One of the lessons of 2009 for me: the worse things get, the better people get, or rather the more I realize how important all the people I work with and play with are to me and to the life I want to live. The past few months have been a strange mixture of 3am panics about the state of the world and moments of sheer joy, and most of these moments of joy have been documentary-related (watching Obama’s inauguration in the Filmmakers Lodge at Sundance, parading through Columbia, Missouri at True/False, riding a Winnebago through the warm, wide Austin streets at SXSW after a memorable dinner at Polvos). And now I can add to this the wonderful sight of AJ Schnack and Yance Ford wearing “Order of Myths” gowns at the Cinema Eye Honors last night.

DA Pennebaker said the following as he and Chris Hegedus presented the Outstanding Achievement award to James Marsh for Man on Wire: “When I started making films, there was no equipment to even do it with…when I see this marvelous sea of filmmaking, in all kinds of ways, it makes me feel that it was all worthwhile.” Yes, I think it was.

I’m also very, very pleased that Waltz with Bashir picked up 4 gongs. It’s an extraordinary film and it deserves every single pointy, heavy one of them.

Photo by Simon Kilmurry

Here are all the award winners:

Outstanding Achievement in NonFiction Feature Filmmaking
“Man on Wire,” directed by James Marsh; produced by Simon Chinn

Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Ari Folman for “Waltz with Bashir”

Outstanding Achievement in Production
Simon Chinn for “Man on Wire”

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Peter Zeitlinger for “Encounters at the End of the World”

Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Jinx Godfrey for “Man on Wire”

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Yoni Goldman & David Polonsky for “Waltz with Bashir”

Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition
Max Richter for “Waltz with Bashir”

Outstanding Achievement in International Feature
“Waltz with Bashir,” directed by Ari Folman; produced by Ari Folman, Serge Lalou, Gerhard Meixner, Yael Nahlieli & Roman Paul

Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature
“Up the Yangtze,” directed by Yung Chang

Audience Choice Award
“Up the Yangtze,” directed by Yung Chang

And here are some photos from the reception beforehand and the party afterwards (the faces get shinier and the photos get blurrier!)

Producer Sandra Whipham with Albert Maysles and Natalie Difford (Chicken & Egg Pictures)

Filmmaker Dmitry Rozin, Ion Furjanic (DJ extraordinaire) and Danielle DiGiacomo (from indiePix who sponsored the event)

Filmmaker Doug Block with Laure Parson (Zeitgeist Films) and Mila Aung-Thwin (Producer of Up the Yangtze, which won the audience award)

Filmmakers Robin Hessman and Margaret Brown

Natalie Difford with Phil Engelhorn and Reva Goldberg from Cinereach

Violet Gaynor, David Nugent (Hamptons International Film Festival), Matt Dentler (Cinetic) and David Wilson (True/False)

Sky Sitney (Silverdocs) and AJ Schnack, the man who drunkenly came up with the idea for Cinema Eye along with Thom Powers. See! When it looks like doc folk are just propping up the bar we’re really inventing the future!

Filmmakers Esther Robinson and Paul Devlin grin for the camera

Flying on One Engine Director Joshua Weinstein (my dancefloor compatriot) with Yoni Brook (Bronx Princess) and Jessica Wolfson

Karina Longworth (Spout), Producer Thoma Kikis, Sandra Whipham and me

Stephanie Skaff, fabulous tie wearer Mark Rosenberg (Rooftop Films) and Jeremiah Zagar (Director of one of my favorite docs of 2008: In a Dream)

Ryan Harrington (indiePix) with Stephanie Sharis (SnagFilms)

Man on Wire is way ahead in the Shooting People Oscar Poll. If you’re a member get voting now. There’s money in it for the lucky winner!

Here’s the list. I’m really pleased that Waltz with Bashir has been nominated in the Best Foreign-Language Film category because if it wins, and I think it should, then two docs can win big Oscars.

Best picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus van Sant, Milk
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best supporting actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Best actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Meryl Streep, Doubt

Best supporting actor
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr, Tropic Thunder
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Best actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best original screenplay
Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
WALL-E

Best adapted screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best cinematography
Tom Stern, Changeling
Claudio Miranda, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight
Chris Menges, Roger Deakins, The Reader
Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire

Achievement in art design
James J Murakami, Gary Fettis, Changeling
Donald Graham Burt, Victor J Zolfo, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando, The Dark Knight
Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway, The Duchess
Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt, Revolutionary Road

Achievement in visual effects
Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, Paul Franklin, The Dark Knight
John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, Shane Mahan, Iron Man

Achievement in editing
Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Lee Smith, The Dark Knight
Mike Hill, Dan Hanley, Frost/Nixon
Elliot Graham, Milk
Chris Dickens, Slumdog Millionaire

