All These Wonderful Things: DOCNYC 2010: Thom Powers Previews the Inaugural Edition of the New Nonfiction Festival in New York

All these wonderful things: DOCNYC 2010: Thom Powers Previews the Inaugural Edition of the New Nonfiction Festival in New York

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1. Sundance October 26, 2010 AWARDS 2. (tie) IDFA & Toronto Academy Awards Winners and DOCNYC 2010: Thom Powers Previews the 4. Hot Docs Nominees (1942 - present) Inaugural Edition of the New Nonfiction Festival 5. Sheffield Doc/Fest in New York Independent Spirit Awards Winners 6. Berlin and Nominees (1996 - present)

In just 9 days, New York will see the launch of DOCNYC, the new festival 7. Silverdocs Sundance Film Festival Award birthed from the folks behind NYC's Stranger Than Fiction series (Toronto Winners (1984 - present) 8. Tribeca International Film Festival Documentary Programmer Thom Powers, STF Executive Director Raphaela Neihausen, IFC Center head honcho John Vanco 9. SXSW BOX OFFICE and IFC Center Director of Programs Harris Dew). It's perhaps the biggest 10. Los Angeles documentary festival launch in over five years and it's grabbing the prime real All Time Nonfiction Box Office 11. CPH:DOX Leaders estate in early November that's soon to be vacated by primo UK Doc/Fest Sheffield. 12. True/False The 2008 Nonfiction Box Office Top 20 The first edition is marked by tributes to doc superstars Werner Herzog and 13. Full Frame The 2009 Nonfiction Box Office Errol Morris, a retrospective of work by one of this year's Honorary Oscar 14. Ambulante/Morelia Top 20 recipients, Kevin Brownlow, and two competition sections - Metropolis, which 15. Jihlava The 2010 Nonfiction Box Office focuses on New York-set stories, and Viewfinders, which includes the US Top 20 16. San Francisco Premieres of Janus Metz' ARMADILLO, Kim Longinotto's PINK SARIS and The 2011 Nonfiction Box Office Bjarte Mørner Tveit's DISCOVERIES OF A MARIONETTE and the World 17. Edinburgh Top 20 Premiere of Robert Greene's KATI WITH AN I (following a sneak preview 18. Thessaloniki earlier this year at True/False). 19. Camden HONOR ROLL We talked to Thom Powers (who was, full disclosure, my co-chair for the first 20. Sarasota two editions of the Cinema Eye Honors and who serves on Cinema Eye's The 2008 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll Advisory Board) about the inaugural festival, his broader ideas for a "nonfiction 21. Doc Lisboa festival" and what's exciting and scaring him nine days out. 22. DokuFest Kosovo The 2009 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll I guess I want to start with the other stuff, the non-film elements, 23. Denver ATWT: The 2010 Nonfiction Feature Honor because that's one of the things I think is so exciting about DOCNYC and what 24. Traverse City Roll you're doing, because it's not just films and it's not just panels about films. 25. Ashland

Thom Powers: It's not. Film I would say is an 80 or 90 percent core of what 10 More American Fests That AJ SCHNACK LINKS we're doing this year but the longterm goal of this festival is to enrich the other Matter AJ on Facebook aspects over the years. And the heart of this is the daylong symposia that we 9 More International Fests That Follow AJ on Twitter have called Doc Convergence. That's kind of where I laid down an initial Matter structure for ways in which I want to invigorate this festival with all kinds of CONVENTION Official Website 6 That Would've Have Made the different documentary voices, not just filmmakers. At Doc Convergence we List If Only They... have photographers, including Pulitzer Prize winner David Turnley, we have OCTOBER 2011 cartoonists, such as Joe Sacco, Linda Barry, we have people from the world of INTERVIEWS Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat performance and also writing, such as Lawrence Wright, who did "My Trip to Al 1 Qaeda", which was turned into a film by Alex Gibney, and Moises Kaufman, Alex Gibney (December 2010) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 who's done these documentary-based theatrical works, including The Laramie Banksy (December 2010) 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Project, that was turned into a film. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Carl Deal & Tia Lessin (December

http://edendale.typepad.com/...og/2010/10/atwt-i-guess-i-want-to-start-with-the-other-stuff-the-non-film-elements-because-thats-one-of-the-things-i-think-is-so-ex.html[06.12.2011 13:52:20] All these wonderful things: DOCNYC 2010: Thom Powers Previews the Inaugural Edition of the New Nonfiction Festival in New York

