POV Blog

Doc Soup: Oscar Short List

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:38:01 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

It's head-scratching season again, which is to say: it's Oscar time. Last week, the shortlist of 15 documentaries being considered for the five Academy Award nominations was announced. And, sure enough, there were some head-scratchers out there.

The most confounding was the exclusion of Michael Moore's Capitalism. Sure, this further confirms what I said a few weeks ago that he's lost his luster but the Academy took things way too far. Almost as surprising was that RJ Cutler's The September Issue didn't get a chance at a nod, and perhaps not as surprising but equally unjust was that Sacha Gervasi's Anvil: The Story of Anvil was left out in the cold.

Read more after the jump...

Appreciating Military Families

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:11:37 -0500

POV's outreach and development assistant Jessica Lee recently attended a screening of POV's The Way We Get By on Capitol Hill. She writes about the experience and tells us what struck her about the film, its subjects and the screening.

Recently, President Obama officially declared this November Military Family Month. As someone who has had only one enlisted extended family member, I didn't grow up with a deep sense of knowing what it was like to be part of a military family. That changed in September, when I had the privilege of attending a Capitol Hill screening of The Way We Get By by Aron Gaudet. The film has garnered great reviews, but I believe its greatest success is its ability to touch every person who sees it, regardless of his or her political beliefs. This rang especially true at the special screening on the Hill, which was specifically geared toward military families. The event was presented as part of President Obama's United We Serve initiative, and was sponsored by Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Maine Representatives Michael Michaud and Chellie Pingree, along with the USO, Operation Homefront and HandsOn Network.

Maine troop greeters Joan Gaudet, Jerry Mundy and Bill Knight with Representative Michael Michaud and Senator Susan Collins, and Dr. Jill Biden. Photo courtsey of the USO.

Read more after the jump...

Vote for POV and Food Inc.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:56:25 -0500

We just applied for a Youtopia Grant, which is a grant that is open to both socially-responsible business and non-profit organizations, providing up to $30,000 worth of Free Range's design and/or strategic services. The twist? Unlike most grants, this one is being crowd sourced! Votes decide the top 50 finalists, and then Free Range picks the 2 winners. What do you say? Want to head over to their site and vote for POV?

POV will be airing Food Inc. in 2010, and the idea we proposed for the Youtopia Grant is to create an interactive feature called "What Are You Bringing to the Table?"

Read more after the jump.

Conversations About War

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:49:32 -0500

Veterans Day may only happen one day out of the year, but veterans — and their loved ones — live with the after effects of war everyday. They also deserve our thanks, attention and appreciation everyday.

Last week, POV launched a new project: Regarding War. Conceived as a place for citizens and soldiers to share stories and discuss the realities of war, Regarding War has gotten off to a thought-provoking and moving start through the posts of our first set of bloggers, who have been writing on the topic of Coming Home: Veterans Readjusting to Civilian Life.

Vietnam War veteran Arthur Varanelli wrote about dealing with — and not dealing with — PTSD:

A very experienced and learned psychiatrist once told me that the mind can compartmentalize things. What this meant to me was that I took my Vietnam battlefield experiences and put them in a box, so to speak, and tied down the lid with locks and chains. I did this in an attempt to forget the whole thing and never have to deal with it again. It did not work. Read more »

Read more after the jump...

Doc Soup: "By the People" vs. "The War Room"

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:25:48 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Hey, have you had a chance to catch By the People, the HBO documentary about Barack Obama's presidential campaign that began airing this month? Yeah, me too. Did you shed some tears? Uh-huh. Did you marvel at the momentousness of that time? Yep. And isn't it fantastic to have that all on record, so we can be reminded of how history was made (to borrow an Obama phrase), and how, at one point, it really didn't look like it could actually happen? Right. And, yeah, well.... Weren't you also kind of disappointed?

That's how I felt after watching By the People. I was so looking forward to seeing it that I blogged about it here a year ago, just before the election. I'd say the filmmakers did everything in their power to make a well-polished, well-told documentary depicting the campaign. But the question that kept ringing in my head was, "What did War Room have that this doc doesn't?"

Read more after the jump.

"The Way We Get By" Receives IFP and Fledgling Fund Grant for Outreach and Community Engagement

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:20:17 -0500

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) has teamed up with The Fledgling Fund to award the first The Fledgling Fund Outreach and Engagement Grant for Social Issue Documentaries to The Way We Get By, which aired on POV this week. We send our congratulations to filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly for this fantastic honor.

For those of you who missed the broadcast of the film, it's streaming in its entirety online until December 12, 2009.

Read more after the jump...

Audience Appreciation for The Way We Get By

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:01:11 -0500

Last night's special Veterans Day broadcast of POV's The Way We Get By prompted a tremendous response from PBS viewers — in fact, the most viewer emails, comments, tweets, etc. we've received in a very long time. Many U.S. service men and women and their families wrote to say that the film reminded them of the time they themselves met the Maine Troop Greeters, and how thankful they were that Joan Gaudet, Jerry Mundy, Bill Knight and the other greeters perform this important community service.

Here are a few of our favorite comments from POV viewers.

