Category: DOC TALKS

“I think you have to start at home,” says Su Friedrich about her avant-garde body of work in which the personal becomes political and universal. In her new documentary film Gut Renovation, Friedrich’s ‘at home’ attitude extends to her neighborhood of Williamsburg where she takes gentrification personally in a fierce, provocative, oppositional look at the effect of real estate development on a once traditional working-class community and artists’ turf.
A formally elegant filmmaker, known for her wit and visceral imagery, Friedrich is the recipient of numerous awards including Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the Grand prix at the Melbourne Film Festival and retrospectives worldwide. She is the writer, cinematographer, director and editor of all but one of her eighteen works. Among her most celebrated are Sink or Swim, The Ties That Bind and First Comes Love.

What we talk about when we talk about editing. Renowned editor Jonathan Oppenheim (Paris is Burning, Arguing the World, Sister Helen, and the upcoming Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner) screened and discussed the ways in which he worked with director Laura Poitras to create a framework and context for the post 9/11 film The Oath. Oppenheim’s psychological approach to shaping character in documentary has won him a Peabody, an Oscar nomination and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.

“I think you have to start at home,” says Su Friedrich about her avant-garde body of work in which the personal becomes political and universal.  Continue reading “Doc Talk with Su Friedrich — Gut Renovation” →

Debra Zimmerman from Women Make Movies joined us for a conversation on maximizing film’s outreach—eg. getting into the right film festivals, finding a distributor, getting your work broadcast—in the ever shifting landscape of indie media marketing and distribution. Since 1983, Debra Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, a non-profit NY-based organization that supports women filmmakers.

Continue reading “Doc Talk: Debra Zimmerrman on Distribution – How to Promote Your Film? (2013)” →

What we talk about when we talk about editing. Renowned editor Jonathan Oppenheim (Paris is Burning, Arguing the World, Sister Helen, and the upcoming Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner) screened and discussed the ways in which he worked with director Laura Poitras to create a framework and context for the post 9/11 film The Oath. Oppenheim’s psychological approach to shaping character in documentary has won him a Peabody, an Oscar nomination and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.

Julia Loktev, director of The Loneliest Planet, on many critics’ ‘best of 2012’ film lists, made her remarkable debut with the documentary Moment of Impact, for which she won the Directing Award at Sundance in 1998.   Shot in 16mm black and white, the film is a stark portrayal of Loktev’s parents after a freak accident incapacitated her father.  The rigor of mundane quotidian life, redolent of Chantal Akerman’s iconic Jeanne Dielman, powers the film’s intimate non-fiction family drama.

How two indie filmmakers discovered the origins of the Woody Guthrie song ‘1913 MASSACRE’ in the form of a ‘living history’ documentary.
With co-directors Ken Ross and Louis V. Galdieri.

More information about the film: http://1913massacre.com