Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman and late filmmaker Nancy Buirski will be honored at the Hamptons Doc Fest in New York next month.
Heineman, whose latest film, American Symphony, premiered to acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival, will receive the prestigious Pennebaker Career Achievement Award, named for the legendary filmmaker and pioneer of “direct cinema” D.A. Pennebaker. Heineman is expected to be on hand to receive the honor, which has previously gone to Richard Leacock, Susan Lacy, Barbara Kopple, Stanley Nelson Jr., Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, Sheila Nevins, Frederick Wiseman, Dawn Porter, Sam Pollard, and to Pennebaker and and his wife and filmmaking partner Chris Hegedus.
Jon Batiste in ‘American Symphony’
Hamptons Doc Fest will screen American Symphony, which has been acquired by the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground through the former first couple’s deal with Netflix. The documentary about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste and his wife, the musician Suleika Jaouad,...
Heineman, whose latest film, American Symphony, premiered to acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival, will receive the prestigious Pennebaker Career Achievement Award, named for the legendary filmmaker and pioneer of “direct cinema” D.A. Pennebaker. Heineman is expected to be on hand to receive the honor, which has previously gone to Richard Leacock, Susan Lacy, Barbara Kopple, Stanley Nelson Jr., Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, Sheila Nevins, Frederick Wiseman, Dawn Porter, Sam Pollard, and to Pennebaker and and his wife and filmmaking partner Chris Hegedus.
Jon Batiste in ‘American Symphony’
Hamptons Doc Fest will screen American Symphony, which has been acquired by the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground through the former first couple’s deal with Netflix. The documentary about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste and his wife, the musician Suleika Jaouad,...
- 10/21/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Chopra editing with daughter Sarah on her lap.I asked Joyce Chopra about the title of her recently published memoir, Lady Director, during a Zoom interview earlier this year.She laughed. “When I was doing television movies, they’d say, ‘Well, get a woman director,’ because it’s about emotion,” she told me. We then discussed the inherent awkwardness of saying “woman director”—or is it “female director”? “Man director” just sounds weird, and “male director”…well, who would ever say that? After all, isn’t it implied? Chopra’s memoir—a brisk but lively read, spanning a long life and prodigious career, published in November 2022 by City Lights Publishers—provides firsthand insight into the inherently precarious situation of being a woman in a man’s world, from a genuine, if woefully under-recognized, trailblazer of the artform. Her films explore a range of seemingly disparate subjects, but nevertheless evince a distinct,...
- 4/21/2023
- MUBI
A new episode of The Black Sheep video series has arrived online this morning, and with this one we’re looking back at director Steve Miner‘s 1999 killer crocodile horror comedy Lake Placid (watch it Here). To find out why we think Lake Placid deserves more love than it gets, check out the video embedded above!
Scripted by David E. Kelley, Lake Placid tells the following story: When a mysterious creature violently kills a man in a Maine lake, Jack Wells, the local game warden, looks into the bizarre case, along with Sheriff Hank Keough and visiting paleontologist Kelly Scott. Looking for clues in a tooth that the beast left behind, Kelly and the others eventually locate the monster, a massive and vicious reptile eager to devour anything in its path. Can the crocodile-like creature be stopped?
The film stars Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Betty White,...
Scripted by David E. Kelley, Lake Placid tells the following story: When a mysterious creature violently kills a man in a Maine lake, Jack Wells, the local game warden, looks into the bizarre case, along with Sheriff Hank Keough and visiting paleontologist Kelly Scott. Looking for clues in a tooth that the beast left behind, Kelly and the others eventually locate the monster, a massive and vicious reptile eager to devour anything in its path. Can the crocodile-like creature be stopped?
The film stars Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Betty White,...
- 1/12/2023
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
In a major shift one of the nation’s premier arthouses, Karen Cooper will be exiting as director on June 30 after 50 years running the Film Forum in New York City. Deputy Director Sonya Chung will assume the role.
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
- 1/9/2023
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.
Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...
Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...
- 10/26/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
British-Canadian documentarian and direct cinema pioneer Terence Macartney-Filgate has died in Toronto.
The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.
A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.
A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).
Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.
American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.
The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.
A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.
A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).
Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.
American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.
- 7/13/2022
- by Adam Benzine
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Terence Macartney-Filgate, a pioneering documentary maker and cinematographer who helped develop an unscripted, observational style of filmmaking common in reality TV today, has died. He was 97.
Macartney-Filgate died Monday in Toronto. No cause of death was available.
