THE GARDEN 

Monday, June 23-----SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival announced its distinguished award winners, culminating the weeklong Festival activities that included screening 108 films representing 63 countries, free outdoor screenings and live performances, and a five-day concurrent International Documentary Conference attended by over 650 filmmakers, film and television executives and media professionals. Winning filmmakers received over $70,000 in combined cash and in-kind prizes.

With a generally perceived strong program on tap this year, the decisions of the juries were particularly difficult ones to come to. With such a mix of subjects, themes and filmmaking styles, the real winner were SILVERDOCS audiences and the documentary field itself, which now is as varied in tone and content as its feature film cousin. Arguably, some of the best writing, editing, cinematography and direction are to be found in documentary films this year.

This year's SILVERDOCS Sterling Award for a US Feature went to THE GARDEN directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. The film documents a 14-acre oasis rising out of the ashes of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The director will receive $10,000 cash and $5,000 in film stock from Kodak. The Sterling Feature Jury praised the film for “its  tenacity in storytelling in the face of injustice, and the filmmaker's singular vision in bringing a gripping, dramatic, and important story to the public eye.” Honorable Mention went to TROUBLE THE WATER by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. The film weaves together first person footage and the filmmakers’ own chronicle of loss and survival following the cataclysmic events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Festival made a commitment this year to honor international documentary production with SILVERDOCS Sterling Award for a World Feature. The winner this year was THE ENGLISH SURGEON directed by Geoffrey Smith, which tells the story of British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who performs surgery in the Ukraine with the crudest tools. The director will receive $10,000 cash and $5,000 in film stock from Kodak. The jury acclaimed the film as “the most poignant and inspiring film we saw - a film that profiles two human beings who dare to step outside the system to do something extraordinary, and becomes a delicate, deep, and respectful exploration of life, death friendship and hope." Honorable mention went to THE RED RACE directed by Chao Gan, which chronicles Chinese passion for gymnastics against the backdrop of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

(...)

Sunday, June 22--------The house was packed tonight at the world premiere screening of FOUR SEASONS LODGE, a crowd-pleasing look at a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors who cling to one another in their golden years at a shared bungalow colony in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City. These remarkable people, a collection of real "characters" are in their final years and it is clear that once they pass, a vital link to the history of what they witnessed threatens to be lost. The film's wildly enthusiastic reception at SILVERDOCS promises an equally strong reaction from potential distributors in the weeks ahead.

In 2005, New York Times journalist Andrew Jacobs found a group of Holocaust survivors who, since 1979, have spent their summers together at the Four Seasons Lodge, one of the few remaining bungalow communities hidden in upstate New York’s lush Catskill mountains. Jacobs was so mesmerized by the group that he returned as a filmmaker to document the rich traditions, lifelong friendships, and collective memory of the residents before they disappeared.

Now in their 80s and 90s, the German and Polish Jews are among the few who continue the Catskill summer vacation tradition, once known as the "borscht belt circuit". The film reveals a number of engaging personalities. Lodge president Carl patrols the grounds, resolving issues and squabbles. Vice president Hymie’s handyman skills and humor are always in demand. Genya and Olga, friends for over 65 years, confide and argue like sisters. Jacobs shows them in the present, and traces their history through revealing archival footage and photos.

As summer nears its end, the Lodge’s future is uncertain:  some residents push for its sale while others are adamant that their refuge remain intact. The film is a very warm and winning portrait of this unique sub-culture that will only be a memory as the last remaining members leave their earthly coils in the comng decade.

Full disclosure: I am the son of Holocaust survivors who spent every summer of my childhood in a similar community. This made this film all the more poignant. In fact, this coming week, I will meet my 83-year-old mother and drive her to a similar Catskill Mountains community for her annual summer sojourn. Art imitates life imitates art.

For more information on the film, log on to: www.fourseasonsmovie.org

Sandy Mandelberger, SILVERDOCS Dailies Editor

Sunday, June 22-----A film festival is invariably a series of moments. And if one is lucky, there is an interesting symmetry between those moments. And if one is very lucky indeed, then a special kind of serendipity brings those moments into some deeper understanding. When those moments are not officially related to one another, but still offer illuminating cross-referencing, it is all the more special.

