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Full Frame Announces Program News for the 2010 Documentary Festival

Durham, N.C., - January 13, 2010 – The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has announced that filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, directors of the 2009 film “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” that features the last months of the assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, will curate a series of films about labor for the Festival’s 2010 thematic program.

“Each year the thematic program gives us the opportunity to delve into a current issue. In light of the present economic climate, we felt compelled to examine the human relationship to work,” stated Director of Programming, Sadie Tillery. “Especially with the completion of their most recent film, we are enthusiastic to collaborate with Bognar and Reichert.”

Longtime friends of the festival, Bognar and Reichert’s film “A Lion in the House” received a Special Jury Award at the 2006 Festival. Reichert’s Academy Award® nominated film “Union Maids” was featured in the 2003 thematic program “Leadership Through a Gender Lens.” Reichert was also one of the guest curators of the 2007 tenth anniversary program “The Power of Ten.”

“We're honored that Full Frame, a festival we love, has asked us to curate a series of films exploring the broad theme of labor,” said Bognar and Reichert. “We are excited by the possibilities of putting together a dynamic, international, surprising collection of films, with a healthy disregard for what might traditionally be called a ‘labor documentary.’”

They continued, “After spending six months observing an amazing group of auto workers as their jobs ended, we realized how ignorant we were of the labor it takes to make the vehicles we drive: all the many skills, how they fit together. So, we are interested in films about labor itself, the actual work people do. Even more, we are drawn to films that investigate how one's labor affects one's whole life. We will also bring to Full Frame some of the fiction and nonfiction films that depict the struggles of the labor movement, which is a very underrepresented part of American life.”

Specific titles will be announced in March. Support for the thematic series is provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Additionally, this year the Festival will honor filmmakers Liz Garbus and with the 2010 Career Award. The filmmaking team co-founded their production company Moxie Firecracker Films in 1998. Together, they have produced and directed a wide range of work exploring social issues through the lives of everyday people, including examinations of the U.S. legal system, AIDS, violence, abuse, and human rights.

“We are honored to celebrate the work of Liz Garbus and Rory Kennedy. It has been a privilege to exhibit their work since the Festival’s beginning,” Tillery said. “Their unique directing and producing partnership is responsible for such an incredible collection of films, and we look forward to having the opportunity to showcase a selection from their outstanding careers.”

Garbus’ Academy Award® nominated “The Farm: Angola, USA”, made in collaboration with , received Full Frame’s first Audience Award in 1998. Kennedy’s film “American Hollow” , screened at Full Frame in 1999 along with “Different Moms”, their first joint venture under the Moxie Firecracker banner. Other Moxie Firecracker productions featured at Full Frame include “Juvies”, “The Execution of Wanda Jean”, “Coma” and most recently “Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech”, which received the 2009 Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights.

“My relationship with Full Frame, then Doubletake, started in its first years, with “The Farm”, in 1998,” said Garbus. “Since then, I have enjoyed many wonderful years coming back to the festival with my films, having the chance to screen the extraordinary work of colleagues. Full Frame is truly a festival for the documentary filmmaking community, and OF that community. It is for that reason that I feel extremely honored to receive the 2010 Career Award.”

The team has received numerous accolades over the years, including Grand Jury prizes at various festivals, including Sundance, alongside Academy Award® and Independent Spirit Award nominations. In 2007, Kennedy received a Primetime Emmy Award for “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” Along with theatrical screenings, their films have been broadcast on HBO, A&E, PBS, Lifetime Television and The History Channel, among others.

"I was absolutely thrilled to learn that Liz and I had been chosen for the 2010 Career Award,” said Kennedy. “It is such an honor to join past recipients such as Ken Burns, Barbara Kopple, and DA Pennebaker - filmmakers that I have admired for years. Full Frame is one of the premier documentary film festivals and I am so deeply honored to be receiving their lifetime achievement award."

In other program news, Full Frame is considering more than 1,200 films for the NEW DOCS program to be presented at this year’s festival. NEW DOCS will feature 60 selected documentaries and is the largest program of films at the Festival. Official selections will be announced in March.

The 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will be held April 8-11, in Durham, N.C., with Duke University as the presenting sponsor. Festival passes can be purchased online at www.fullframefest.org .

About Full Frame The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema. Each spring Full Frame welcomes filmmakers and film lovers from around the world to historic downtown Durham, N.C., for a four-day, morning to midnight array of over 100 films as well as discussions, panels, and southern hospitality. Set within a four-block radius, the intimate festival landscape fosters community and conversation between filmmakers, film professionals and the general public.

The festival is produced by Doc Arts, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and receives support from corporate sponsors, private foundations and individual donors whose generosity provides the foundation that makes the event possible. To learn more on the mission of Full Frame or for information on membership or sponsorship opportunities, scheduled films or festival passes visit www.fullframefest.org .

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