Over a 60-year career, he was a longtime collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada and directed his first film for the public filmmaker, Emergency Rescue — T33 Jet Aircraft, in 1956. With documentaries like The Days Before Christmas (1958), Blood and Fire (1958), Police (1958) and the ground-breaking The Back-breaking Leaf (1959), he developed the free-form, fly-on-the-wall documentary tradition that became part of the wider cinema verite tradition in the U.S.
“With the passing of Terence Macartney-Filgate, the Nfb has lost a dear friend and passionate champion of documentary cinema. A key figure in the Nfb’s legendary Unit B and its Candid Eye series, he helped to revolutionize non-fiction storytelling,...
Terence Macartney-Filgate, a pioneering documentary maker and cinematographer who helped develop an unscripted, observational style of filmmaking common in reality TV today, has died. He was 97.
Macartney-Filgate died Monday in Toronto. No cause of death was available.
Over a 60-year career, he was a longtime collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada and directed his first film for the public filmmaker, Emergency Rescue — T33 Jet Aircraft, in 1956. With documentaries like The Days Before Christmas (1958), Blood and Fire (1958), Police (1958) and the ground-breaking The Back-breaking Leaf (1959), he developed the free-form, fly-on-the-wall documentary tradition that became part of the wider cinema verite tradition in the U.S.
“With the passing of Terence Macartney-Filgate, the Nfb has lost a dear friend and passionate champion of documentary cinema. A key figure in the Nfb’s legendary Unit B and its Candid Eye series, he helped to revolutionize non-fiction storytelling,...
- 7/12/2022
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
I first learned that “Roadrunner,” Morgan Neville’s documentary about the life and death of Anthony Bourdain, contains three sentences spoken by Bourdain that he never actually spoke out loud in the same way that you learn about a lot of things these days: by seeing an eruption of outrage about it on Twitter. The eruption immediately sent me to the New Yorker article in which Neville, the award-winning director of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and “20 Feet From Stardom,” first explained how he used AI technology to feed 10 hours of Bourdain voice recordings into a computer, which then simulated Bourdain’s reading of those sentences — every one of which he had, in fact, written.
The words weren’t faked; the sound of him speaking them was. This was characterized, on social media, as an ethical lapse, and my first reaction is to say that I don’t necessarily disagree.
The words weren’t faked; the sound of him speaking them was. This was characterized, on social media, as an ethical lapse, and my first reaction is to say that I don’t necessarily disagree.
- 7/18/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
“99 Problems” directed y Michael G. Kehoe and starring Yan Birch was shot as a short film and I am told is to be viewed as a pre-log/teaser to a Television series, which makes me quite excited. The story itself starts with a man coming into a diner, having some business with a lady and then striking up a conversation with the waitress that could end up changing the future. The story and concept remind me of the good ole “Twilight Zone” and older mystery films ala Hitchcock. The main cast is very focused and believable and stars Yan Birch (The People Under The Stairs), Sala Baker (Deadpool 2), Tori London (Texas Chainsaw), Richard Leacock,(911) and Dennis Keiffer (Furious 7). I was particularly impressed by how much Actor Yan Birch can express...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 5/14/2021
- Screen Anarchy
In the doc world, Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker are a legendary filmmaking combo, and their presence has been felt at Idfa since the festival first began. The pair attended regularly over the years, but this year, sadly, only Hegedus was able to make the trip, having bade farewell to her longterm partner just a few months before. It was expected, then, that Hegedus’s Film Talk would be a sombre affair, but the filmmaker spoke brightly and articulately about the pair’s work together, opening with a fascinating clip from Pennebaker’s 1962 film “Jane,” a portrait/sketch of Jane Fonda’s disastrous attempt to conquer the Broadway stage, at the age of 25.
Speaking to writer Pamela Cohn, Hegedus said she came to the film world almost by accident. “When I grew up,” she said, “I didn’t really know that women could be filmmakers. I mean, I’d heard...
Speaking to writer Pamela Cohn, Hegedus said she came to the film world almost by accident. “When I grew up,” she said, “I didn’t really know that women could be filmmakers. I mean, I’d heard...
- 11/27/2019
- by Damon Wise
- Variety Film + TV
Robert Greene is a documentary filmmaker whose credits include the Sundance-acclaimed “Bisbee ‘17” and “Kate Plays Christine.” He teaches at the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism.
