety and Filmmaker Magazine named 2018 the year of “uplifting documentaries”, citing such box office hits as RBG, The Price of Free and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? But are so-called “positive documentaries” just a passing fad? I’d argue that with the debut of “hopepunk”, the trend in hopeful docs shows no sign of fading. What’s hopepunk? Emerging from the literary scene, hopepunk is the latest storytelling template that centers around the “concept of hope itself, with all the implications of love, kindness, and faith in humanity it encompasses,” according…
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DocNomads Explore Hope
June 27, 2019
A bit jet-lagged, I’ve just returned from teaching at the innovative, graduate film program DocNomads. This was my sixth year in Budapest instructing ambitious, emerging filmmakers from around the world. One of their assignments was to make an 8-10 minute documentary on the theme of hope. My job was to help with story structure, but I couldn’t help explaining why I thought hope was such a terrific focus. I began with a word of caution, based on 18 years of teaching at the #1-ranked documentary program in America (UC Berkeley). “You’re all graduate students schooled in the post-modern art of…
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Apollo 11 Transports and Unites
April 23, 2019
I recently saw Apollo 11 with my favorite eleven-year-old. As we heard Walter Cronkite describe the highly-anticipated moon launch, we saw crowds of people in sixties get-up. I was instantly transported to being eight. After the adrenaline-inducing launch–which served as the first act climax– director/editor Todd Douglas Miller wisely decided not to return to the worldwide audience, glued to their television screens. Instead he focused solely on the treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage and audio recordings. This stylistic move reminded me of other documentaries that use primary materials to such a transporting effect, including Amy, Tupac: Resurrection, and Listen…
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Is Remote Editing Too Remote?
March 11, 2019
Last week I spoke with a few directors who each asked about a growing trend, “How does remote editing work?” For the record, eighty percent of our editors now work remotely. Our six doc editors are based in LA, Portland, NY, and the Bay Area. We often work with directors who live thousands of miles away. At stake for these directors is the quality of the director/editor relationship—generally regarded as the most important creative relationship in documentary filmmaking! If that bond is not strong, then how can the editor understand the director’s vision, much less abet it? Of course, some…
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Oscar For Best Documentary Goes To….?!
February 15, 2019
Recently a director whose film we cut asked me who I thought would win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. “RGB,” I replied without much thought. Now, before ABC’s live coverage of the Oscars on February 24th, it’s time to go out on a limb and make my case for this inspiring documentary about octogenarian Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But first, two disclaimers! The other four nominees are phenomenal. Go see these films: Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Minding the Gap; Of Fathers and Sons; and Free Solo (which recently surpassed RGB as the second-highest grossing documentary of…
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Uplifting Documentaries Rule 2018
November 28, 2018
I’ve been saying it for years. We need more uplifting documentaries, films that take on difficult social issues with hope. This year delivered! My two favorite documentaries of 2018 rang up impressive numbers at the box office. RGB, about Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, grossed $14 million. And Won’t You Be My Neighbor, about Mr. Rogers, is approaching $23 million, ranking #12 in all-time theatrical receipts, according to Box Office Mojo. “I think that maybe it’s a filmmaker’s job to look for hope, look for good behavior, to find examples of when people do things right rather than when…
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