https://independent-magazine.org/2016/03/25/10-to-watch-annie-berman/
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976
Director/Producer Annie Berman makes The Independent’s 10 to Watch list for her feature-length essay film, The Faithful, a fifteen-year journey through the world of images and representations of three global icons: Elvis Presley, Pope John Paul II, and Princess Diana.
Abatemarco, who spent nearly seven years making Kivalina, advises first-time documentarians to recognize that some of the hardest work of making a film is not technical or financial, but interpersonal. “It’s about your relationship with your subjects over time. That is the real work and the real difficulty. Somehow you’ll find the money but the most difficult work is to carry the story for however long you have to carry it, because these are heavy subject matters.”
There was some judgment in some way by the choice of the locations. By the facts we wanted to stress in our narration. None of the locations were there just for fun, they should all tell something for those who want to read between the lines, so there is some criticism of mankind. But besides that it’s true, the audience is very much invited to basically see their own film.
De Pue was nervous about working with so many co-producers. “I was a bit afraid about it, I learned in school about it. When you have all these co-producers they bring in money but they also have their artistic choices and they can get involved at some point.
When De Pue returned by himself to Afghanistan, he realized he “had to rethink the way of filming and the way of working in Afghanistan, to go back to a really low profile way like we did in the preparations.”
The Lost Arcade is the feature documentary debut of director Kurt Vincent and producer Irene Chin. The film captures the final days of Chinatown Fair, the last video game arcade in Manhattan. It premiered at DOC NYC and had its European premiere at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam, where The Independent interviewed Vincent. Courtney… Read more »
Senior film critic Kurt Brokaw selects his favorites from the 25th edition of the NYJFF, which runs January 13-26, 2016. Among them are Ellis, Rabin, The Last Day, Dear God, and The Law.
Films by directors Barbara Kopple, Kristina Sorge, Douglas Sloan, Kent Jones, Jason Hutt, Marc Levin, Stephen Maing, Jimmy Goldblum, and Amy Berg are Kurt Brokaw’s critic’s picks from DOC NYC, the all-documentary festival that runs from November 12-19, 2015.
Fittingly, Frederick Wiseman attended the 40th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival with his 40th documentary, In Jackson Heights, about a diverse New York neighborhood in flux. The Independent asks Wiseman to discuss the editing process, the communities he discovered in Jackson Heights, and the notion of screening all of his films in a continuous 100 hour stretch.
If cinema can function as a vehicle for a nation’s collective memory, Afghanistan only recently began to recollect itself. Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary, A Flickering Truth, mines the Afghan Film Archive for the nation’s cultural history and follows the team of people who are working to protect it and share it with the world.