This was my experience over the past two days as I attended the final films of this year's edition of SILVERDOCS and made my yearly pilgrimmage to the Mall area, where Washington D.C. proud displays its most famous buildings (the Capitol, the White House, the Smithsonian Institution). This time, my interest was to visit the newest cultural mecca in the Mall area, the recently opened Newseum (www.newseum.org), the first institution devoted to recording print, radio, television and new media news and information. Built on the last remaining open site on Pennsylvania Avenue, the striking building by Polshek Partnership Architects is a magnificent modern addition to the historic limestone buildings in the area, as a beacon of new media and modern architecture.

"News is the first draft of history", a famous saying goes. So how important world events have been interpreted, recorded and reported by the news media have both a societal and personal resonance. Newseum offers an exhaustive survey of the origins of the modern news media machine, first through the printing press, then to radio, newsreels, television productions and eventually to the internet. To see hundreds of years of civilization on display is stimulating enough, but the special exhibits on the Berlin Wall (with an actual piece of the graffitied wall on display), the assasination of President John F. Kennedy and the events surrounding the "story of the century" on September 11, 2001, make for an emotional as well as intellectual journey. How the medium transforms the message is very much on the minds of those of us attending SILVERDOCS, where documentaries representing a variety of styles and approaches are showcased in one varied and stimulating program.

For myself, the most intriguing question comes up as whether the media, in its pursuit of objective truth, is in fact a subjective record of times, events and personalities, that cannot help but be transformed by the camera and those who manipulate the imagery both behind and in front of the lens. These issues were part of the on-going debate surrounding many of the films I have seen at SILVERDOCS. Are they a reflection of some kind of absolute truth or are they mediated glimpses that show the fingerprints of their creators?

The thin line between truth and the reflection of the truthful is explored in the excellent documentary FORBIDDEN LIES, a fascinating meditation on what is the truth. The subject of the film is the novelist Norma Khouri, whose international best-seller on the exploitation and murder of women for familial "honor killings" was just one of an elaborate tissue of lies that she employed to bamboozle her publishers, the literary establishment and her international public. In 2004, an Austral (...)

BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER 

Saturday, June 21------As SILVERDOCS enters its final weekend, one is both encouraged and discouraged by the assessments of many professionals who have appeared on panels as part of the parallel International Documentary Conference.

While the sheer number of films here (over 120 screened, over 1500 submitted)) is evidence of a spike in documentary production around the world, the performance of recent films at the box office has made for quite a sober event here. "We are experiencing the bursting of a bubble in the documentary world that we have already gone through with the dot.coms and the housing booms", veteran distributor Ira Deutschman of Emerging Pictures proclaimed at a seminar yesterday on documentary distribution. "We now just have to return to an understanding that documentaries are a niche business."

Echoing that sentiment, in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, writer John Horn has written a rather pessimistic article on film documentaries' apparent loss of box office muscle. Pointing to such recently critically acclaimed documentaries as  BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER and YOUNG@HEART, both of which released in the past few weeks, the box office numbers have been way below expectations. And with several leading film distributors either being phased out (Picturehouse, Warner Independent Pictures) or in financial trouble (ThinkFilm), the prospects of a return to the recent Michael Moore/AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH era of box office bonanzas seems highly unlikely.

However, there are bright spots on the horizon. Day-and-date releases (where films open at theaters at the same time that they are available on Video On Demand platforms on cable and satellite television) seems to be showing promise and is one of the cornerstones of the policies of IFC Films, which was the only American company on a buying spree at last month's Cannes Film Festival. "I like the IFC model", lawyer and producer's rep Steven Beer declared on the same distribution panel. "Clearly, documentary films have got to maximize their audiences right away to make any kind of profit....the remaining question is how do you market the films so that the public knows about them and has an appetite for going to see them in theaters or purchasing them to view at home."