I would like to thank you for airing your program on the Bangor, Maine "Troop Greeters." It once again stirred the emotions I felt when I returned to US soil after many months of deployment to a war zone. To see those folks there at all hours of the morning there to give us hug, pats on the backs and fellowship after many intense and sometimes traumatic experiences that come from combat let me know: "I'm safe now among people who care about me!" It was one of the major positive memories that I called upon to deal with difficult days that haunt me to this day. I will never forget the wonderful woman whom made me sit down with a cell phone and call my mother, wife and children to let them know I was home safely! After the phone conversation with my mother (who spent many sleepless nights, and cried in relief that I was again home) the greeter allowed me to cry on her shoulder and gently wiped the tears from my eye only as a mother could do. That is a memory I will carry through out my life.

Read more viewer comments after the jump...

Community Events: POV Screenings at Hofstra University

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:18:45 -0500

Students in the MFA Documentary Program at Hofstra University in Hempsted, New York, have been screening POV films this semester. MFA candidate Stefani Saintonge shares some of the highlights of the series so far.

This semester, the MFA Documentary Program at Hofstra University is hosting a series of POV screenings. As a student of the program, I have had the opportunity to meet key people involved in the films such as Jason Hamza Pèrez, subject of New Muslim Cool, and Peter Kinoy, editor of The Reckoning.

New Muslim Cool, which screened on Sept. 24th, was followed by a Q & A with Jason Hamza Pèrez. I found Pèrez particularly interesting, because he explained the techniques that the director, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, used to help him feel at ease as the subject of her fillm. He told us that Taylor made an impact on him by respecting his privacy and adhering to his rules on where the camera could and couldn't go. He put the documentary into perspective perhaps even better than the filmmaker could — which makes sense, since it was his life that was spotlighted.

Read more after the jump.

Looking Back on the Original Re:Vietnam Site

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:37:40 -0500

In 1996, POV launched Re: Vietnam | Stories Since the War. The site was an early test of the potential of the Internet as a vehicle for community building and open exchange. Today, as POV announces Regarding War, an update of the original site that provides a space for conversations about all wars -- current and past -- journalist Sam Meddis, who wrote about Re: Vietnam in 1996, looks back at Re: Vietnam and re-evaluates the site more than a decade later.

"The Web is more of a social creation than a technical one."
— Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web

Think back to the mid-'90s when the Web was young. It was a world without Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed — long before social media became a household term — a time when Web 2.0 was, say, Web 0.2.

I remember those days fondly because, as USA Today's online technology editor then, I had the dream job of being paid good money to surf the Web and write about new and notable websites.

Every single day, wondrous new destinations would materialize in the online landscape. They ranged from art galleries and investment services to personal diaries and digital newsstands. They served up a feast of seemingly endless tips and data about everything from health and careers to entertainment and computers.

There was no scarcity of sites to choose from. Cyberspace was undergoing a virtual Big Bang, with constellations of websites growing explosively — multiplying more than six-fold in a single year, by Yahoo!'s reckoning, from 100,000 sites in '95 to 650,000 in '96. The only challenge for me was to pick out the very best from so many stars.

As Michael Neubarth, then-editor of Internet World magazine, said in his intro to the 1996 "State of the Net" edition, it was a "hectic and breathless" year. The Web propelled "change and adaptation in almost every walk of life, from grade-school students to corporate CEOs," the magazine's report concluded.

Amid all the online commotion that year, one of the sites that got my close attention was POV Interactive's Re: Vietnam | Stories Since the War, which billed itself as a gathering place for personal accounts about Vietnam's legacy.

A companion site to the POV/PBS broadcast of the Academy Award-winning documentary Maya Lin: A Clear Strong Vision, about the creator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Re: Vietnam website stood out enough for me to feature it in a Dec. 30, 1996, column entitled "The Net's best year."

Read more after the jump...

Watch "The Way We Get By" on PBS Tonight

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:12:43 -0500

Today is Veterans Day, the one day out of the year that is specifically designated as a time to honor those who serve our country. But Bill Knight, Jerry Mundy, Joan Gaudet and the rest of the Maine Troop Greeters honor veterans and military members throughout the year by greeting them at a tiny airport in Bangor, Maine. In fact, they've greeted over 900,000 soldiers to date! These senior citizens have take it upon themselves to greet every troop plane arriving or departing Bangor, which is the last and first piece of U.S. soil many GIs will see before and after their deployments.

The Way We Get By, which tells the stories of Bill, Jerry and Joan, airs tonight on PBS at 9 PM (Check your local listings).

Watch a trailer of The Way We Get By:

Read more after the jump...

Doc Soup: Two More Films for Veteran's Day

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:46:24 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Having given a good think to Veteran's Day and the film Hearts and Minds, I came across two other veteran-related films, one old and one new, that I think are worth tracking down.

First, the new: Dan Cogan, from Impact Partners, whom I interviewed several weeks ago, tells me that Impact's How to Fold a Flag, a film that's on the festival circuit at the moment, is a powerful depiction of Iraq War veterans — and that the filmmakers were very much inspired by Hearts and Minds. In this new film, directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, who made Gunner Palace, catch up with a subject of their earlier film, along with three other vets. (How to Fold a Flag was recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. See the film's description from the TIFF website.)

Still from How to Fold a Flag by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein.

Read more after the jump...

