Author: |Posted: 16:19 on 18/11/08
Category: theatrical documentary
Here is the Oscar shortlist for documentaries, as read off A J Schnack’s blog, All These Wonderful Things. I agree with Doc/Fest’s Hussain that the money is on Man on The Wire.
There is a great article about theatrical docs, with some insight from the producer, Simon Chinn, about why people flock to life-affirming, but won’t leave their houses for misery that doesn’t go anywhere.
And ironically enough, A J Schnack’s own documentary Kurt Cobain – About a Son is on True Stories on More 4, tonight at 10pm. He managed to secure many hours of audio interview between Kurt Cobain and the music journalist Michael Azerrad, and with it weaves us through Kurt’s life, from his own perspective and his own words. read more
Author: |Posted: 15:02 on 28/10/08
Category: festivals, film funding
Last night I went to the BFI to watch some shorts funded through various schemes associated with Film London.
My favourite far and away was Bevan Walsh’s nostalgically humorous Love Does Grow on Trees, which I’d actually already seen when it won Best Newcomer Award at Rushes Soho Shorts Festival. (One liner description: a teenage boy’s lust and desire for pornography in a world before the Internet.) This caused a few murmurs in the audience afterwards, because it was emphatically stated that the slate of films were all worldwide premiers.
New talent investment is a funny thing. Organisations give money to people to make films and find their directing voice, and mostly come back with perfectly acceptable safe films that seem professional enough but challenge nothing. This means they can’t be seen as ‘failures’, but is this the same as a success story? read more