The potential of on-line downloads or purchase of dvd copies over the internet is also of great potential. Savvy filmmakers can generate interest in their projects among a core audience of enthusiasts via social networking sites and topical organizations with motivated members. Alternative distribution guru Peter Broderick of Paradigm Consulting gives a talk later today on how this internet model can generate more monies for filmmakers than any standard distribution deal.

For the filmmakers, programmers and professionals attending SILVERDOCS, it is a mixed bag of excitement about the quality of the films on screen here and the realities that there are now fewer distributiors to pitch and a shrinking audience ready to see their films in theaters.

To read the Los Angeles Times article (...)

Saturday, June 21-------How does one make a film based in a divided East Jerusalem that is not overtly political? That was the challenge for French director Georgi Lazarevski in his documentary film THS WAY UP, which had its East Coast Premiere at SILVERDOCS yesterday.

The film is set in the Our Lady of Sorrows nursing home in East Jerusalem, a venerable (if delapidated) institution for aging Catholic Palestinians. Residents once had a sweeping view of the city of Jerusalem but that has been blocked by the construction of a 12 foot wall, designed to seperate Israelis and Palestinians. As it happens, the wall is constructed right next to the nursing home, not only cutting out their view but making it difficult and treacherous for family visitors to spend time with their aging relatives.

The poignant stories in the film (of aging, mortality, disappointment and family estrangement) unfold as the wall is in its final construction phase, prompting geographical divisions and personal ones, as well. The difficulty of just moving about is hauntingly covered, giving us viewers an appreciation of our own freedom of movement. Although the wall is a dominant force in the film, the nursing home residents are equally potent. Their routines, eccentricities, mannerisms and political views all come to the fore in shocking and even humorous ways. They are living in an age of crisis at the end of their lives, and each faces the turmoil in his or her own way.

A graduate of the National Cinema School Louis Lumiere in Paris, Lazarevski mainly works as a cinematographer for other film directors, and the delicacy of his camerawork in his own film creates a moving pallette of colors, shapes and shadows. This compliments the ambivalence of the main characters, as they look back longingly to their earlier lives, while they face the future with great uncertainty and endless questioning.

"It was difficult to find the money for a more intimate film, almost non-political film on the Arab/Israeli conflict", Lazarevski shared at a post-screening question and answer session. "I went back to Jerusalem twice, once for a month and the other time for three weeks, to finish the project. I actually lived at the nursing home, so that I could gain the trust of the inhabitants and the nuns who cared for them. Only when I returned to France and was able to show the footage that I had shot did I finally find monies from Arte, mainly based on the success of my previous film (VOYAGE EN SEUL MAJEUR). Now Il have been able to show the film at festivals all over the world, and the response has been very positive because it is not another political film about this troubled subject."

For more information on the film, log on to the website of www.arturomio.com

Sandy Mandelberger, SILVERDOCS Dailies Editor

 ROBERT F. KENNEDY REMEMBERED

Saturday, June 21-----In celebrations being held around the world, the events and repercussions of that pivotal year in world history, 1968, are being discussed, remembered and even eulogized. The events of that turbulent year in political and social history are best experienced and explained through the music of the times and the films of the era.

At SILVERDOCS, the Festival is presenting a sidebar program entitled 1968 AND BEYOND that offers several seminal films from 1968 that give as accurate a picture as can be gleaned of what we were thinking, feeling and hoping for during the mixed bag that was the "summer of love" and the "events of 68". The films on tap capture the spirit of the times. The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones created the social soundtrack of rebellion. Pioneering filmmmakers such as Emile de Antonio, Charlges Guggenheim, Albert and David Maysles and Frederick Wiseman caputred the stories on film.

GENERATION 68, a newly produced one-hour long film from France is making its North American premiere at the Festival. Directed by Simon Brook, an English filmmaker who has wored extensively in France, the film takes a raucous look at the pivotal year as they played out in cities like London, Paris, New York and Prague. Not just a chronicle of the major events of that year (flower power love-ins, political assasinations, the suppression of dissent, the anti-war demonstrations), the film is most interested in the youthful exuberance that bubled to the top to challenge the placid social status quo. The film confronts the mainstream attitudes twoards racial injustice, sexual politics and generational change.