Doc Soup: Looking Back at "Hearts and Minds"

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:00:03 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Someone once told me that there's a historical rule that the greatest eras of documentary filmmaking have coincided with the times that the United States has been at war. So, we'd have to look at 1940-1945, 1950-1953, 1965-1973 (give or take a few years), and then 2003 to now. I suppose there's truth to this rule — these eras of war have created cultural upheaval and political indignation, which have fostered some great doc filmmaking. Certainly, war itself provides a pretty poignant subject for a documentary. And there have been some doozies: from WW II's The Sorrow and the Pity to Iraq's The War Tapes and The Ground Truth. But I want to take this moment to focus on what I'd consider one of the greatest war docs of all time, Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds, a 1974 film that's particularly gripping as we honor Veteran's Day this week.

Read more after the jump...

How Did "The Way We Get By" End Up on POV?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:45:54 -0500

The Way We Get By premieres on PBS next Wednesday, November 11 at 9 pm on most PBS stations. (Check local listings.) In this video clip from the film's world premiere screening at the SXSW Film Festival, a member of the audience asked how the film got chosen to be on POV. Here's what filmmaker Aron Gaudet and producer Gita Pullapilly had to say.

HOW DID "THE WAY WE GET BY" END UP ON P.O.V.? from The Way We Get By on Vimeo.

Learn more about The Way We Get By and watch the trailer on the POV website.

Doc Soup: A Conversation with Alyce Myatt, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:59:44 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Tod Lending, director of The Principal Story, about how he hit the jackpot by getting money from the Wallace Foundation to make a series of nonfiction films. I asked him if there were other goldmines for filmmakersout there, and he directed me to Alyce Myatt, the head of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM). I just caught up with Myatt — and while she may not actually be sitting on a mountain of gold coins, she did impress me with GFEM's incredible resource: a database of films that allows foundations to find a project that they may be interested in. It's fascinating to peruse through the various projects and see what sort of financing has been achieved, and what's still needed. Read our conversation below, and make sure to check out the database at media.gfem.org.

Doc Soup: So, is there foundation money out there for documentary filmmakers?

Alice Myatt: The short answer is yes . . . and no.

Doc Soup: That sounds like the beginning of a very long answer.

Myatt: What's been happening is that just as there has been an evolution in technology and media, there's also been an evolution in philanthropy. There's been a generation of wealth in the last couple of decades, so you have a greater number of relatively new family foundations with living donors and some of whom are entering the media sector and are funding films. But they're not doing it at the same degree as grants that were made by the Ford Foundation or MacArthur. So, 20 years ago, you could get $250,000 from Ford, but now that $250,000 is coming from various grants pieced together.

Doc Soup: Can you tell me some of the names of the family foundations you're talking about?

Myatt: Chicken and Egg, Cinereach, the Fledgling Fund.

Doc Soup: Is the recession inhibiting this sort of funding?

Myatt: It has had an impact across the board. If you are a large foundation, if you go from $7 billion to $4 billion, you still have $4 billion. However, the same anxiety that permeates society as a whole, extends to everyone. And what happens is that philanthropies want [to keep] their long-term grantees going. In some instances, they have raised their payout sometimes as high as 9 percent, so that they can honor the commitments because they don't want these organizations to fail. So a new film project has a harder time because of these ongoing commitments.

Read more about GFEM and funding for docs after the jump...

How Common Is Your Last Name?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:10:35 -0500

In 1990, my last name — the prosaic-in-China but seemingly obscure-in-America "Xu" — was the 10,540th most common name in America. In 2000, my last name had made an incredible leap — it climbed more than 7,000 spots to become the 2,701st most common name in America. What a difference a decade makes! How common is your last name? And has it moved up or down according to the census? Find out in POV's Last Name Popularity Index!

In 2001, POV aired The Sweetest Sound, filmmaker Alan Berliner's meditation on names. For the film's website, we launched the Last Name Popularity Index, which became our most popular web feature ever. Hundreds of thousands of web visitors have entered their names — and the names of friends, loved ones and acquaintances — into the site, all in a quest to find out exactly where their last names ranked in the pantheon of American last names.

The old version of the Last Name Popularity Index used data from the 1990 census. This time, we've included names from the 2000 census as well. So not only can you find out how popular your last name is, you can see whether your it is on an upward or downward trajectory.

Can you guess what the top seven last names in America are? Who were the biggest gainers and losers from 1990 to 2000? Visit the How Common Is Your Last Name page to find out now!

Doc Soup: Have the Great Titans Moved On?

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:44:31 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Have the great doc titans lost their oomph? And if so, is that such a bad thing?

I got to ruminating over these questions when I began considering how, this September, we saw the two most popular documentary filmmakers release new works practically right on top of each other: Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS, and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, in close to a thousand theaters. Both were released to good amounts of fanfare and then, well, they became yesterday's news.

Burns' series is truly beautifully shot. It's strong, effective, moving and important. And outside of my mother and brother, I haven't heard anyone talk about it once. Even Burns' World War II series a couple years back created more ripples in the cultural water cooler.

Read more after the jump...

Last Chance to Register for the 2009 National Film Challenge

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:30:29 -0500

Here are a couple of items in my inbox that I thought filmmakers might want to note:

There is only about a week left until the launch of the 2009 National Film Challenge, the sister competition of the 48 Hour Film Project. There is still time to organize your team and register before the kickoff on Friday, October 23. Registration will be accepted through Thursday, October 22. On the following day, hundreds of filmmakers from around the world will start writing, shooting and editing their films. So whether you are a 48HFP virgin, or a seasoned 48HFP pro, stop talking and start filming!

