2010
Chris Billing’s LOST SPARROW will be featured on Independent Lens, PBS nationally-broadcast independent film series. It is one of only 11 films to be screened as part of this season’s slate of the prestigious public television series. The film was also screened as part of the National Children’s Alliance Leadership Conference in June. The Alliance provides advocacy services for victims of child abuse and screened the film as an engagement tool as part of its conference for leaders in the children’s advocacy field.
Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer’s OUT IN THE SILENCE has been featured on dozens of PBS affiliates across the country, including both WETA and MPT. It has been nominated for an Emmy Award through the Mid-Atlantic chapter of NATAS.
Ed Askinazi’s THE LAST GREEKS ON BROOME STREET (which was workshopped by Docs In Progress as a rough cut) will make its broadcast premiere on September 12 on Washington DC PBS affiliate WETA, TV-26.
Heather Taylor recently completed BREAKING THROUGH THE CLOUDS (formerly titled RAGWING DERBY when it went through the Docs In Progress Consultation Services), a documentary about women pioneers in aviation. The film has started its run to strong acclaim at air shows and aviation museums across the country. In the Washington area, it will be screened at the College Park Aviation Museum on Saturday, August 14 at 11 am and again at 2 pm.
Adrian Muys’ HANDS OF HARVEST (which was workshopped by Docs In Progress as a rough cut at the 2009 Utopia Film Festival) screened on Maryland Public Television in early July.
Jason Osder and John Aldrich who presented LET THE FIRE BURN at a Docs In Progress Trailer Night and Peer Pitch program have been accepted into Independent Film Week’s Spotlight on Documentaries in New York in September. They will join the ranks of past alums Tom Dziedzic and Carolyn Projansky who made important connections for their films at this market.
Andre Dahlman and Ian Cook premiered their latest short CORNER PLOT at the Silverdocs Film Festival, the only local filmmakers to be featured at the festival this year.
Jehan Harney was selected by the Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco to participate in its prestigious Producers Institute for New Technologies. At the Institute, Harney and her team developed a mobile Alternate Reality game called Hela Hello! as a companion piece to DREAM OF AMERICA (which is part of the Docs In Progress Fiscal Sponsorship Program). The interactive “game” helps deepen awareness of the hidden human consequences of war.
Congratulations to Jes Therkelsen (who screened THE BEST PART OF EVERYTHING and FOUR MINUTES at Docs In Progress work-in-progress screenings). He was recently selected by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as one of their “32 Under 32″ which honors young artists in Washington DC.
Sean Tracey’s film THE JESUS GUY was featured at FireDogLake.com’s Movie Night in which viewers watched the film through Hulu and then participated in an interactive, real time typed chat with the filmmaker.
Tom Dziedzic’s REDEMPTION STONE has been selected to screen at the prestigious Slamdance Film Festival. It will be 1 of just 12 documentary shorts to screen in the Documentary Short Film Competition. Slamdance, which runs concurrently with Sundance in Park City, Utah, had over 5,000 submissions and less than 100 films were chosen for the 2010 festival. The film will screen on January 25 and January 28, 2010.
Chris Billing’s LOST SPARROW, which premiered at Slamdance last year, capped off an exciting year on the festival circuit by winning the Best Documentary Feature award at the 34th annual American Indian Film Festival in November in San Francisco, CA. The film is distributed by Cinetic Rights Management.
DREAM OF AMERICA(formerly titled FRIENDS OF AMERICA) is the only U.S. project selected to participate in the 2010 DocsBarcelona Pitching Forum along with 23 films from Europe and other regions of the world. The ITVS-funded film is directed, produced and filmed by Jehan S. Harney, and executive-produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras.
New Yorkers will have the opportunity to see Liza Figueroa Kravinsky’sBEAUTY IN THE EYES OF THE BEHELD Tuesday February 23 at 7:00 pm at Pace University. The film is being screened as part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. The film has also signed on with an educational distributor, Films for the Humanities and Sciences, part of the umbrella group Films Media Group. More info at www.BeautyDocumentary.com/news.
Alba Herrera Rivas reports from Monterrey, Mexico that she is now at work on a new documentary UNDER THE CARAPACE about the survival of sea turtles in Mexico. The turtles, which survived the dinosaurs’ extinction, are now facing decimation and may be canaries in the coalmine for human survival.
Maggie Ronkin has been recommended in the Institute of International Education’s review process for a Fulbright Research Fellowship. The final decision comes in March. Maggie proposed to affiliate with Pakistan’s national folklife museum to produce a documentary and ethnography on the storying of diasporic African-Pakistani identities in performance arts traditions, national development discourses, and the human genome project. This was a project she had workshopped at a Docs In Progress class last year.
James Brasic has been granted a Special Mention for his art film DREAM by the Festival du Cinéma de Paris.
Finally a big congratulations to work-in-progress screening alums Kimberley Rose and Jody Hassett-Sanchez on expanding their repertoires to include motherhood. The next generation of documentary filmmakers might already be in the works.