Blending interviews with artsits, directors, DJ and fashion designers, the film gives an overwhelming look at how the times stimulated some of the most creative minds of the decade. Those participating in the film via insightful interviews include such 1960s icons as playwright Vaclav Havel, filmmaker Milos Forman, designer Mary Quant, artist Ed Ruscha and actor Dennis Hopper. For those who lives through the era or want to understand its mythology, this is a good start.

Some of the key films from the era that will be screened include GIMME SHELTER (1970), the enduring concert film about the Rolling Stones by David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. Capturing their dynamism on stage and their rock-n-roll lifestyle off, the film is a milestone account of the "world's greatest rock-n-roll band", which continues to draw capacity crowds in their fifth decade of performing.

IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG (1968) by iconoclastic director Emile d'Antonio was the first important fim to question America's involvement in Vietnam. Capturing the anger of the younger generation an showcasing the ineptitude and moral corruption of the government and armed forces bigwigs, the film was a banner for the growing anti-war movement.

Veteran documentarian Fred (...)

MECHANICAL LOVE 

Friday, June 20----The SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival has, in just six short years, become the premium festival for non-fiction film in the United States. With documentary films on the rise all over the globe, tackling every subject under the sun and even revealing some considerable box office muscle, this event has become ground zero for appreciating documentary works from the U.S. and overseas and track the trends for non-fiction media of the future.

With the explosion of documentary work being produced outside the United States, this year SILVERDOCS inaugurated a competition category for international documentaries, the Sterling World Feature Competition. This significant development reflects the Festival's commitment to highlighting global perspectives and recognizing the richness of documentary storytelling worldwide.

Of the ten films competing in this competition strand (with winners announced on Saturday evening at the Festival's Awards Ceremony, and reported here in a future posting), five are European productions and two are co-productions with European partners. Most of the films are North American Premieres, giving audiences, critics and industry professionals their first opportunity to see these excellent films.

In Comeback from German director Maximilian Plettau, the focus is on German boxer Jürgen Hartenstein, a 35-year-old former middleweight champion hoping to re-enter the sport. The excellent cinematographic eye of Max Plettau’s camera follows Hartenstein as he struggles to revive his career. A roadtrip across Eastern Europe is the subject of Corridor #8, Bulgarian director Boris Despodov's chronicle of his journeys across Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia on a highway that was commissioned by the European Union to connect the Black and Adriatic seas. Designed to lift the economic hopes of the working-class residents along its route, the film makes clear that one decade and millions of euros later, little progress has been made.

UK director Geoffrey Smith offers a more hopeful vision of life in the former East Europe in The English Surgeon. The film tells the inspiring story of British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who practices medicine in an idyllic English village, but spends several weeks a year in the Ukraine performing delicate surgeries. Working with the crudest of tools in a country where neurosurgery barely exists, his skills have saved innumerable lives.

Denmark boasts two films in the competition. In Mechanical Love, director Phie Ambo explores the intriguing question of how far we are prepared to go when human intimacy becomes a rare commodity. Robots promise to make ourlives easier, but for some people they can be a stand-in for human affection. This fascinating film explores the intimate and complex relationships between people and therapeutic robots. In the blistering Milosevic On Trial, director Michael Christofferson brings us into the courtroom as former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic is on trial for crimes against humanity. The director captures the trial, in all its mundane and blood-chilling detail, and its defendant, a complex and deluded man who insisted on defending himself and ultimately died from a heart attack before facing any judgment.

Two Eur (...)

Friday, June 20--------SILVERDOCS is, by and large, a non-glam event, with most attendees simply hard-working documentarians, most working without massive media spotlight. However, each year, the event brings some Hollywood-style stardust to the proceedings. In the past two years, the Festival has honored Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese, specifically for their documentary work. Last night, it was Spike Lee's turn, as the iconoclastic director was honored with the Guggenheim Symposium for his non-fiction output. The Symposium is named in honor of the late documentary pioneer Charles Guggenheim, who has become a kind of patron saint of the event.