Mark your calendars: The Emmy-nominated International Documentary Challenge will be taking place March 4-8, 2010. This is the 5th Anniversary of the Doc Challenge and we will be back at Hot Docs with the finalists! In addition to the Hot Docs premiere, the POV and DER Awards will return, as well as screenings at international festivals including Big Sky and Dokufest in Kosovo. Take part in what is being called a rite-of-passage for all documentary filmmakers!

An Update to "Street Fight"

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:16:17 -0500

There's a lot going on New Jersey these days: a heated race for governor, a money laundering and public corruption scandal that saw the arrest of 44 people in July, and a bumper crop of cranberries. The city of Newark, N.J., is also back in the spotlight as the focus of a new Sundance Channel documentary series, Brick City. We asked Marshall Curry, director of the Emmy and Oscar-nominated film Street Fight, which chronicles a bare-knuckled race for mayor of Newark and aired on POV in 2005, for an update on the city and the subject of his film, Cory Booker.

In 2002, I met a young city councilman from Newark, N.J, named Cory Booker. I remember being struck by his energy, his earnestness and his story. Cory's parents were civil rights veterans who had integrated the suburban neighborhood where he grew up. He had gone to Stanford, Yale Law, and was a Rhodes Scholar — and then he had moved into one of Newark's roughest projects and decided to get involved in politics.

When I met him he was only 32, but he was preparing to run for mayor against the wily and charismatic four-term incumbent, Sharpe James, who ran Newark's political machine.

I'd never made a documentary before, but this seemed like a story worth pursuing: two black Democrats from different generations and different backgrounds, facing off in a city known for its bare-knuckles electioneering. So I bought a camera and started shooting.

Read more after the jump...

POV to Relaunch "Re: Vietnam" as "Regarding War" Next Month

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:37:12 -0500

In 1996, a "dog's age ago" in Internet time, POV launched one of our first websites entitled "Re: Vietnam | Stories Since the War." It was conceived as a companion website to the POV/PBS broadcast of the Academy Award-winning film, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. On the site's homepage, a quote from Maya Lin expressed the ethos of the site:

The site's producers aimed to contribute something new to our collective understanding of the Vietnam War by offering people who lived through that wrenching period the opportunity to talk about Vietnam's legacy and enduring impact on society. They hoped that twenty years after the war's end people were finally "ready to listen to each other's stories."

This fall, I'm excited to announce that POV's interactive team has begun work on relaunching "Re: Vietnam" as a new site entitled "Regarding War." We plan to include conversations and stories about all wars — particularly our current deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan — and to update the site with a new look and functionality that combines community features, social networking opportunities and the ability for users to share their own stories, images and video with the click of a mouse. (The original site encouraged visitors to share their stories and images, but the options were via email, telephone, fax or the mail — as in, the U.S. mail!)

Read more about "Re: Vietnam" and "Regarding War" after the jump...

Outside the Frame: Results: Documentary Website Cost Survey

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:02:49 -0500

Freelance writer Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, blogs about documentaries and the Web in her column, Outside the Frame.

This is part 3 of my series on producing great documentary websites. Read part one and part two.

The results are in! 24 filmmakers responded to our survey, "How Much Does It Cost to Produce a Documentary Website." Here's what we learned:

Dollars and Cents

A third of you either produced your last site yourself, or got a friend to do it for free. A quarter of you spent somewhere in the $1,000-5,000 range. (At the other end of the spectrum, one of you spent $100,000.)

All but one of you felt that people were the most expensive part of the site production process — either hiring a good design firm or new media strategist, or the cost of your own time.

Half of you expect to spend more on your next site, and around 40 percent of you plan to spend about the same amount. Only three of you intend to spend less.

Read more after the jump...

Doc Soup: The Wallace Foundation and "The Principal Story"

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:23:46 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

I continue here my exploration into foundations funding documentaries with a discussion with The Principal Story's Tod Lending, a director who pretty much won the doc filmmakers' sweepstakes with a giant grant from Chicago's Wallace Foundation.

Doc Soup: You received a grant from the Wallace Foundation to make The Principal Story. Did you go to them with the idea?

Tod Lending: It came about in an interesting way. It was the first time I was approached by a foundation for an RFP (a request for proposal). They sent it out to 16 filmmakers across the country and we were to submit a preliminary proposal that clearly stated our interests and intentions. The Wallace Foundation wanted us to look at the issue of principal leadership. Each filmmaker sent in 5-page proposals, and then they gave 3 out of the 16 filmmakers $10,000 grants to further the proposal.

Doc Soup: Had you ever heard of this sort of process before?

Lending: Never. It was a really nice thing to happen. My co-producer David Mrazeck and I both felt we had to shoot a demo to further the proposal. I am very glad we did because that's what apparently pushed us over the top. I don't know why the other two competitors didn't, but when you are given $10,000, you have no excuse. And, lo and behold, we were given the $1.5 million dollar grant. It's unheard of to get all of your money from one place. I should add that the $1.5 million was not just for the film. It was also for the outreach project, and we also made a number of other films for the foundation.

