“No Small Matter” opens on an innovative attention-grabber, spoofing dry, outdated classroom tutorials to make its point: that a child’s early education is fundamental to their maturation into successful community members and American citizens. However, before the sequence finishes and the facts start flowing, it makes the mistake of laying down a whopping guarantee that the documentary will change how audiences think about its subject. It doesn’t, primarily because the target audience — anyone compelled to watch a documentary about early childhood education in the first place — in all likelihood already embraces this foundational philosophy. , thoughtfully packaging its message in visually coherent, engaging ways.
Directors Danny Alpert, Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel are fairly astute at visually contextualizing their reams of data. They’ve seemingly thought of everything to make their cinematic call to arms aesthetically absorbing, right down to their locales, strengthening subtle thematic connections. Stereotypical, straightforward interviews...
Directors Danny Alpert, Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel are fairly astute at visually contextualizing their reams of data. They’ve seemingly thought of everything to make their cinematic call to arms aesthetically absorbing, right down to their locales, strengthening subtle thematic connections. Stereotypical, straightforward interviews...
- 6/26/2020
- by Courtney Howard
- Variety Film + TV
Here’s your daily dose of an indie film, web series, TV pilot, what-have-you in progress, as presented by the creators themselves. At the end of the week, you’ll have the chance to vote for your favorite.
In the meantime: Is this a project you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments.
Brooklyn/Alaska
Logline: Three teenage boys from Brooklyn embark on an unlikely adventure through the Alaskan wilderness.
Elevator Pitch:
“Brooklyn/Alaska” is a coming-of-age tale joining teenage boys from Brooklyn, New York on a once-in-a-lifetime trip through the remote Alaskan wilderness. We witness the natural world transform these young men as they overcome the physical and mental challenges of the great outdoors 5,000 miles from home. For a brief moment, the pressures of life — family drama, fear of violence on and off the streets — are swept away. “Brooklyn/Alaska” examines the environmental injustices preventing young black...
In the meantime: Is this a project you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments.
Brooklyn/Alaska
Logline: Three teenage boys from Brooklyn embark on an unlikely adventure through the Alaskan wilderness.
Elevator Pitch:
“Brooklyn/Alaska” is a coming-of-age tale joining teenage boys from Brooklyn, New York on a once-in-a-lifetime trip through the remote Alaskan wilderness. We witness the natural world transform these young men as they overcome the physical and mental challenges of the great outdoors 5,000 miles from home. For a brief moment, the pressures of life — family drama, fear of violence on and off the streets — are swept away. “Brooklyn/Alaska” examines the environmental injustices preventing young black...
- 12/15/2016
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
We are filmmakers. We are artisans.
Or so we forget.
With filmmaking so often abstracted from the actual work of making a film, so enmeshed in conversations about new models and plans and strategies, we sometimes lose touch with what should be the main reason we make movies in the first place: to take pride in works of art made beautifully and with love.
It is precisely the love of artisanal creation that is celebrated in Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte’s Charlotte: A Wooden Boat Story, a verite doc chronicling the making of a 50-foot gaff rigged schooner, “Charlotte,” by a team of craftsmen working in a Martha’s Vineyard Boatyard. Focusing particularly on boat builder Nat Benjamin, Kusama-Hinte observes the painstaking and quiet work involved in building such an elegant craft over the several years required. In doing so, he eschews many of today’s accepted documentary strategies — pinning narrative on conflict,...
Or so we forget.
With filmmaking so often abstracted from the actual work of making a film, so enmeshed in conversations about new models and plans and strategies, we sometimes lose touch with what should be the main reason we make movies in the first place: to take pride in works of art made beautifully and with love.
It is precisely the love of artisanal creation that is celebrated in Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte’s Charlotte: A Wooden Boat Story, a verite doc chronicling the making of a 50-foot gaff rigged schooner, “Charlotte,” by a team of craftsmen working in a Martha’s Vineyard Boatyard. Focusing particularly on boat builder Nat Benjamin, Kusama-Hinte observes the painstaking and quiet work involved in building such an elegant craft over the several years required. In doing so, he eschews many of today’s accepted documentary strategies — pinning narrative on conflict,...
- 2/19/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Patricio Guzmán's "Nostalgia for the Light" was the big winner at the 2011 International Documentary Association (Ida) Awards receiving the Best Feature trophy. Here's the full list of winners:
Career Achievement Award
Les Blank
Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award
Danfung Dennis
Best Feature Award
"Nostalgia For The Light"
Director/Writer: Patricio Guzmán
Producer: Renate Sachse
Atacama Productions (France), Blinker Filmproduction GmbH and Wdr (Germany), and Cronomedia Ltda. (Chile), Icarus Films
Best Short Award
"Poster Girl"
Director/Producer: Sara Nesson
Executive Producer: Sheila Nevins (HBO)
Producer: Mitchell Block
Supervising Producer: Sara Bernstein (HBO)
Consulting Producer: Ross Kauffman
Portrayal Films, Inc. in association with HBO Documentary Films
Best Limited Series Award
"Boomtown"
Executive Producer/Director: Rachel Libert
Executive Producers: Josh Braun, Ken Druckerman, Susannah Ludwig, Banks Tarver
Co-Executive Producer: Matthew Galkin
Producer: Kevin Vargas
Left/Right Inc., Discovery Channel- Planet Green
Best Continuing Series Award
"Pov"
Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry
Co-Executive...
Career Achievement Award
Les Blank
Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award
Danfung Dennis
Best Feature Award
"Nostalgia For The Light"
Director/Writer: Patricio Guzmán
Producer: Renate Sachse
Atacama Productions (France), Blinker Filmproduction GmbH and Wdr (Germany), and Cronomedia Ltda. (Chile), Icarus Films
Best Short Award
"Poster Girl"
Director/Producer: Sara Nesson
Executive Producer: Sheila Nevins (HBO)
Producer: Mitchell Block
Supervising Producer: Sara Bernstein (HBO)
Consulting Producer: Ross Kauffman
Portrayal Films, Inc. in association with HBO Documentary Films
Best Limited Series Award
"Boomtown"
Executive Producer/Director: Rachel Libert
Executive Producers: Josh Braun, Ken Druckerman, Susannah Ludwig, Banks Tarver
Co-Executive Producer: Matthew Galkin
Producer: Kevin Vargas
Left/Right Inc., Discovery Channel- Planet Green
Best Continuing Series Award
"Pov"
Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry
Co-Executive...
- 12/11/2011
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light won Best Feature at the International Documentary Association's Awards ceremony in Los Angeles last night. The La Times' Susan King: "Set in northern Chile's Atacama Desert, the documentary juxtaposes scenes of astronomers in observatories scanning the galaxies, while nearby, archaeologists and elderly women dig through the sand searching for the human remains of pre-Columbian mummies, 19th century miners who labored in slave conditions and the bodies of victims of Gen Augusto Pinochet's regime who were taken to the Atacama as political prisoners and dumped there." Michael Guillén interviewed Guzmán in October 2010.
TheWrap's Steve Pond notes that neither Nostalgia nor any of the other docs nominated for the Ida's top award — Better This World, How to Die in Oregon, The Redemption of General Butt Naked and The Tiniest Place — have made the Academy's shortlist of 15 films left in the race for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.
TheWrap's Steve Pond notes that neither Nostalgia nor any of the other docs nominated for the Ida's top award — Better This World, How to Die in Oregon, The Redemption of General Butt Naked and The Tiniest Place — have made the Academy's shortlist of 15 films left in the race for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.
- 12/3/2011
- MUBI
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