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 ATWT: That's the kind of thing that I think works in New York. People have a 2008) 30 31 appreciation of that, they have the New Yorker Festival and Times Talks and Darius Marder (January 2009) things like that. I would think that in some other parts of the country it might be Ellen Kuras (January 2009) hard for people to wrap their brains around the larger idea of documentary, but RECENT POSTS Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady it seems like a natural fit for New York that you would have all these A Few Words about Cinema Eye (January 2011) conversations that have this umbrella topic of what constitutes nonfiction in a 2012 and This Space larger sense. James Marsh (December 2008) The Great Lost Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs List Thom: Yeah and I have to give credit to the Creative Capital retreats that I Jeff Malmberg (January 2011) attended a couple years ago for helping to inspire some of this. And Creative Margaret Brown (January 2009) TORONTO 2011: Thom Powers on Capital's Executive Director Ruby Lerner is on our Advisory Board and they do Mavericks Premieres from Maysles Marina Zenovich (January 2009) & Demme Plus PALIN, PARADISE this private retreat e their members, for recipients of their grants and for other LOST 3 and "the sexiest Wiseman Tim Hetherington & Sebastian invitees, where they bring together artists working in all kinds of different fields film ever made" Junger (December 2010) to do presentations of their work, compacted into a couple days. It's a real PARADISE LOST Subjects Freed Werner Herzog (February 2009) mind opening experience, the kind of thing that leaves you absolutely creatively After 18-year Miscarriage of energized at the end of the day because you're breaking out of the boundaries Yung Chang (December 2008) Justice that you sometimes think of this work in. So definitely in conceiving Doc TORONTO 2011: Doc Premieres Convergence they were an influence. And also the concept came directly out a TOP POSTS from Herzog, Wiseman, Demme, conversation I had with Laura Poitras, the director of THE OATH, where she Gibney, Spurlock, Yu, Hustwit, was saying, "there's so many times after a festival that I feel exhausted A Dark Day for Documentary as the Fricke, Broomfield & Churchill and Berlinger & Sinofsky because so much of the conversation is just about business and I really want to Academy Changes Course, Fights the Future have more conversations about the creative side." So that's why we created SENNA Breaks UK Box Office Records for Documentary these two days - Doc Convergence and State of the Art - that are really meant When Art, Sexuality and Religion Collide, What is the Role of a Film to focus on the creative side. Michael Rapaport's TRIBE CALLED Festival? QUEST Docu Storms the Indie Box ATWT: Yeah, I noticed there's not a distribution panel. Who Are the Most Important Office Documentary Filmmakers? Thom: Well, we do have one free State of the Industry panel on the first day of New Trailer for Steve James' THE INTERRUPTERS the festival because, look, that's important too. ESSENTIAL FILM Bar-Lev, Ferguson, Hetherington, ATWT: Right. LINKS Junger & Weyermann Among 10 Invited to Join Academy Thom: But definitely the ratio of creative discussion vs. business discussion is Cinema Eye Honors obviously higher toward the creative. Sean Farnel Steps Down at Hot Film Independent Docs ATWT: Well, I'm obviously excited about that State of the Art day because Film Society Lincoln Center you're not just focusing on directors but all the different craftspeople. Filmmaker Magazine Blog RECENT COMMENTS Thom: Absolutely, there's all these different, important people who make indieWIRE contributions and so often at festivals it just becomes about the director and the Doug Blush on A Few Words about LA Weekly Film editors, cinematographers, producers are out of the conversation. And for this Cinema Eye 2012 and This Space Movie City News' Blogs day, for State of the Art, we want to bring everyone into the conversation about Ben on A Few Words about Cinema the new trends happening in documentary film today. MUBI's Daily Notebook Eye 2012 and This Space

ATWT: I think it's also - it's what we saw with Cinema Eye and what's nice Museum of the Moving Image Jake on Banksy (Yes, Banksy) on Thierry, EXIT Skepticism & about this event and the larger documentary community - is bringing the entire Documentary Filmmaking as Punk creative team that makes the films and not having the discussion around the art NONFICTION FILM Diana Rice on The Great Lost of nonfiction be so director-centric. SITES Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs List Thom: Absolutely. Docs Interactive

