A few weeks ago, I headed over to a hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to sit down with directors Ricki Stern and Anne Sundebrg (who prefers to be called Annie). No doubt the setting was picked to appease the eponymous subject of their new documentary, Joan Rivers — A Piece of Work, who actually lives a few blocks from where we met. The day started with a roundtable with Ms. Rivers, who unleashed her token scathing wit. Bits of that session, and the one you are about to hear, were for a piece I wrote for Heeb Magazine. The real story of any documentary, however, comes not from the subject but from the filmmakers themselves, which is why I was delighted to talk to Ricki and Annie about their latest project.

The film is a solid study of an extraordinary woman, and it avoids the pitfalls an trappings many similar documentaries fall victim too. There are limited talking heads and archival footage is used in a very organic manner; it is neither reality show nor biography, but something more. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the Ms. Stern and Ms. Sunberg’s previous works deal in much weightier material, such as Darfur. As they explain, they are simply after a good story and Joan provided one for them. They simply wanted to capture something compelling. Listen in for some fascinating insight from these excellent filmmakers.

 
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Although the dominance of ESPN over the concept of this documentary is so powerful, Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and editor Seth Casriel found ways to both defy and utilize the network’s clean format and structure while also presenting some incredible historical footage that places Matt Hoffman’s BMX footage into new light, and perhaps brings us the closest to the mortality of Hoffman’s unique biking style.

One of the most unique kinds of video work is hardcore bike and skate videos, one of my favorite genre of filmmaking. Such works impart a true love of a craft (in this case, biking) and often become overlooked by those who don’t share the same interest, nor know exactly at what it is they’re looking when such footage is presented to them without context. Yet, there is little that rivals such work in its ability to capture the harsh truths and intense passion of any particular, and fleeting, “moment”. While Tremaine and Casriel are able to incorporate such amazing footage, it is the way in which they are able to craft the reasons for such footage’s appeal that makes this documentary shine beyond a possibly rigid talking-head format. Read on…

Ever since its dubious première at Sundance earlier this year, Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop has exploded with discussion about its validity. Is it a real documentary, or is it staged? Is Banksy one person, or a collective? Is Thierry Guetta, the film’s pudgy protagonist, a diehard street art sidekick or a figment of Banksy’s twisted imagination? The truth is that it doesn’t really matter all that much either way. It’s a solid documentary whose mysterious existence only add to the fun.

For those who don’t know, Banksy is an irreverent street artist whose work has been celebrated (and in some cases, reviled) the world over. From graffiti stencils to off-the-wall sculptures to painted elephants, there is basically nothing that he won’t try. Add to that list filmmaking, or so we assume. Though Exit has a clear and proper title, in discussion most people will refer to it as “the Banksy film”, which is interesting because his credit reads, somewhat nebulously, “A Banksy Film”. That he appears on camera early on, be-shrouded and his voice modulated, as more of a subject than an auteur is our first sign that something may be amiss. Read on…

See Marwencol. That’s it. I can try to explain it to you, I can try to let you know how I feel about it, but you and can’t really talk about Marwencol until you see Marwencol.

Okay, I’ll tell you a few things about it since you asked so nicely. The film follows Mark Hogancamp, a man who starts his life over after being beaten half to death. Once he can walk and talk and read again, he begins to learn a few things about his former life, of which he remembers nothing. He was a drunk; a drunk who kept detailed and often horrific journals of his darkest moments. As he slowly tries to put his life together, the pain of dealing with his attack and coming to terms with his former self, he begins practicing his own kind of unconventional therapy. Read on…

Wow, South by Southwest (SXSW) is one helluva whirlwind event. Luckily, between screenings my schedule allowed for a quick chat with David Bond, whose film Erasing David had its U.S. Première here last night. The documentary, which the director concedes is something of a sensationalist thriller, deals with the issue of modern privacy in a world where we are obsessed with sharing so much of our personal information.

In the film, David opts to “drop off the map” as it were. Two of the best private investigators in the U.K. are given his picture and his name, but nothing else. While the film crew follows them around, they must find David who is doing everything in his power not to get caught. Within hours of them beginning their assignment, they gather more information than he originally thought was possible. They even started a fake Facebook account for David, spoofing his friends into giving them leads to move forward on.