Achievement in costume design
Catherine Martin, Australia
Jacqueline West, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Michael O’Connor, The Duchess
Danny Glicker, Milk
Albert Wolsky, Revolutionary Road

Achievement in makeup
Greg Cannom, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Caglione, Jr, Conor O’Sullivan, The Dark Knight
Mike Elizalde, Thom Floutz, Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Best foreign-language film
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Class (France)
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Austria)
Waltz With Bashir (Israel)

Best documentary feature
Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Werner Herzog, Henry Kaiser, Encounters at the End of the World
Scott Hamilton Kennedy, The Garden
James Marsh, Simon Chinn, Man On Wire
Tia Lessin, Carl Deal, Trouble the Water

Best animation
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E

Best original song
Down to Earth, WALL-E
Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya, Slumdog Millionaire

Awards are a bit like weddings. You sort of wish that everyone would just get together and throw a party and pay attention to each other just because it’s a nice thing to do but you really have to add a little something extra into the mix to get people to rent hotel rooms and buy toasters and china and, well, I guess my point is that sometimes, although the competition aspect of film award events doesn’t sit so well with me, it is a great way to draw attention to films and filmmakers. And the Cinema Eye Honors, celebrating their second year in 2009, are a breath of fresh air in the awards world, drawing attention to the full scope of documentary filmmaking practice and to all aspects of the craft.

Final nominations will be announced on January 19th in Park City during Sundance. The shortlist is as follows:

AMERICAN TEEN – Nanette Burstein, dir
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON) – Ellen Kuras & Thavisouk Phrasavath, dir
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD – Werner Herzog, dir
THE ENGLISH SURGEON – Geoffrey Smith, dir
FORBIDDEN LIES – Anna Broinowski, dir
IN A DREAM – Jeremiah Zagar, dir
MAN ON WIRE – James Marsh, dir
MY WINNIPEG – Guy Maddin, dir
THE ORDER OF MYTHS – Margaret Brown, dir
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED – Marina Zenovich, dir
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE – Errol Morris, dir
STRANDED, I COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS – Gonzalo Arijon, dir
TROUBLE THE WATER – Carl Deal & Tia Lessin, dir
UP THE YANGTZE – Yung Chang, dir
WALTZ WITH BASHIR – Ari Folman, dir

The Cinema Eye Nominations Committee was comprised of 15 of the top festival programmers of nonfiction films.  This year’s committee members are:

Meira Blaustein, Woodstock Film Festival
Phoebe Brush, Full Frame Film Festival
David Courier, Sundance Film Festival
Heather Croall, Sheffield Doc/Fest
Sean Farnel, Hot Docs
Tine Fischer, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen)
Tom Hall, Sarasota Film Festival
David Kwok, Tribeca Film Festival
David Nugent, Hamptons Film Festival
Janet Pierson, SXSW Film Festival
Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival
Rachel Rosen, LA Film Festival
Sky Sitney, AFI Silverdocs
David Wilson, True/False Film Festival
Brit Withey, Denver Film Festival

Congrats to all the shortlisted filmmakers and to AJ Schnack and Thom Powers and everyone else involved in Cinema Eye for doing such sterling work for documentaries. You are probably already familiar with Schack’s All These Wonderful Things blog but Powers has a great new-ish blog for Stranger Than Fiction so subscribe to it today! The Winter Season of STF runs from January 13th till March 1st at NYC’s IFC Center, and it kicks off on Tuesday with Ben Kempas’ Upstream Battle. See you there!

Not bad, not bad. This list often causes some consternation in the doc community as great films are ignored in favor of the obviously not so great but this year’s list includes some really strong films. I, like many others, am disappointed that Margaret Brown’s assured and intelligent The Order of Myths is not on this list but I am really thrilled to see Jeremiah Zagar’s In A Dream on there. I saw In A Dream at the Woodstock Film Festival in October and was mesmerized and moved by it. I have a British allergy to anything overly earnest but this film manages to be honest and funny and full of the warp and weft of genuinely raw emotion without making me squirm once. I love beautifully made films that tell very personal stories about ordinary people and include all the yukkiness and beauty of life as it is lived. It is hard to pull this off and I think this is a film that succeeds.

You can watch the trailer here:

In A Dream Trailer from Herzliya Films on Vimeo.

Here’s the list:

At the Death House Door
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Encounters at the End of the World
Fuel
The Garden
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
I.O.U.S.A.
In a Dream
Made in America
Man on Wire
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Standard Operating Procedure
They Killed Sister Dorothy
Trouble the Water

Congrats to everyone involved! And New Yorkers: The Betrayal opens at the IFC Center on Friday, November 21st. This is a tour de force collaboration between Ellen Kuras, cinematographer for directors like Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Michel Gondry, and Laotian-American activist Thavisouk Phrasavath and it took an incredible 20 years to make. Don’t miss this opportunity to see it on a big screen.