Lee is arguably the most provocative filmmaker of his generation, a visual artist who paints on a wide social canvas and has not been reluctant to include political and social content, even in his genre films. Few directors have examined race, class and other divisive forces in America with both honesty and a signature aesthetic that blends music and imagery to brilliant effect.

Aside from his influential narrative work (including DO THE RIGHT THING, JUNGLE FEVER, MALCOLM X and THE 25TH HOUR), Lee has mixed it up throughout his career with non-fiction films of note. The first was 4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997), a shocking examination of the racist bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church in 1963 that was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement. The film offered a profile of the three young girls who were killed on that day and those who were left behind to grieve for them. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary and won the honor with the Broadcast Film Critics, Online Film Critics and Image awards.

In 2002, Lee released a 20 minute film provocation entitled WE WUZ ROBBED, a scathing examination of the 2000 Presidential election, focusing on the state of Florida, where corruption and government malfeasance led to the first Supreme Court-appointed presidential ascension.  The film also pointed out how poor and rural blacks were prevented from casting their votes because of ambiguous laws, making it clear that the "one person, one vote" ideal in America has not yet been reached.

Last year, Lee focused his attention on another cataclysm, this one a natural phenomenon with the name Hurricane Katrina. In his epic 4-hour WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS, the director produced a sprawling, exhaustive and furious chronicle of the hurricane itself and its aftermath. The film won three Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award and the Human Rights and Horizon awards at the Venice Film Festival.

While attracted to topics of great import, Lee has also distinguished himself in other documentary genres. He tried his hand at capturing the energy of live performance in THE ORIGINAL KINGS OF COMEDY (2000), a chronicle of the concert tour of some of today's most high profile black comedians. His next project was a fascinating profile of footballer-turned-actor Jim Brown in the engaging JIM BROWN: ALL AMERICAN (2002) (...)

Thursday, June 19-----The AFI Digital Content Lab is a think tank and playground for filmmakers to explore opportunities in the new media. The Lab, which is housed on the campus of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, is presenting two seminar programs at SILVERDOCS.

AFI DIGITAL CONTENT LAB CALENDAR

SILVERDOCS
June 18-23, 2008, Silver Springs, MD
Digital Content Lab Presentation - Suzanne Stefanac, Lisa Osborne

Session One - Thursday, June 19: An Afternoon with the AFI Digital Content Lab: Innovation As Imperative
The tectonic shifts taking place across our media landscape require that filmmakers and other media producers think beyond the reel. This showcase provides a window onto the new worlds of creation, distribution, promotion, and audience engagement, all the while, keeping great storytelling at the heart of each venture.

Session Two - Friday, June 20: Group Therapy, New Media Advice from AFI Digital Content Lab
The director and supervising producer of the lab will hold an open consultation session for attendees to receive advice about new media opportunities tied to their film and TV projects. Many people are grappling with the same issues, befuddled by the numerous options and sometimes jargon-centric nature of the new media industry. This session provides a forum to learn from other productions and draw on the two decades of digital media production experience of the session hosts.

Sandy Mandelberger, SILVERDOCS Dailies Editor

TROUBLE THE WATER 

Thursday, June 19------In just a few short years, SILVERDOCS has emerged as a major showcase of non-fiction film and video from around the world. As the Festival becomes more impressive, so to is the cache of winning an award in one of its several competition categories. With documentaries experiencing a little bit of a dip in box office success in the past year, an award from SILVERDOCS could be the imprimatur needed to make a film get noticed for both artistic and commercial potential.

This year, the Festival has divided its main competition strands into two sections: one for American documentaries and the other for non-fiction films from around the world. For this article, the focus is on America, where the renaissance of what has been called a "golden age" of documentary continues to expand the possibilities for subject matter, cinematic style and commercial possibilities.

This year, 10 feature titles are competing for cash prizes in the American Documentaries Competition. BULLETPROOF SALESMAN by co-directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein focuses on a supplier of bulletproof gear for troops and diplomats in the world's war zones. War is big business, especially for people in this trade. Fighting off charges of war profiteering and embracing the American reverence for captialism, this controversial film looks at the both the winners and losers when America goes to war.