The first word that comes to mind while watching D.A. Pennebaker’s 1953 debut film “Daybreak Express” is love – love of light, love of movement, love of music, love of ideas. In five wildly inventive minutes, the great filmmaker, who died earlier this week in his home at the age of 94, uses various cinematic techniques to capture and recreate the rush of a New York City subway commute. Edited to an exuberant score by Duke Ellington, “Daybreak Express” was part of a groundbreaking group of films that revealed the abstract and musical potential of the observational camera. It was created by a man who loved the act of making things and loved pushing the documentary form forward.
A few years later,...
The first word that comes to mind while watching D.A. Pennebaker’s 1953 debut film “Daybreak Express” is love – love of light, love of movement, love of music, love of ideas. In five wildly inventive minutes, the great filmmaker, who died earlier this week in his home at the age of 94, uses various cinematic techniques to capture and recreate the rush of a New York City subway commute. Edited to an exuberant score by Duke Ellington, “Daybreak Express” was part of a groundbreaking group of films that revealed the abstract and musical potential of the observational camera. It was created by a man who loved the act of making things and loved pushing the documentary form forward.
A few years later,...
- 8/4/2019
- by Robert Greene
- Indiewire
Had D.A. Pennebaker never done anything but hop a flight to London, 16mm camera in tow, and follow around a scrawny young singer who jousted with journalists, was worshipped as a frizzy-haired god and entertained himself with entourage-fueled shenanigans, he would still have secured himself a place in rock history and film history. The best-known picture of the documentarian, known as “Penny” to friends and colleagues, finds the then-39-year-old wearing a top hat, jauntily tilted to one side. A camera is hoisted on his shoulder, covering one half of his face.
- 8/4/2019
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
D.A. Pennebaker, the documentary filmmaker who helped pioneer cinema verité in films like the 1967 Bob Dylan film “Don’t Look Back” and 1993’s “The War Room,” died Thursday at his home at age 94, Pennebaker’s son and executive producer and distributor for nearly all Pennebaker Hegedus films, Frazer Pennebaker, told TheWrap.
The celebrated cinematographer and director received an honorary Oscar in 2013 for his work, and an Oscar nomination, with Chris Hegedus, for “The War Room,” an inside look at the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton that helped make a star of Clinton’s then communications director and current ABC News chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos.
Pennebaker first rose to fame in the early ’60s after he and his colleague Richard Leacock developed one of the first fully portable 16mm synchronized camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized filmmaking.
Also Read: Harold Prince, Legendary Broadway Director and Producer, Dies at 91
His innovative...
The celebrated cinematographer and director received an honorary Oscar in 2013 for his work, and an Oscar nomination, with Chris Hegedus, for “The War Room,” an inside look at the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton that helped make a star of Clinton’s then communications director and current ABC News chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos.
Pennebaker first rose to fame in the early ’60s after he and his colleague Richard Leacock developed one of the first fully portable 16mm synchronized camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized filmmaking.
Also Read: Harold Prince, Legendary Broadway Director and Producer, Dies at 91
His innovative...
- 8/3/2019
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
Da Pennebaker, the Academy Award-nominated director of 60 documentaries whose career encompassed more than 50 years, has died at the age of 94. A seminal figure of the cinema vérité movement, Pennebaker helmed such nonfiction masterpieces as “Monterey Pop,” “The War Room,” and “Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back,” bringing his canny eye upon everything from 1960s counterculture to the urgent political issues of the day. He is survived by his wife and frequent collaborator Chris Hegedus. Pennebaker died of natural causes on August 1, according to his son, Frazer Pennebaker.
In tribute to the late filmmaker, IndieWire has assembled five must-see films from Pennebaker’s prolific catalogue.
“Primary” (1960)
Pennebaker edited Robert Drew’s groundbreaking 1960 “Primary,” which plunges us into the 1960 Wisconsin primary election face-off between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, as they vie for the presidency. With its handheld camerawork and intimate proximity to its subjects, this was a groundbreaking moment for documentary film,...
In tribute to the late filmmaker, IndieWire has assembled five must-see films from Pennebaker’s prolific catalogue.
“Primary” (1960)
Pennebaker edited Robert Drew’s groundbreaking 1960 “Primary,” which plunges us into the 1960 Wisconsin primary election face-off between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, as they vie for the presidency. With its handheld camerawork and intimate proximity to its subjects, this was a groundbreaking moment for documentary film,...
- 8/3/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
D.A. Pennebaker, a director and cinematographer known for his documentaries, including the classic “Dont Look Back” (1967), “Monterey Pop” (1968) and “The War Room” (1993) and “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” (2002), died Thursday night of natural causes, Variety has confirmed. He was 94.
