Silverdocs this week!

It's that time of the year again in suburban Silver Spring, MD!!! Silverdocs Film Festival is full on again this year. Last year i had the honor of serving on the jury, while this year, i'm attending... mostly in hopes of inspiring myself to have a completed film ready for next year's fest. For anyone that doesn't know, Silverdocs is the Discovery Channel/AFI Documentary Film Festival that is currently in it's fifth year now, and kicking ass. This is by far the most cerebral of all the doc fests i have attended, with an always amazing film programming schedule.

This year's highly anticipated symposium special guest speaker was Spike Lee, who was vacantly inspiring, speaking about his documentary work in particular. Unfortunately, most of us felt that the discussion fell flat, partially due to the disappointing performance of the moderator/interviewer, a reporter from The Denver Post.

In any case, i've been running around with festival regulars/doc gurus Ryan Harrington, Danielle DiGiacomo from IndiePix, Liz Ogilvy from Docurama, Simon Kilmurry from POV, Andrew Mer, Mark Rabinowitz from Cinelan, Sadie & Jill from Full Frame FF, etc having an inspired week full of films, parties, discussions with Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) about his new hi def art film project about the "sound of ice" in Antarctica, checking out Oscar winner Alex Gibney's panel discussion, and more...

So far, my year's pick is "The English Surgeon" by Geoffery Smith, an unflinching look at a friendship between two doctors tied through brain surgury (bonus: music score by Nick Cave).

Judging at Jackson Hole Film Festival

This year, i was honored to be asked to return to the fifth annual Jackson Hole Film Festival as a judge for the 2nd year in a row.

This year i also had the pleasure of DJing the filmmaker's party, helping bring Big Sky Award winner "Class C" to also win in it's category at JHFF, and also participating in the Q&A for Virginia Williams' film "Frontrunner," which we happened to help shoot, designed graphics, and handled the music supervision/score for.

It was a pleasure to spend time with the JHFF crew again (Mel, Cevin, Jason, Audrey, Diane, Eben, Noam, Todd, Erika...), as well as HBOs Greg Rhem, "Frontrunner's" Virginia Williams, "Volcanic Sprint's" Steve & Angie Dorst, actor Bill Pullman, and the whole "Class C" crew!

Outside of seeing some amazing films (don't miss "Man On Wire"!!), and being set in one of the most beautiful towns in America, this festival has grown exponentially over the three years i've attended. Despite being a festival for both narrative as well as documentary, they have put an enormous focus on their "Global Insight" category, and making the festival as conscious and green as possible. This year, they even managed to get United Nations Secretary General Moon to attend and make remarks and meet filmmakers. I've been hearing people mention that this year's JHFF is much like Sundance was 15 years ago! Great programming, great staff, great sponsors, great parties...

Branchage and the UK island of Jersey

In efforts to promote the upcoming inaugural Branchage Film Festival on the UK Channel Island of Jersey, taking place this September 25-28, we directed a series of 7 trailer spots. These spots will be online, local TV, and running before every film screening in the festival. We wrote them in 3 days, and within another 2.5 days (on NO budget), travelled to Jersey, crewed, cast, and shot them all. Many thanks to Jerry for help with the music and Nikos for help with the animation.

Im pretty happy with the way they turned out as well. Please feel free to comment on what you think about them. Watch them here.

True False Doc Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri

Last week at Big Sky Film Fest, I was more than happy to be persuaded by my co-juror, Danielle from Indiepix, to come to David Wilson's True False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. Im coming to the end of my film festival run both as film director (disarmfilm.com) and as juror now, and i have to say that this was my best film festival experience yet. Hyped for years by everyone i've encountered at other festivals, somehow, this relatively new (5 years) non-juried documentary film festival attracts the best in films, industry, and attendees.

The first day was snowing a bit, but it cleared up to be a GREAT warm weekend here as a hotel-room crashing guest of Indiepix. All the hype is true. This festival is amazing, from the programming side (all with Q&As), panels, the hospitality, the variety of great venues and fun parties, the town itself (great food and thrifting), musicians before each film, as well as the late late late night hotel slaying filmmaker after after after parties and incredibly generous booze and food sponsors!

Columbia is essentially overtaken by the festival during these days. The amazing thing is, in addition to the midwestern charm and small-town hospitality, this particular town embraces the festival so wholeheartedly in such an ernest way that is not forced or contrived or financially driven in any way. Also the people in town are TOTALLY UP FOR IT! Sold out films at venues all over town were packed, but were still fairly lenient with opening up standing-room seats. Even at the promo viewing of Guy Maddin's new film, an abstract, expressionistic art piece blurring the lines between doc and narrative, the large venue was filled with an open minded audience of all ages that completely "got" the film and stayed for the Q&A. I dont even see this in art theaterhouses in large cities.

"American Teen," "Man On Wire", and "Forbidden Lies" win my personal awards for mindblowing documentaries of the festival.

Some other awards:

• "An Audience Of One" director Michael Jacobs = dancefloor masher
  
• A&E's Ryan Harrington = hotel room slayer
  
• Aussie "Forbidden Lies" director Anne Broinowski = creepy "Kaiser Soze" award
• insane marching band from Chicago = best party band ever
  

Some more blogging on True False:

• IndiePix True False blog reports: here and here.
• AJ Schnack's True False blog reports: here and here
• Pamela Cohn's blog: here and here.

Much love to my True False crew!:
IndiePix Documentary Guru/my Big Sky co-juror/new best road buddy Danielle DiGiacomo and her twin sister Alana, Indiepixer Jordan, Indiepixer Jason Tyrrell, Ionic Furjanic (composer: "Manda Bala" and "Jesus Camp"), Ryan Harrington of the Tribeca Gucci Doc Fund, Docurama’s Liz Ogilvie, doc blogger Pamela Cohn, Michael Jacobs (director: "An Audience of One"), Daniel Robin (director: 2008 best Sundance short "My Olympic Summer"), Missoula animator Andy Smetanka representing Guy Maddin's new film, UK doc short director Xanthe Hamilton, David & Ashley (directors: "Mardi Gras Made In China"), AJ Schnack (director: "Kurt Cobain, About A Son"), and Kasia & Sarah from Current TV...

now.... need... coffee... immediately...