Read more after the jump.

The Fire Next Time: Look Closely and You Might See Your Town, Too

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:53:07 -0500

Over a stormy two-year period, The Fire Next Time (POV 2005) follows a deeply divided group of Montana citizens caught in a web of conflicts intensified by rapid growth and the power of talk radio. Many residents were losing their jobs in timber and mining, and blamed environmentalists. Throw into this stressful situation two disturbing elements of America's hyper-antagonistic politics — right-wing talk radio and anti-government militia organizing — and the tension became volatile.

Filmmaker Patrice O'Neill encouraged us to stream The Fire Next Time online in response to the recent violence on town halls about health care, so viewers could see how one community successfully dealt with rising tension and threats of extreme violence. Ever since the PBS broadcast of the 1995 film, Not in Our Town — about the response of Billings, Montana, to a rash of hate crimes — The Working Group (O'Neill's production company) has been helping local communities deal with intolerance and violence by holding film screenings and community discussions. She wrote in with some thoughts about current affairs, and what we can learn from the film today.

O'Neill: People are riled up. They're yelling at meetings, threatening local officials. Only strong partisans on either side are brave, engaged or committed enough to attend town hall meetings about contentious issues. Adding fuel to this volatile atmosphere is a radio talk show host who fires up his callers and listeners with scathing attacks on local leaders and citizens who disagree with his views. Does this sound familiar?

Health care rally held outside President Barack Obama's town hall in Portsmouth, NH on August 11, 2009. Credit: aflcio2008, Flickr

A few years ago, POV presented our documentary about a Northwest Montana town that was deeply divided over local issues. When we started filming in 2002, I began to see some disturbing patterns that made me see how quickly democracy could break down when social and political divisions were combined with a heated media atmosphere.

Read more after the jump...

Filmmaker Ido Haar in New York

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:48:17 -0500

POV's Executive Director Simon Kilmurry shares some exciting news about POV alum Ido Haar.

For those of you close to Westchester County, New York, POV alum Ido Haar, the filmmaker of 9 Star Hotel (POV 2008), will be featured as the third International Filmmaker-in-Residence at Jacob Burns Film Center's Media Arts Lab in Pleasantville.

Ido is a graduate of Jerusalem's famous Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, and his films follow a vérité, observational style. He says that he was drawn to filmmaking after a stint in the Israeli army. In a review of 9 Star Hotel, the New York Times wrote that "...Ido Haar draws us into the precarious world of young Palestinian construction workers scrabbling to survive in and around the Israeli city of Modi'in." You can watch 9 Star Hotel in its entirety online.

Ido will be teaching a course at the Burns Center: "The Israeli Documentary," for teens and adults starting Oct. 13. Two of his films will be screening as well: the aforementioned 9 Star Hotel (Oct. 12 at 7:30), and Melting Siberia (Nov. 3 at 5:00), which documents the trip that Ido and his mother took to Siberia in search of her father, a Red Army hero who abandoned his wife when she was pregnant.

Find out more about Ido Haar at the Jacob Burns Film Center and Media Lab on the organization's website.

Doc Soup: Foundations and Documentary Funding

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:08:49 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Everyone has less these days. Money is disappearing. Doc distributors like ThinkFilm, Warner Independent Pictures and Paramount Vantage are vanishing. And the recession continues to roll on.

In this climate, where does a doc filmmaker turn for financing?

In the past, one of the best go-to resources was the diverse realm of foundations. The big film-friendly arts foundations, like the Jerome Foundation, the Sundance Documentary Film Program or New York State Council on the Arts have been invaluable to filmmakers. But there's also a whole world of specific issue-focused foundations. And despite the fact that many of their endowments have plummeted some 30% (or perhaps because of the lack of funds), foundations are finding new ways to collaborate in quid pro quo relationships with filmmakers: in exchange for doling out money, additional credibility and connections, they get the word out on a particular cause.

I discussed this phenomenon with Dan Cogan, the executive director of Impact Partners, a consortium of private investors that fund documentaries. Cogan recently partnered with the Fledgling Fund to create Impact Philanthropic, an effort to match filmmakers and foundations with similar goals.

Read more after the jump...

"Congo in Harlem" Film Series and Events This Month in NYC

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:14:39 -0500

I just got an email from the filmmakers of Lumo (POV 2007) that there will be films and events celebrating Congolese culture and raising awareness about the conflict at the Mayles Cinema in New York City all this month. Three of Lumo's producers — Louis Abelman, Lynn True and Nelson Walker — were involved with programming the series, which will include screenings, special events, panel discussions, performances and receptions.

According to their website, Congo in Harlem will not only offer New Yorkers the chance to see some great films, but it will also offer opportunities to discover Congolese culture, learn about the ongoing humanitarian crisis, engage in dialog and get involved. Sounds great to us!

This week's events include screenings of Soul Power (10/1, 7:30 pm) and Lumumba (10/2 7:30 pm) with panel discussions, and a screening of "Yole!Africa short films" (10/3, 7:30 pm) and a Q&A with the directors.

Get the full schedule at the Maysles Institute website. For more information please contact the planners at (212) 582-6050 x206 or email congo[at]mayslesinstitute.org. Volunteers needed throughout the month of October.

