Docs, 6/13.

"To make Czech Dream, two student filmmakers out-flimflammed all their fellow prankumentarians by bamboozling an entire central European nation," writes Ed Halter. "Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda orchestrated a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign for the grand opening of a new superstore that didn't exist, creating a powerful commentary on consumerism that became a media sensation in the Czech Republic."

Also in the Voice:

• Jim Ridley on Gypsy Caravan: "This joyous portrait of the 2001 'Gypsy Caravan' tour - a stateside showcase of Romani musicians representing their culture as splintered across Romania, Macedonia, Spain, and India - deserves to have its brilliant colors, lavish costumes, and vivacious musical numbers seen on the big screen." In Slant, Nick Schager concurs.

• "That we never see the faces of the victim nor the murderers in Beyond Hatred is a fascinating component to director Olivier Meyrou's experiment in concentrated humanism," writes Aaron Hillis.

• Julia Wallace finds Unborn in the USA "too focused, too unwilling to waver from its mission of taking us inside the pro-life movement, even when it turns out that it's a pretty boring place to be."

Back in Slant, Arthur Ryel-Lindsey finds that Glastonbury "nicely captures the wide variety of the festival" and Keith Uhlich reviews Manufactured Landscapes: "The work of still-photographer Edward Burtynsky is the film's ostensible subject, but [director Jennifer] Baichwal is more concerned with macro-meditating on the quickly deteriorating state of planet Earth."

Michael Guillén listens in on (and takes part in) a Q&A with Enough Man director Luke Woodward.

"Black Gold is the best film on trade policy you are likely to see," advises the Guardian. Also:

• "The War on Democracy is my first film for cinema," announces John Pilger, who's made 55 television documentaries and recalls Richard Nixon's remarking of all of Latin America, "'No one gives a shit about the place.' The War On Democracy is meant as an antidote to this."

• Ed Pilkington: Sicko's "release in the UK later in the summer may come as a reminder to the British that, despite the faults of the NHS, the provision of free healthcare is something to be fought for. And perhaps a warning against the creeping privatisation of the health service, too." Related: "Blending a movie premiere and a political rally with a savvy that even Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger might admire," Michael Moore took the doc to Sacremento yesterday, reports Jordan Rau in the Los Angeles Times. And Alison Willmore gathers more related items at the IFC Blog.

"Two new documentaries about Abu Ghraib - Rory Kennedy's Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's The Prisoner; or, How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair - recently hit DVD shelves, and they should be required viewing for all American citizens," writes Anthony Kaufman at the Huffington Post:

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is hard at work on his own Abu Ghraib/Iraq War doc, S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure, which is supposed to come out in time to make an impact on the 2008 elections. It would be about time. If torture doesn't work, eliciting wrongful confessions and going against universally recognized principles of human rights, why do 1/3 of American troops still support torture in Iraq, as last month's study on "Battlefield Ethics" by the US Army Medical Command shows? Education is needed, both among the American people and its generals. A few good documentaries may not be enough to change policy, but at least they're a start.

"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) are pleased to announce that twenty filmmakers have been chosen to attend the seventh annual CPB/PBS Producers Workshop to be held at WGBH in Boston, June 16 - 22, 2007."

Posted by dwhudson at June 13, 2007 3:21 PM