Two fun events in Brooklyn tonight for New Yorkers wanting some Monday night doc-action. Me! Me! First, Sync or Swim is playing at McCarren Park Pool – fun starts at 6pm and the film starts at 8pm. This will be one of the last events held at the venue before construction begins to turn the pool back into a, um, pool! Meanwhile across Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series, curated this week by Michael Tully, brings a screening of John…

The Intelligent Factual Televisual Festival starts tomorrow at The Arts Club in London – 2 days of televisual education with panels allowing you to hear from lots of different commissioning editors. Topics include Alternative Sources of Funding and Where Next for Factual and feature loads of big names in British telly like Peter Bazalgette, Roger Graef, and Stephen Lambert – plus some great doc filmmakers including Kim Longinotto, Brian Woods and Leo Regan. I’m at Silverdocs till Thursday so shall…

We had a fantastic evening of panels at Rooftop Films on Saturday night – and the rain was no match for the incredible folk at Rooftop Films and their magical Brooklyn Can Factory! My favorite quote from the evening has to be this from Esther Robinson during the Cinema and Social Justice panel: “Make your life good, don’t get in a lot of debt and do something meaningful.” Amen Sister! Photo: Copyright Sarah Palmer 2008 Cinema and Social Justice: Simon…

The acclaimed documentary series P.O.V. begins its Summer Season on PBS on June 24th with Katrina Browne’s Traces of the Trade, the story of Browne’s slave-trading New England ancestors and her family’s contemporary retracing of the trade triangle (and the fallout that ensues). See the complete list of films screening this Summer on P.O.V. here. Yance Ford, P.O.V.’s Series Producer will be at DCTV at 7.30pm tonight to talk at a Shooting People/DCTV event about how the films are chosen,…

Summer is here which means that Rooftop Films are back on Friday, June 6th with This Is What We Mean By Short Films. This is very good news indeed for fans of film, lovers of New York City, and appreciators of fine rooftops.  I am always happy to sit outside under the stars and watch beautifully curated shorts and features so I was pleased as punch to get involved with the Rooftop Films Panorama which is happening next week, June…

Shooting People run a really fun series of networking events with DCTV called Hook Me Up. It’s like speed-dating but you get to talk about your skills and your projects rather than about why blue is your favorite color and why you’re a cat person and not a dog person (look I don’t know what people talk about when they go speed-dating ok!) The next one is happening on Tuesday, June 10th at 7.30pm and this time we’re going to…

I’ve been distracted from blogging for the past week by many things. First, I have been writing an article about short film distribution that has been soaking up all my free time and free brain. I love doing these things but I still get the terror every time because there is so much to say and so many different ways to say it. I went to see Margaret Brown’s probing and beautifully shot The Power of Myths again yesterday at…

The first Cinema Eye event was held at the IFC Center on Tuesday night and it was a wonderful evening to be part of. The ceremony had just the right touch of rock and roll spirit (because lets face it award ceremonies can be deathly boring, especially when you have to eat food that tastes like it should only be served above 10,000 feet). Everyone seemed really grateful that the craft of documentary filmmaking was finally being recognized, and the…

There’s so much going on at the moment I feel rather gleefully overwhelmed. The Spirit Awards will be broadcast live on IFC tomorrow at 5pmET but I’m also going to be watching a webcast of the red carpet on IFC.com at 2.30pmET with commentary from SXSW’s Matt Dentler and IFC’s Alison Willmore. And then of course on Sunday there’s some Oscar something or other happening. I’m going to find a friend with a bigger TV than mine and make some…

It is the last Fall 07 Stranger Than Fiction screening tonight. Stranger Than Fiction is a documentary series curated by Thom Powers that has become a really fun Tuesday social for NYC doc folk. You get the chance to get a sneak preview of a documentary at the IFC Center followed by a Q&A with the director, followed by drinks somewhere nearby. Simple but effective. I haven’t had a chance to go to a lot of the Fall films this…