A Video Interview with Thom Powers, Part 1

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:34:23 -0500

POV's series producer Yance Ford interviews Thom Powers, filmmaker, documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and the founder and curator of the Stranger than Fiction documentary series in New York.

I sat down recently with Thom Powers — filmmaker, documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and the founder and curator of the immensely popular documentary series Stranger than Fiction, also known as STF. Since 2005, STF has run three 10-week seasons (Spring, Fall and Winter) for an ever increasing audience. Powers and his finely curated series have established Tuesday nights at the IFC Center as the time and place for New York City-based documentary filmmakers and fans to view new and classic work and interact through vibrant Q&A's and post-screening gatherings, where the conversations continue.

The Fall 2009 season opened this week with Ahead of Time, the directorial debut of cinematographer Bob Richman. Richman has shot a laundry list of fine documentaries including Constantine's Sword by Oren Jacoby, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, and recently The September Issue by RJ Cutler. The new STF season also features some other great films — check out the calendar on the STF website.

In part one of my interview with Thom, he breaks down the history of STF, his curatorial approach and what it means to bring folks out from behind their computers and into the theater. Stay tuned for part two next week, when we discuss Toronto and some broader issues like distribution and the documentary landscape.

Reminder: Website Cost Survey

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:37:14 -0500

Our own Amanda Hirsch, who writes the Outside the Frame column here on the POV Blog, has been exploring great documentary film websites (read Part I and Part II of her analysis). She's also interested in how much it costs to make a website for a documentary film, and we wanted to remind you that this is the last week to participate in our survey about that very topic!

If you're a documentary filmmaker who has made a website for your film, we'd love it if you'd take the survey now!

We're accepting responses through October 4. Amanda will post results and analysis soon after that.

Italian DOC (denominazione di origine controllata)

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:49:26 -0500

POV associate producer Andrew Catauro reports back from Italy, where he attended the 2009 Italian Doc Screenings event.

Last week I attended an event for Italian documentary filmmakers called Italian Doc Screenings (IDS). IDS is a presentation of Doc/it (the Italian Documentary Filmmakers Association), and this year marks the first time POV has taken part. As a representative of our series, I attended alongside delegates from 24 other countries, including foreign broadcasters, commissioning editors, producers, distributors and festival programmers. The panels and pitch sessions offered some guidance through the waters of the international documentary market — which has more outlets than an Italian filmmaker may be able to find domestically.

Meeting with filmmakers at Italian Doc Screenings 2009

For a variety of reasons, Italy is lacking in opportunities for television pre-sales and funding for documentary film (unlike in many other European countries), and theatrical opportunities can also be limited. Notably, IDS convened on the heels of a very controversial moment in Italian filmmaking this past month: after a documentary critical of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi premiered at the Venice Film Festival to wide acclaim, the trailer of the film was subsequently barred from Italian television.

Read more after the jump...

Doc Soup: So You Think You Can Doc

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:13:50 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

OK, so it wasn't exactly the United Nations General Assembly, but the power in the room was palpable.

Last week, while President Obama and other world leaders met further uptown, I attended The Good Pitch, the climactic event of IFP's Independent Film Week of panels and screenings in New York City. The Good Pitch is an opportunity for filmmakers to get financing, advice and make vital connections to a mass of reps from NGO's, distributors and financiers. For the Good Pitch in New York (this was the fourth in the series this year, after London, Toronto and Washington, D.C.), there actually were some U.N. attendees, as part of the U.N.'s new creative community outreach initiative.

The setup of the Good Pitch is quite inspired: eight pre-selected filmmakers, who are in need of support for projects that are in various states of production, make seven-minute presentations to a panel of about a dozen industry movers and shakers. The presentation includes a trailer, followed by a discussion with the panelists.

The genius of the session is in how the hyper-articulate and sharp moderator Jess Search, who hails from the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, eggs the panelists on to help the filmmakers. While the audience looks on — and occasionally cheers, the filmmakers make essential hook-ups, not unlike getting rewards or immunity on Survivor.

Read more after the jump...

Watch "The Way We Get By" at the Paley Center in NYC!

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:42:52 -0500

On November 11th, POV will air The Way We Get By. But if you just can't wait to watch the film, which has already won a special jury award at Sundance and an audience award at Full Frame, then you can catch a screening of it at New York City's Paley Center on Thursday, October 8th.

Watch the trailer:

More about the film

On call 24 hours a day for the past five years, a group of senior citizens has made history by greeting nearly 800,000 American troops at a tiny airport in Bangor, Maine. The Way We Get By is an intimate look at three of these greeters as they confront the universal losses that come with aging and rediscover their reason for living. Bill Knight, Jerry Mundy and Joan Gaudet find the strength to overcome their personal battles and transform their lives through service. This inspirational and surprising story shatters the stereotypes of today's senior citizens as the greeters redefine the meaning of community.

Filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly will be present at the screening. Bill Knight and Jerry Mundy, two of the film's subjects, will also be on hand for a Q&A session. Get your tickets from the Paley Center's website today!