War as revolution was the ethos of rebel icon Che Guevera. His image, which has adorned everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs, is an instant symbol of revolutionary fervor. In CHEVOLUTION, co-directors Luis Lopez and Trisha Ziff  look at the worldwide business that has grown up around the legend of Che, whose image has been a catch-all that has been exploited for profit and gain.

For those who survive the traumas of war, the fighting never quite stops. In FOUR SEASONS LODGE, by director Andrew Jacobs, a group of Holocaust survivors meets every summer at a bucolic Catskills bungalow colony. As the enter their final years, the film follows the feisty surviors as they cook, flirt, argue, dance and share stories of loss and survival, while the fate of their community remains uncertain.

Another provocative film about survival is THE GARDEN, by director Scott Hamilton Kennedy. Rising up from the ashes of 1992’s devastating Los Angeles riots is a 14-acre oasis in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. The South Central Farmers created the garden to provide fresh produce for low-income people. Now, as bulldozers are poised to level it, the farmers won’t give up without a fight.

The inner city is also the focus of HARD TIMES AT DOUGLASS HIGH by the veteran director team of Alan and Susan Raymond. A year inside Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School shows how broken the public education system has become. An equally devastating environment is surveyed in (...)

Wednesday, June 18-------Music is definitely the message in the special sidebar competition of music documentaries that are being showcased at this year's SILVERDOCS. Last evening, Gypsy rocker Bela Fleck and Malian musician Cheick Hamala Diabaté, gave a live performance following the premiere screening of THROW DOWN YOUR HEART by director Sascha Paladino. In the film, American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck travels to Africa to explore the little-known roots of the instrument and record an album. Fleck’s musical journey takes him through Uganda, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Mali, where he transcends the barriers of language and culture through a shared passion for music.

The film is one of six documentary features that explore a wide range of music and musicians. In HI MY NAME IS RYAN, directors Paul Eagleston and Stephen Rose reveal the talents of Ryan Avery, a 19-year-old alt-culture renaissance man that hs been a local sensation on the Phoenix music scene.  A devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he has chosen to forgo his madcap antics for a religious mission that still draws on his innate musical talents.

In LA PALOMA, a German/French co-production by Sigrid Faltin, the focus is on the 1861 song, La Paloma, that has travelled from its native Basque country to Latin America, Hawaii, back to Europe, and finally to Africa. In each country, the tune remained while the meaning changed dramatically. In LIFE SUPPORT: MUSIC by American director Eric Daniel Metzgar, the focus is on 34-year-old Jason Kriglin, who clings to his love of making music despite a massive stroke that has left him in a vegetative state. This is a story of his tenacity, the determined power of familial love, and how music inspires and gives voice to that which words cannot.

A similar theme is struck in SONG SUNG BLUE by American director  Greg Kohs. Claire Sadina is part of a musical couple known as "Lightning & Thunder,” who play to hooting crowds at Milwaukee bars and clubs. But when a freak accident leaves Claire immobile, their Vegas dreams are replaced by a reality of rehabilitation, unpaid bills, drug addiction and lost hopes. The transcendence of music to overcome physical frailty is also the theme of COMBINATION, American director Matt Wolf's visual portrait of seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his AIDS-related death, Russell created music that spanned pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art—a legacy that richly deserves this hip and hypnotic visual tone poem.

Music, and its unique ability to unite differing cultures and transcend physical limitations, is certainly the message at this year's SILVERDOCS.

AFI Silver Center 

Tuesday, June 17-------Following last evening’s gala Opening Night Film, ALL TOGETHER NOW, SILVERDOCS 2008  kicks into high gear with its first full day of screenings, seminars and special events. In all, this year’s Festival will present 108 films from 63 countries, including six World, eight North American, six US, and seven East Coast Premieres, as well as two retrospective programs. Film screenings take place at the AFI Silver Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Festival epicenter and a year-round arthouse multi-plex that showcases independent and international cinema all year round. 