Doculink Jody on The Great Lost ATWT: Tell me about the Kevin Brownlow events and was that something Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs you thought of before he was named as one of this year's Honorary Oscar Doug Block's Doc Blog List recipients. International Documentary DocCritic on The Great Lost Association Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs Thom: This is sort of a late brainstorm after I learned, late summer, that he was List going to be honored with the Honorary Academy Award just a few days after P.O.V. Blog the festival and I was thinking that now was the prime moment when we can rza on The Great Lost Opportunity Pamela Cohn's Still in Motion of Current's 50 Docs List gain attention for this extraordinary figure whose contributions to the general Sean Farnel's Ripping Reality public have been largely unsung. Certainly Kevin Brownlow, to anyone you'd jawillie on The Great Lost Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs talk to in the world of film history, his reputation looms large. There are many Stranger Than Fiction List people in the archive community who consider themselves SOK's (Sons of The D-Word Documentary Carrie Brody Kevin). So, I hastily got in touch with him and we've worked out all the details Community on The Great Lost Opportunity of Current's 50 Docs

at the last minute, so he's going to be coming here for the last two nights of the The Documentary Blog List festival. We're gonna screen several of his documentaries that explore Cinema what (not) to doc qate on Banksy (Yes, Banksy) on history as well as two groundbreaking, kind-of-hybrid films, IT HAPPENED Thierry, EXIT Skepticism & HERE and WINSTANLEY. Documentary Filmmaking as Punk FAVORITE FILM The nights that people absolutely should not miss are the nights that he's going SITES to be here. Monday night, November 8th, when he's going to present a ARCHIVES Anne Thompson on Hollywood double feature of his films, I'M KING KONG, about Merian C. Cooper, one of October 2011 the great early pioneers of documentary, who made CHANG and GRASS, and Anthony Kaufman's blog August 2011 the second part of that bill is THE TRAMP AND THE DICTATOR, about the Awards Daily making of Charlie Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR. Brownlow has been July 2011 Box Office Mojo such an important scholar of Charlie Chaplin's work. So we're going to have June 2011 him in conversation for both of those titles. Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film May 2011 And then the second night, he's gonna show his film on Cecil B. DeMille, Chuck Tyron's The Chutry April 2011 which is kind of timely because there's a big, new Cecil B. DeMille biography Experiment out that's getting a lot of attention amongst followers of Hollywood history. And March 2011 Drifting - David Lowery so Kevin will be here to talk about that. February 2011 Film Threat - Truth in ATWT: There's just over a week before the inaugural edition of DOCNYC kicks Entertainment January 2011 off. What are you most excited about and what are you still concerned about GreenCine Daily December 2010 with 9 or 10 days to go? Hammer to Nail More... Thom: What am I most excited about? You know, it's always exciting to be Hollywood Elsewhere showing new work by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, and to have New York CATEGORIES audiences encountering these films so soon after their creation is gonna be a IFC's News Blog 2005 real thrill. But, I'm very excited to be putting forward the slates in the In Contention Viewfinders and Metropolis competitions, several of which are World 2006 Ingrid Kopp's Shooting From the Premieres, especially in the Metropolis section, and that's always a thrill to see Hip 2007 people encountering work for the first time. The Metropolis section, which is Joe Leydon's MovingPictureBlog the section of New York stories, there's a film like LOST BOHEMIA, which 2008 looks at artists who are living above Carnegie Hall for several decades and who Matt Dentler's Blog 2009 were finally evicted as the landlord decided to do something different with that Movie City Indie by Ray Pride 2010 space. That's the kind of film that's going to have so much excitement playing Steve Pond at The Wrap in New York City. Or the film, TO BE HEARD, another World Premiere, it's A&E IndieFilms about Bronx teenagers whose lives are transformed by great teachers in a The House Next Door AFI Fest poetry workshop. I'm really looking to the electricity of having those young Metacritic Agnes Varda people in the audience for that film. Michael Tully - Boredom at Its Alan and Susan Raymond ATWT: And anything you're nervous or anxious about? Boredest Alan Berliner Movie City News Thom: I'm anxious like a new parent is anxious about everything involving the Alex Gibney future of their offspring. One of the gratifying things has been to run into people Movieline Ambulante in New York who tell me how much they're looking forward to this. The thing New York Times - Movies about this kind of thing is that we have a small but very dedicated team. We're AmFest Moscow Pop Candy by Whitney Matheson working literally around the clock in our own little bubble and I can't wait until Amir Bar-Lev November 3rd when we open that up to the crowds to come share what we've Roger Ebert Arthur Cohn been planning. Rotten Tomatoes Ashland Independent Film Festival Posted by AJ Schnack on October 26, 2010 in Cinema Eye Honors, DOC NYC, Errol Morris, IFC Self-Reliant Filmmaking Center, Janus Metz, Kim Longinotto, Laura Poitras, Stranger Than Fiction, Thom Powers, Atlantic Film Festival Toronto Film Festival, Werner Herzog | Permalink Some Came Running by Glenn Digg This | Save to del.icio.us Kenny Audrey Marrs

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