"Bronx Princess" in the News

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:06:04 -0500

Rocky Otoo, 17, center, stands with her father, Nii Adjedu, left, and her mother "Auntie" Yaa Otoo, right, in the Bronx, NY. Credit: Photo by Yoni Brook/Highbridge Pictures

POV aired the last film of our 2009 season last night on PBS. Bronx Princess is the story of Rocky Otoo, the Bronx-bred teenage daughter of Ghanaian parents, and she's no pushover. She is a sassy high-achiever bound for college. With freedom in sight, Rocky rebels against her mother's rules. When their relationship reaches a breaking point, Rocky flees to her father, a chief in Ghana. What follows is captured in Bronx Princess, a tumultuous coming-of-age story set in a homeland both familiar and strange.

Rocky, now a 19-year-old junior at Dickinson College, and filmmakers Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed, appeared on NPR's Here on Earth program yesterday. You can listen to the interview online at the Wisconsin Public Radio website or download the mp3.

Bassam Tariq writes on the BoingBoing blog that "Musa Syeed and Yoni Brook, the co-directors of the film, have crafted a powerful and intimate story of a young girl transitioning from high school to college all with the pressures of an immigrant family. ...The generational gap issues raised in this film are ones that many immigrant kids, like myself, can relate to." Read full review »

Video: "Inheritance" Wins Emmy for Outstanding Interview

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:54:27 -0500

We caught up with Emmy Award winner James Moll before, during and after the Emmy ceremony last night. James's film Inheritance won the Emmy for Outstanding Interview, and you can watch an excerpt from the film online until October 30, 2009.

Footage by David Nanasi. Edited by Caitlin Shamberg.

Photography Book That Started as POV's Borders Project Comes Out Next Month

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:42:32 -0500

We were thrilled to read in last week's Publisher's Weekly that a multimedia feature commissioned for our POV's Borders series back in 2003 could be the "breakout indie hit" in bookstores this season. Photographer and documentary filmmaker Douglas Gayeton is coming out with a book in October entitled Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town," with an introduction by American slow food guru, Alice Waters.

Douglas's photo feature was a big hit on our website, which also won the 2004 Webby Award for Best Broadband site. Douglas's photographs were part of the Border Talk series, POV's first blog that ran in 2004. Border Talk included posts from an assortment of artists, writers and scientists whose work dealt with the environment. Guests included author Elizabeth Royte (Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash and Bottlemania), marine ecologist Carl Safina and the Mount Washington (Weather) Observers, among others.

We were incredibly pleased with all the participants' blog posts, but we especially loved Douglas's amazing photographs, and the interactivity that revealed his hidden writing within each photo (hint: roll your mouse over the images). A lot of the writing is in Italian, but non-Italian speakers can access English translations of all the text by clicking on the "Words Only" legend link in the upper-left-hand corners of each launched photograph. Click on the image below to explore Douglas's amazing work.

Later this week, we'll be sending Douglas some questions about the book to ask him what else he has been up to in the past few years. If you have any questions you'd like to ask him, please enter them in the comments section below. We'll forward our favorite viewer questions to him, as well.

And the Emmy Goes to... "Inheritance"!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:04:56 -0500

"Well, we didn't sweep." That's what the always good-natured Gary Weimberg from Soldiers of Conscience said to me as the 30th Annual News and Doc Emmys ended last night. From our 10 nominations, James Moll was the only one to go home with an Emmy last night — he was honored in the Outstanding Interview category for Inheritance. Congratulations, James!

James Moll and Helen Jonas at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

Despite the low number of actual wins, it was a great night for POV. I was especially happy to be able to personally congratulate all of our filmmakers from Season 21 that were nominated. (I've missed you guys!) It was also a thrill to meet a number of the subjects from the films including Judge Guzman from The Judge and the General, Mrs. Cookie Rudnick from In the Family, and Helen Jonas from Inheritance. Not to mention, I was a little star-struck when I ran into Andrea Mitchell in the ladies room.

Congratulations again to all of our filmmakers — from all of us at POV.

See a full list of winners and nominees on the Emmy Awards website.

Doc Soup: In Search of the Honest Truth About Docs and Ethics

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:05:06 -0500

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Leave it to The New York Times to fail to get the facts straight.

Or, rather, to presume that there's such a thing as an immutable fact and that its journalists have the rarified ability to relay facts without prejudice. No documentary filmmaker worth his or her salt would ever make such a claim, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last week, the Times published an article about a panel that was held at the Toronto Film Festival, which discussed a new report from the Center for Social Media at American University, titled "Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work."

The writer, Michael Cieply, asserts that the report, which is based on interviews with some 50 doc filmmakers, "came to some conclusions that could shock those schooled in conventional journalistic ethics."

Uh-oh. Cieply says that doc directors work "under ad hoc ethical codes," and reports that one director admitted to letting his crew break the legs of rabbits in order to get better shots of animals being hunted.

Eeek! Of course, this is all written in the context of Michael Moore's new film Capitalism: A Love Story — and everyone knows that Moore is culprit Number One when it comes to doc filmmakers who tweak the truth to fit their agenda.

Read more after the jump...

Michael Moore Says "Good Luck" to POV's Emmy-Nominated Filmmakers!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:36:55 -0500

We heard POV alum Michael Moore (both Roger & Me and Pets or Meat aired on POV in 1992) was in our neighborhood doing some publicity for his new film Capitalism: A Love Story. So we hit the sidewalk, in true Michael Moore-style, to see if he'd speak to us on camera. Lo and behold, he's still an avid fan of POV! Catch his message for POV's Emmy-nominated filmmakers, and check back tomorrow for coverage of tonight's Emmy ceremony at Lincoln Center. POV is up for 10 Emmy Awards and is the second most-nominated program after 60 Minutes.