I had a wonderful time up at the Woodstock Film Festival a couple of weeks ago and I feel terrible that I haven’t had a chance to write about it until now. It was great to be up in the country as the leaves started turning and the air grew crisp. I even had a couple of nature epiphanies eating apples off trees and looking at deer in the woods (such a city girl!). Everything smelled of woodsmoke and patchouli oil and I immediately felt both relaxed and reinvigorated. First some photos:

The Woodstock Film Festival logo shows some peace and love.

Discouraging apathy and encouraging dissent sounds like a good message for our times!

Lovely pumpkins at a roadside store on the way to Bearsville.

My favorite photo of The Band by Elliot Landy (I was so tempted to buy a signed print but they were a bit too pricey for me).

A gentle protest on the village green (which coincided with a fashion show!)

Got to love those hippies!

Honorary Trailblazer Award recipient James Schamus is introduced by festival co-founder Meira Blaustein before his brilliantly honest and inspiring conversation with Karen Durbin.

Honorary Maverick Award recipient Kevin Smith (who gave a very funny speech involving at least one reference to anal sex) and Honorary Trailblazer Award recipient James Schamus.

All the winners onstage (Ang Lee was there to honor Schamus and is on the far left of the photo).

The full list of winners is below. Congratulations to all. I love, love, love Medium Cool so was very pleased to see Haskell Wexler get the Lifetime Achievement Award. I’m also beyond chuffed that Jeremiah Zagar’s In A Dream won Best Documentary Feature because I think it is one of the most personal, moving and beautiful films I have seen in a long time. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Best Feature Narrative – The Lee Marvin Award – Prince of Broadway
Best Feature Documentary – In a Dream
Best Short Film-The Diane Seligman Award – Glory at Sea
Best Student Film-The Diane Seligman Award – Sikumi
Best Short Documentary-The Diane Seligman Award – Pickin’ and Trimmin’
Best Cinematography–The Haskell Wexler Award – At the Edge of the World
Best Narrative Editing –The James Lyons Award – Were the World Mine
Best Documentary Editing –The James Lyons Award – In a Dream
Best Animation–Presented by Bill Plympton – Berni’s Doll
Audience Award for Best Feature Narrative – Let the Right One In
Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary – Playing for Change
Lifetime Achievement Award – Haskell Wexler, A.S.C
Honorary Trailblazer Award recipient – James Schamus
Honorary Maverick Award recipient – Kevin Smith

Jason Kohn gave a great speech when he won the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking at the Cinema Eye Honors last week. He spoke about making Manda Bala “out of anger” after watching Marshall Curry’s Streetfight play to an empty theater at a festival in Sao Paulo. “I was so god damn mad. . . because when these movies don’t get seen you feel like you’re fucking losing, you feel like somebody else is winning and that person is no good.”

Earlier in the evening Kohn had spoken about how he felt that Werner Herzog and Errol Morris had been making films in response to each other, in a kind of unintentional dialog. There’s an interesting conversation between Herzog and Morris in the latest copy of The Believer. They talk a little bit about Herzog’s ideas about “ecstatic truth,” a lot about serial killers, and Morris finishes with some great thoughts on the tension between planning and spontaneity in documentary:

I feel that element of spontaneity because so much of what I do is controlled. The element of spontaneity is not knowing what someone is going to say to me in front of the camera, having really no idea, of being surprised. I know that there’s this moment in all of the interviews I’ve loved where something happens. I had this three-minute rule that if you just shut up and let someone talk, within three minutes they will show you how crazy they really are. And it has happened time and time and time again.

If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful. Cinema exists because there are elements of both in everything. There are elements of both in documentary. There are elements of both in feature filmmaking. It’s what makes, I think, photography and filmmaking of interest. Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us.

Jason Kohn accepting his award. Photo courtesy of IndiePix.

That old “what defines independent” chestnut gets a little tiresome but I read this from Andrew O’Hehir at Salon with interest:

“The academy showers its laurels on a film that has made about $63 million in domestic box office, while the big winner at the supposedly independent Spirit Awards has grossed double that amount.”

Boring Oscars. Interesting Times.

This could have saved me 2 hours and 59 minutes in front of the telly last night!

It’s always long and a little bit silly but I found last night’s Oscars more exhausting than usual. I liked that Diablo Cody was so genuinely choked up and Marion Cotillard’s speech was lovely but everything else left me a little cold. Although it was nice to see Euro-folk win so many awards. Tilda Swinton is beyond cool (even in that bizarre dress).

Amusing titbit from the Guardian Film Blog:

“Every year it’s the same thing. The five nominees for best foreign language film and best documentary are four war movies and one about dance.”

I am pleased for Alex Gibney and Taxi to the Dark Side even though I put No End in Sight on my ballot. I think they’re both excellent documentaries but Gibney is a smart, experienced director and deserves his Oscar.