The Festival has four competition categories, including the US Feature Competition, World Feature Competition, Music Documentary and Short Film Competition. In addition, the Festival will give out four additional awards:

• The Cinematic Vision Award will be given to a feature film that exhibits excellence and innovation in the craft of visual storytelling ($2,500).

• WGAW Documentary Screenplay Award will be awarded to the qualifying screenwriter (or screenwriters) of a feature-length film who demonstrates excellence in screenwriting in the documentary genre ($2,500).

• The WITNESS Award in honor of Joey Lozano will be awarded to a theatrical documentary that addresses human rights and social justice issues ($5,000).

• American Film Market/SILVERDOCS Award will be presented to a film of exceptional promise in the media marketplace and will include special access to the American Film Market and accommodations ($5,000 value).

In addition, SILVERDOCS and ACE/Animal Content in Entertainment will again present a development grant of $25,000 for a film that generates awareness and sensitivity to animal issues. Gibson Guitars will also present a Gibson Les Paul Standard to the Music Documentary  winner, valued at $3,700. The awards join those for films in competition. The new awards bring the combined cash and in-kind prizes at SILVERDOCS to $70,000. Award winners will be announced at the SILVERDOCS Award presentation on Saturday June 21, 2008. All films are also eligible for Audience awards for Best Feature and Short, which will be announced on Sunday June 22, 2008.

The ambitious program of US and international films has expanded by two days to meet growing demand by both the public and the industry, and to showcase the burgeoning explosion of non-fiction works being produced around the globe. “Our new World Feature section reflects our commitment to highlighting global perspectives,” Festival Director Patricia Finneran stressed. “The 2008 program represents the (...)

Monday, June 16--------Documentaries, thanks be to the film gods, remain hot and in demand by both audiences and distributors. Every major film festival in the world now has a prominent documentary film section and there is even an explosion of doc-only events. One of the most important and influential is SILVERDOCS, the AFI/Discovery Communications Festival, which opens tonight with a week-long program of film presentations, conference seminars and special events.

Housed at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, a vital arthouse cineplex that presents quality independent and international films all year round, the festivities begin tonight with the premiere of ALL TOGETHER NOW, Adrian Wills' behind-the-scenes story of the unprecedented partnership between The Beatles and avant-garde theater troupe Cirque du Soleil.

The film explores the making of the "LOVE" stage production at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, capturing the collaborations of Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, LOVE director Dominique Champagne and producers Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin. This creative cabal join forces to create a homage to the vision and music of The Beatles.

Following tonight's screening, there will be a question and answer session featuring director Adrian Wills, Dominic Champagne, and moderated by Bill Flanagan of MTV Networks.  The post screening gala will also include a performance by Matt White, singing both original songs and Beatles' covers.

This year's Festival will feature close to 100 feature films and short documentaries, as well as a parallel conference that will examine the latest trends and developments in financing, marketing and distribution of non-fiction media. Stay tuned to this blog site for all the exciting developments as "docs rule" over the next week in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Sandy Mandelberger, Silverdocs Dailies Editor

Sunday, June 17----------After five days of what was admittedly some very difficult subject matter explored on screen (torture, imprisonment, war, racism, genocide and all forms of denial of freedom and equality), SILVERDOCS ended on a lighter note, while still staying committed to the issue-oriented nature of the event. The Closing Night Film, making its East Coast Premiere (while screening simultaneously in Seattle, Washington) is this year's nature sensation ARTIC TALE.

Directed by Sarah Robertson and produced by the team that created the sensation MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, the film will be released in late July by Paramount Vantage, the studio muscle behind last year's Oscar winner AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.  ARTIC TALE is an epic adventure that explores the vast world of the Great North. The film follows the walrus, Seela and the polar bear, Nanu, on their journey from birth to adolescence to maturity and parenthood in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Once a perpetual winter wonderland of snow and ice, the walrus and the polar bear are losing their beautiful icebound world as it melts from underneath them. Narrated by Queen Latifah, with music by Cat Stevens, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and