Lucky for us (or for me, really), the U.S. ranks much higher in terms of privacy awareness than the U.K. Surprisingly, the U.K. is the third worst country in terms of availability of private data in the world. Their competition? China and Russia. This may seem startling, but the U.K. does have CCTV cameras all over the country recording almost every public area. With facial recognition technology slowly being integrated with the system, David purports, it is only a matter of time before our social networks become meshed with state infrastructure.

The fact that this film is receiving such a warm reception at a conference such as SXSW says a lot about how much of a paranoid Luddite the director isn’t. After all, the Interactive wing of SXSW is where Twitter and Foursquare, a geo-location social network, were launched. All day long people are sharing their location, their thoughts, and perhaps even more sensitive data than they realize on their mobile phones as they wander about the Austin Convention Center. But as I said, Mr. Bond is no Luddite. He is simply more aware of these issues after his experience of making the film. It is his hope that the film’s audience will be more aware as well.

Erasing David will be screening again on Tuesday, March 16^th at 11am in the G-Tech theater. The film is also available VOD through Amazon during the festival. For more information on both the film and issues of privacy and information, you can check out the film’s Official Website.

 
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Photo Credit: Amanda Lockhart

Certainly new media has changed the way we approach filmmaking, but how does that mentality actually manifest itself? To find out, I talked to Todd Tue of Milk Products Media this week. Where once makers would upload their work to the web in hopes of gaining exposure to head down a traditional distribution path, Todd is now finding that the internet may be the best outlet for his work, period.

The bulk of our conversation is about Milk Products’ latest documentary endeavor, a feature film about a family owned and operated dairy farm in Ohio. You can view the short documentary on Vimeo right now, then head on over to their Kickstarter page to learn more about the feature they plan to make. As Todd tells me in our interview, the fact that over 10,000 people have already viewed a short piece he made is pretty satisfying, but he hopes they will get to make the full length story. Listen in as we talk about making films on the cheap, bringing some creativity to paying gigs, and why it is such a great time to be making media.

 
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Photo Credit: Mary-Claire Runchey on flickr

How can I explain what the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is? It’s very name is so local and yet its scope is entirely global. I suppose I could start by explaining what is meant by “Sephardic.” Allow me to generalize. Here in New York City it is pretty common to boil Jews down to one of two stereotypes: the Orthodox and the nebbish. These are Ashkenazi Jews who, thanks to a sordid history of European emigration, took root here en masse around the turn of the 20^th century. Ashkenazim are basically the shtetl Jews; the Fiddler on the Roof Jews.

That film is perhaps the ultimate Hollywood pontification on the Jew, an image of a people that is, for better or worse, an accepted truth. Sephardic Jewry, who hail from Spain, Northern Africa and the Fertile Crescent (among other places), have almost no image in American cinema. In fact, in America, little is known of this “other” kind of Jew outside the confines of the Jewish community. Sephardim observe different dietary laws (sometimes), speak a different dialect of Hebrew, observe different customs and have a rich history of art and literature that is speckled with influence from the various cultures in which they have existed. How fitting it is then, that there should be a New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, to both celebrate and educate us on these Jews who perhaps don’t fit the mold of the mainstream. A festival for the other other. Read on…

The sweet irony of Paul Osborne’s documentary, Official Rejection, a backstage tell-all of American film festival culture, is that the film has gone on to be something of a fest favorite around the country. I first reviewed the film at last year’s Deadcenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City, where Paul and I agreed we would find time for an interview. Finally, we have come together to chat about his film, which is still running the festival circuit, and movies in general. As Sundance 2010 begins, we thought it would be a perfect time to discuss what festivals represent in the dreams of filmmakers and what they really are. Believe it or not, a lot has changed since Paul made the film, so listen in as he explains where we stand today. Other points of interest: my own bitching about Blu-Ray, the films Paul is most excited to see, and the two of us compare war stories on both sides of the critic-filmmaker lines.

 
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Ed. Note: My microphone suffered some fits of serious crackling for this one. I’ve been trying to scrub it out but I’m finding it impossible. I’ll fix the problem by the next Candlercast. Sorry for the ear-strain.