(Special thanks to my POV colleague David Nanasi for his camera work on the clip.)

Tribute to Michael Galasso, Composer for "Ella Es el Matador"

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:03:07 -0500

We wanted to share with our viewers that Michael Galasso, one of the composers of our film, whose work has inspired us throughout the years of making Ella Es el Matador (She Is the Matador) passed away in Paris last week, right after the POV broadcast. He left us too soon and with so much talent and generosity. We will never forget when we contacted him to see if he would want to collaborate in our film. His prompt and generous response filled us with joy. His music reveals the humanity and complexity of our characters. We feel very lucky to have met this talented man and to keep his spirit alive through his work in the film. For those of you who want to learn more about his inspirational work please visit: www.michaelgalasso.com.

Thank you Michael. You will be missed.

— Gemma Cubero and Celeste Carrasco, directors of Ella Es el Matador

Outside the Frame: How Much Does It Cost to Produce a Documentary Website?

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:16:14 -0500

Freelance writer Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, blogs about documentaries and the Web in her column, Outside the Frame.

Following up on my series exploring great documentary websites (read part one and part two), I promised to explore the cost of producing a documentary site (great or otherwise — they all cost money to make!).

The filmmakers' website for POV's Bronx Princess

Not surprisingly, folks were hesitant to share numbers with me; so, I decided to put together a survey, which allows for (a) anonymity on a potentially sensitive subject, and (b) easy collection of data from a larger pool of filmmakers. I hope you'll take survey, and share it with other filmmakers. I'll accept responses through October 4, and report back with results and analysis soon after that.

Click here to take the survey.

Interview with "Ars Magna" Director Cory Kelley

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:16:11 -0500

POV's 2008 lineup received a record 10 Emmy nominations, including one for a short film entitled Ars Magna in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle & Culture category. The amazing thing about Ars Magna is that it was produced in five days as part of the International Documentary Challenge (IDC), an annual timed filmmaking competition where filmmakers have a long weekend to make a short nonfiction film. Ars Magna received the POV prize at last year's IDC presentation at the Toronto Hot Docs film festival. We emailed director Cory Kelley to ask him some questions about Ars Magna.

Team Juicebox at 2009 News & Documentary Emmys. From left to right: Cory Kelley, Christina Crane, Amy Enser, Tim Boyd, Sean Roach. Photo courtesy of International Documentary Challenge

POV: What is it like to make a film in five days? Did you know you were going to make the film about Cory Calhoun ahead of time, or was that decided on that first day of the competition?

Cory Kelley: Making a film in five days does pose some very large obstacles, but it has a few advantages as well. The hardest part is coming up with a subject that is compelling, has interesting characters, and making sure that there is plenty of access. The way the Documentary Challenge works is that you don't know your genre or theme until the first day of the competition. I suppose one could try to cheat the system and have a subject all lined up in advance, but in the spirit of things we had no idea what our subject would be going into it. There are other obvious challenges, most of them having to do with time for editing and pre-production.

There are some upsides to only having five days. It is much easier to get talented people to commit themselves wholeheartedly to a five-day production as opposed to a documentary schedule that goes on and on. We had a great team of very dedicated people and most people filled multiple roles. Another benefit of the short time period is how quickly decisions have to be made. There is little time to deliberate and dwell on ideas. This creates a certain energy and spontaneity that can come through in the final work if you harness it.

Read more of our interview with Kelley after the jump...

Inside Independent Film Week with Milton Tabbot, Senior Director of Programming at IFP

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:25:03 -0500

POV's series producer Yance Ford interviews Milton Tabbot, senior director of programming at IFP for an inside look at the world of independent filmmaking. IFP's Independent Film Week will run from September 19-24 in New York, and IFP's Filmmaker Conference will run concurrently, from September 19-23.

Yance Ford: What is IFP and what's your mission as an organization? What's your role and how long have you been there?

Milton Tabbot: The nonprofit IFP is the nation's oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers and also their premier advocate. Currently, IFP represents a network of 10,000 filmmakers in New York City and around the world. Through workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships and Filmmaker Magazine, IFP schools our members in the art, technology and business of independent filmmaking. IFP believes that independent films, driven by a filmmaker's unique vision, address issues and disseminate stories and points of view that may be too risky for those who are constrained by commercial considerations. Today, to create a truly independent film and make sure it is seen takes more technological sophistication and business acumen than ever before. Having helped build the infrastructure of the independent film movement and long nurtured its community, IFP is committed to addressing the changes and challenges the industry confronts.

I started with IFP as a volunteer in 1995, working at that year's Independent Feature Film Market (now called Independent Film Week), and came on staff in 1996, really jazzed about being at this intersection of the creative and business communities in the independent world. Currently, as senior director of programming, I supervise a number of programs, primarily the documentary components of both the Project Forum of Independent Film Week and our Independent Filmmaker Labs, and also our fiscal sponsorship program and certain components of our annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. Equally important in these and other programmatic areas are my colleagues — IFP Deputy Director Amy Dotson and Program Manager Rose Vincelli.

Read more after the jump...