Silverdocs 08.

Silverdocs, already rolling for a few days now, runs on through Monday. A few impressions are coming in: "Leave it to me to get teary-eyed from a film about Iranians installing illegal Satellite TV dishes." Cynthia Rockwell reviews Head Wind, noting that "the film is not so simplistic as to claim that access to media will cure everything."

Updated through 6/24.

Also, Dust: "[D]espite the Godardian narration, which constantly brought to mind the coffee cup scene in Two or Three Things I Know About Her, unfortunately the film is rather heavy-handed at times, forcibly making and repeating its philosophical points and pounding some of the film's mystery - yes, I'll say it - into dust."

"[I]t was a total accident that I spent my first day at SilverDocs watching two consecutive films about the refugees of international atrocities struggling to form a community within resorts that have seen better days," writes Karina Longworth, reviewing Seaview (site; blog) and Four Seasons Lodge at the SpoutBlog.

Online viewing tip. The trailer for Bird's Nest: Herzog & De Meuron in China.

Updates, 6/20: "You watch Kassim the Dream unsure whether you want to adopt Kassim or smack him upside the head," writes David Segal. "You're wowed by his achievements but worried about his future. Which is how [Kief] Davidson felt as he shot the movie."

Also in the Washington Post: Jen Chaney's "Five to Watch at Silverdocs" and Ellen McCarthy on All Together Now: "The documentary, which follows the drama-soaked creation of Love, a dazzling Cirque du Soleil show based on Beatles music, winds up looking, [director Adrian Wills] says, 'like we had all the access in the world.' In fact, 'what it is, is stolen moments.'"

The Film Panel Notetaker got to work following a screening of Milosevic on Trial.

"Where other festivals derive much of their appeal from a sense of discovery, Silverdocs feels more like an annual canonization of the documentary form, highlighting some of the best practitioners of the art while observing the bigger picture presented by the industry around them," writes Eric Kohn at indieWIRE. "This year's festival, which launched its one-week run on Monday, found inspiration with two notable attendees: Alex Gibney, whose Afghanistan-based Taxi to the Dark Side won an Oscar in March, and Spike Lee, the legendary auteur equally compelling when working in narrative or non-fiction mode."

Both Karina Longworth and AJ Schnack found the session with Lee frustrating, but Karina did come away with news of an Obama doc in the works (not Lee's) and a basketball doc Lee's planning, having been inspired by Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.

As for Gibney, AJ passes along news (and an explanation) of the filmmaker's lawsuit against ThinkFilm - whose Mark Urman responds.

"This morning, I was on a panel with Karina Longworth, AJ Schnack, Anthony Kaufman and Sandy Mandelberger, moderated by former Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson," writes Scott Kirsner. "We were talking about the differences between reviews and film coverage in traditional media versus the blog world. I proposed one theory: that traditional media (radio, TV, print) and the blogosphere serve two very different purposes for filmmakers."

Update, 6/22: AJ Schnack has the award-winners.

Update, 6/23: "Hard Times at Douglas High [site] is a fly-on-the-wall work of activism documenting a year in the life of an all-black Baltimore high school, as teachers, students and administrators struggle to comply with No Child Left Behind," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog, where she also goes on to review Going on 13 (site and blog).

Having seen Encounters at the End of the World (site), Cynthia Rockwell contrasts early and late Werner Herzog.

Scott Kirsner presents two-sentence reviews of three films.

Updates, 6/24: "If there's an aesthetic lesson conveyed by the premieres at AFI Silverdocs this year, it's that cinema verite continues to thrive - and the classical approach to documentary filmmaking hasn't frayed with age." An overview from Eric Kohn at indieWIRE.

Rose Vincelli has a roundup at Filmmaker.

Via Scott Kirsner, Dave Nuttycombe's notes on the "Distribution Now: Strategic Thinking for the Feature Doc" panel.

Posted by dwhudson at June 19, 2008 1:24 PM