Pennebaker’s many other films included the 1973 David Bowie concert film “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,” 1989 Depeche Mode road movie “101” and “Down From the Mountain” (2000), about the musicians who performed the songs in the Coen Brothers’ film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Pennebaker won an honorary Oscar in 2013.
In a 1997 article the U.K.’s the Independent described Pennebaker as arguably the preeminent chronicler of ’60s counterculture.
Pennebaker did not reserve his camera exclusively for the musical arena, however.
He and his wife, Chris Hegedus, with whom he made most of his films in the past several decades, were Oscar nominated in 1994 for best documentary for “The War Room,” a witty,...
Pennebaker’s many other films included the 1973 David Bowie concert film “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,” 1989 Depeche Mode road movie “101” and “Down From the Mountain” (2000), about the musicians who performed the songs in the Coen Brothers’ film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Pennebaker won an honorary Oscar in 2013.
In a 1997 article the U.K.’s the Independent described Pennebaker as arguably the preeminent chronicler of ’60s counterculture.
Pennebaker did not reserve his camera exclusively for the musical arena, however.
He and his wife, Chris Hegedus, with whom he made most of his films in the past several decades, were Oscar nominated in 1994 for best documentary for “The War Room,” a witty,...
- 8/3/2019
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
Marek Hovorka, a native of the city of Jihlava in the Czech Republic, founded its biggest cultural event some 22 years ago at a time when films were submitted on VHS cassettes in bubble wrap and invitations sent out via fax machine. Today the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival is a nexus for work from around the globe and a key player in the influential European documentary film ecosystem. He reflects on the fest’s humble start and the unexpected turns it has taken on its road to major player status.
What was the genesis of your idea for Ji.hlava? What convinced you it could work in a town that was then so quiet and fairly remote?
In 1997 the situation for documentary filmmaking and its festival landscape was completely different – and not only in the Czech Republic. Almost all films were screened from film prints and nobody had a website.
What was the genesis of your idea for Ji.hlava? What convinced you it could work in a town that was then so quiet and fairly remote?
In 1997 the situation for documentary filmmaking and its festival landscape was completely different – and not only in the Czech Republic. Almost all films were screened from film prints and nobody had a website.
- 10/25/2018
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Today is the beginning of the second annual Doc NYC documentary festival, which is a huge bonus round of extraordinary choices for those of us in the Big Apple with a preference for nonfiction cinema. It also should be a destination for those outside New York, especially if you want to be schooled in documentary history via the very necessary Richard Leacock retrospective and catch up with some of my favorite underrated docs of the year, including in-competition works Kumare (my review), Scenes of a Crime (my review) and Unraveled (if you’re not mad at the 1% yet, here is a terrific inciter), as well as A Good Man and the delightfully, surprisingly romantic Stan Lee bio, With Great Power (my review), both of which are part of the fest’s new Icons...
Read More...
Read More...
- 11/3/2011
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate
The summer of 1960 heralded a critical period in the history of film and it had to do with the 16mm camera. "Just one thing held documentaries back from being free-form, fluid slices of life until this point," says Mandy Chang, director and producer of The Camera That Changed the World, which airs on BBC4 next month. "The fact that for decades, films were mainly shot on unwieldy, 35mm cameras requiring lots of paraphernalia."
Smaller cameras were available, but film-makers were restricted by their noisy winding mechanisms – forcing them to shoot silent. "This dictated both a certain style and approach in documentary-making, and many were set in studio," explains Chang.
The 16mm, hand-held cameras enabled what came to be known as location-based "direct cinema", pioneered in the Us by film-makers such as Richard Leacock...
The summer of 1960 heralded a critical period in the history of film and it had to do with the 16mm camera. "Just one thing held documentaries back from being free-form, fluid slices of life until this point," says Mandy Chang, director and producer of The Camera That Changed the World, which airs on BBC4 next month. "The fact that for decades, films were mainly shot on unwieldy, 35mm cameras requiring lots of paraphernalia."
Smaller cameras were available, but film-makers were restricted by their noisy winding mechanisms – forcing them to shoot silent. "This dictated both a certain style and approach in documentary-making, and many were set in studio," explains Chang.
The 16mm, hand-held cameras enabled what came to be known as location-based "direct cinema", pioneered in the Us by film-makers such as Richard Leacock...
- 6/6/2011
- by Meg Carter
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.