Saturday/Sunday, November 25/26----The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced the "short list" of feature documentaries that will compete for Best Documentary honors at the 79th Academy Awards in February, 2007. The AMPAS Documentary Screening Committee viewed 81 eligible documentary features, shortening the list to 16 contenders. From this group will come the 5 films that will be compete for the final Best Documentary Oscar. Films on the "short list" include such r...

Monday, October 9----Veteran documentary director Barbara Kopple will be honored with the Maverick Award at the Woodstock Film Festival, which opens on Thursday. She will be honored at a special Awards Ceremony on Saturday evening, with actress-turned-documentarian Rosie Perez giving Kopple her award honors. Perez co-directed her first documentary film this year, the autobiographical I'M BORICUA, JUST SO YOU KNOW! Rosie Perez Kopple, a double Oscar winner for her films HARLAN COUNTRY USA and...

FEST21.COM AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA RESOURCES COLLABORATE ON NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL DAILIESFEST21.COM, the portal website launched at the Cannes Film Festival, by FILMFESTIVALS.COM and published by MM2 Editions is collaborating with INTERNATIONAL MEDIA RESOURCES to produce Online Dailies coverage of the NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL, one of the most important film showcases in the United States.The Dailies site will be dedicated to coverage of all aspects of the Festival, including film coverage, direct...

Monday, June 19---The 4th annual SILVERDOCS:AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival ended its six-day event with the announcements of Jury and Audience prizes in a number of diverse categories. The Festival, which had a significant breakthrough this year, in terms of content, celebrity attendance (Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Al Gore, Thomas L. Friedman, Will Shortz and others) and audience response has more than reinforced its claim as the premiere documentary film festival in North Ameri...

Thursday, June 15----A documentary film festival always has some common threads to it. Many involve hot-button political issues about social inequity, conflict and the abuse of government. SILVERDOCS certainly has its share of those. However, a more personal genre, that can best be described as films that celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, is also in evidence here, in a number of superb films. BLACK SUN by UK director Gary Tan, had its premiere at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival and was ...

Thursday, June 15----One of the tenets of the American system of governing is a strict separation of church and state. It is very clearly written into our Constitution, and was certainly the intention of our "founding fathers", who had experienced the persecutions of state religions in Europe. This seperation between church doctrine and the rule of law has been scrupulously followed but that wall is definitely crumbling. A number of documentaries premiering at the SILVERDOCS festival this week,...

Tuesday, June 13-----The 4th edition of SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the leading documentary film festival in North America, launches this evening with a reflective view of the creative and economic pressures of the Hollywood system. BOFFO! TINSELTOWN’S BOMBS AND BLOCKBUSTERS, directed by veteran documentarian Bill Couturie, is based on the book written by long-time Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, in celebration of the film trade’s 100th anniversary. The ...

Monday, June 12---While most US-based film festivals regularly showcase at least a few international documentaries as part of their program, non-fiction from around the world is a definite spotlight of the SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which launches on tomorrow night at the AFI Silver Center. In a section called World View, which also includes US documentaries, the subject matter and geographical origins of the films bring a broader understanding of political, social ...

Friday, June 9----Fresh off his tour of the Croisette at the Cannes Film Festival with his film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, former Vice President (and current media darling) Al Gore will delivery the Keynote Address at the SILVERDOCS Documentary Film Conference on Thursday, June 15. Gore's film, directed by Davis Guggenheim, a wake-up call on the effects of global warming, has been a media sensation since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and reached a fever pitch when Gore walke...

SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which begins next week, has announced the 10 films that will be competing for the Sterling Award Feature Film prize at its event. The Festival, which has become one of the leading showcases of non-fiction film in the world, mixes film screenings with information panels and special events to offer a comprehensive look at the current state of the art of documentary film, and where the art form may go in the future. As one can imagine in t...

SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which begins next week, has announced the 10 films that will be competing for the Sterling Award Feature Film prize at its event. The Festival, which has become one of the leading showcases of non-fiction film in the world, mixes film screenings with information panels and special events to offer a comprehensive look at the current state of the art of documentary film, and where the art form may go in the future. As one can imagine ...

Wednesday, June 7---Inspired by the seminal 7 UP films of British director Michael Apted, which followed the same group of youngsters at ages 7, 14 and 21, the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival will present the premiere of 21 UP AMERICA, directed by Christopher Quinn. The film is the third installment in a series that has recorded the same subjects at ages 7 and 14, and now turns its focus on what it is like to be 21 in America today. The film provides a provocative case s...

Tuesday, June 6----The SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival begins on June 13th, and has announced a number of Special Event Screenings to compliment its roster of the best of international documentary film. The New York Times, one of the event's sponsors, is presenting two Times Talks. The first, screening on Friday, June 16, features Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas L. Friedman, whose recent book THE WORLD IS FLAT, pointed to the dangers and opportunities of economic ...

Monday, June 5---Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese will be honored at the SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which launches on June 13th. Scorsese will be commemorated at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium on Thursday, June 15th at the AFI Silver Center, the hub of the annual documentary event. The Symposium and Award are a tribute to the late Washington DC filmmaker and philanthropist Charles Guggenheim. Scorsese is one of the rare Hollywood directors who has worked in t...

Friday, June 2---SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival opens on June 13 with the world premiere of the HBO Films documentary BOFFO! TINSELTOWN'S BOMBS AND BLOCKBUSTERS, directed by Oscar-winning documentary director Bill Couturie. The film takes a behind-the-scenes look at the high risk world of Hollywood filmmaking, where all bets are off as to whether even the biggest budget film will not be a major box office bomb. Featuring candid, often amusing interviews, with such Holl...

SILVERDOCS: AFI/DISCOVERY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL has become one of the most prestigious events in the world of non-fiction film. The 2006 Festival, a mixture of film screenings, information seminars and special events, will take place from June 13 to 18, 2006 at the AFI Silver Center in Silver Springs, Maryland (USA). Return to this dedicated website to read articles, view photos, hear audio files and view video at North America's most intriguing festival devoted to the work of documen...

Veteran director Martin Scorsese will be honored at SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the most prestigious showcase for non-fiction films in the United States.Scorsese will receive the Festival’s highest honor at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium on June 15th, during the Festival’s six-day mix of screenings, seminars and tributes to be held at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Springs, Maryland, in the suburbs of Washington DC. The Festival, a collaboration between th...

SILVERDOCS June 14-19, June Silver: Spring, MarylandBlame it on Michael Moore. The filmmaker provocateur of FAHRENHEIT 911 created a tidal wave of audience and media interest in documentary film that has not yet crested. The truth is that documentaries have escaped from their restricted niche and now can generate the kind of publicity and audience interest that was once reserved for fiction features.Documentaries are suddenly hot, and the financials of making and distributing them have made them...