Monday, July 10---It's been quite a year for the MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL!!! Not only has it emerged triumphant from a near-fatal loss of federal funding and the creation of a rival festival event last year, but it has confounded its critics by coming back stronger than ever in time to celebrate its 30th anniversary as North America's only FIAPF approved competition festival. The rival event, funded by local media powerhouse Equipe Spectra and headed by former Berlinale topper Mortiz de Ha...

Monday, July 10----Most festivals, in their debut year, have a modest agenda and try to keep expectations at a low pitch. Not so the Rome Film Fest, which is approaching its inaugural session with the velocity of an unstoppable train. It has always seemed curious to Americans why some of Europe’s largest cities have not had a major film festival attached to them. Why, we wonder, did it take decades for Paris, the most cinephile of cities, to launch its own film event? Why are there no major...

Monday, June 19---The 4th annual SILVERDOCS:AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival ended its six-day event with the announcements of Jury and Audience prizes in a number of diverse categories. The Festival, which had a significant breakthrough this year, in terms of content, celebrity attendance (Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Al Gore, Thomas L. Friedman, Will Shortz and others) and audience response has more than reinforced its claim as the premiere documentary film festival in North Ameri...

Saturday, June 17----As the US Congress debated this week on the future of the war in Iraq, four documentaries presented at the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival provide a more in-depth understanding of the cost of this bloody conflict to the American economy, the American morale and America’s standing in the world. While the Bush Administration offers platitudes of bringing Western style democracy to the Middle East, the true politics of that region are “petro politics...

Friday, June 16----The new frontiers in distribution of documentary films has been a running theme at the SILVERDOCS International Documentary Conference. While other topics such as film financing, working with non-profits and foundations, and producing for public television are rather evergreen and non-changing from years past, the arena of distribution is on fire, with a number of panels pointing to incredible new opportunities for documentary filmmakers to reach wider audiences. On Thursday ...

Thursday, June 15----It doesn't get much better than this....legendary film director Martin Scorsese being honored for his documentary film career, in a rare on-stage dialogue with independent auteur Jim Jarmusch. That was the scenario this evening, as Scorsese was honored at the SILVERDOCS 2006 Guggenheim Symposium, named in honor of four-time Academy Award winning documentarian, and Washington DC resident, Charles Guggenheim. Scorsese is one of the few Hollywood directors who has moved from...

Thursday, June 15----A documentary film festival always has some common threads to it. Many involve hot-button political issues about social inequity, conflict and the abuse of government. SILVERDOCS certainly has its share of those. However, a more personal genre, that can best be described as films that celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, is also in evidence here, in a number of superb films. BLACK SUN by UK director Gary Tan, had its premiere at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival and was ...

Thursday, June 15----One of the tenets of the American system of governing is a strict separation of church and state. It is very clearly written into our Constitution, and was certainly the intention of our "founding fathers", who had experienced the persecutions of state religions in Europe. This seperation between church doctrine and the rule of law has been scrupulously followed but that wall is definitely crumbling. A number of documentaries premiering at the SILVERDOCS festival this week,...

Wednesday, June 14---As the SILVERDOCS festival entered its first full day of programming, today was also the start of the very ambitious International Documentary Conference, which brings together an illustrious group of film and media professionals who will address topics of interest to the dozens of documentary filmmakers and distributors who are attending this year's event. With 30 sessions over 4 days, this is an unprecendented "intensive" for all those interested in where documentary film ...

Tuesday, June 13-----The 4th edition of SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the leading documentary film festival in North America, launches this evening with a reflective view of the creative and economic pressures of the Hollywood system. BOFFO! TINSELTOWN’S BOMBS AND BLOCKBUSTERS, directed by veteran documentarian Bill Couturie, is based on the book written by long-time Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, in celebration of the film trade’s 100th anniversary. The ...

Monday, June 12---While most US-based film festivals regularly showcase at least a few international documentaries as part of their program, non-fiction from around the world is a definite spotlight of the SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which launches on tomorrow night at the AFI Silver Center. In a section called World View, which also includes US documentaries, the subject matter and geographical origins of the films bring a broader understanding of political, social ...

Sunday, June 11....At a gala Awards Ceremony at the Forum Luisa Todi last night, the 22nd edition of the Troia International Film Festival came to a conclusion with the announcement of Fetival Awards in a number of competitiom categproes. An analysis of the films and the awards will follow, but here is the list of award winners. FESTROIA – FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA SPECIAL AWARDS AUDIENCE AWARD To the film THE WEDDING PARTY, by Dominique Deruddere (Belgium/Germany) PRIZE MAN AND HIS...

Saturday, June 10---When screenwriter Barry Stringfellow was pitching his original screenplay of a teenage boy dying of cancer whose final wish is a date with a blonde supermodel, he was repeatedly asked how to much the film more "upbeat". Well cancer is never very upbeat, but, as Virginia Woolf famously said, "a character needs to die so that the other characters can value life". That is the sentiment and the message of Stringfellow's alternately moving and hilarious ONE LAST THING, directed b...

Saturday, June 10----An Israeli director for a Southern Gothic story set in 1960s Florida may seem like an odd choice, but for Ido Mizrahy, the director of the American Independent film THINGS THAT HANG FROM TREES, his foreigness allowed him to bring subtle observations to this story of small town life. The film, which is screening in the American Independents Competition here, is written and based on the autobiographical novella of Aaron Louis Tordini. Tordini grew up in St. Augustine, Florid...

Friday, June 9----Fresh off his tour of the Croisette at the Cannes Film Festival with his film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, former Vice President (and current media darling) Al Gore will delivery the Keynote Address at the SILVERDOCS Documentary Film Conference on Thursday, June 15. Gore's film, directed by Davis Guggenheim, a wake-up call on the effects of global warming, has been a media sensation since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and reached a fever pitch when Gore walke...

Friday, June 9---One of the most consistently popular sections at the annual Troia International Film Festival is devoted to American Independents. This year, six films, most having their European premieres at the event, will compete for the Dolphin Award. The films are quite diverse in their genres, directorial styles and use of their regional base. In Anthony Ng’s 212, which had its world premiere at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, a diverse group of twenty-something New Yorkers grasp for...

SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which begins next week, has announced the 10 films that will be competing for the Sterling Award Feature Film prize at its event. The Festival, which has become one of the leading showcases of non-fiction film in the world, mixes film screenings with information panels and special events to offer a comprehensive look at the current state of the art of documentary film, and where the art form may go in the future. As one can imagine ...