Blogging Woodstock: Round-Up

A round-up of the stand-out films at the Woodstock Film Festival.


A still from Mark Becker's "Pressure Cooker", which screened at Woodstock this month.

Sarah Coleman sums up the highlights of the Woodstock Film Festival closing ceremonies with crude quips from this year's Maverick filmmaker, Kevin Smith (see the trailer for his latest film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which closed the festival), and wide-eyed acceptances from upcoming filmmakers such as Jeremiah Zagar (see the trailer for In a Dream), Sean Baker (see the trailer for Prince of Broadway), and Tom Quinn, among others.

Want to inject a bit of spark and a lot of profanity into your film festival award ceremony?

The Doc Doctor's Anatomy of a Film: "Soy Andina"

The Documentary Doctor takes a look at filmmaker Mitchell Teplitsky's "Soy Andina."


A still from Mitchell Teplinsky's "Soy Andina," which took him over six year to complete.

The Doc studies Mitchell Teplitsky's first film, Soy Andina (check out the trailer) and takes a behind-the-scenes look at how Teplitsky went from marketing director to successful filmmaker living in Peru. This October, the Doc will be presenting her signature workshops on story structure and fundraising trailers in Tucson, AZ and San Francisco, CA. For details check www.documentarydoctor.com. Also, check out the Doctor's previous Anatomy columns.

About this column: Many filmmakers ponder in anguish, How do other people—celebrated people—do it? Am I taking too long to make this documentary? Does everybody spend as much money as I am spending, or am I spending too little? And when filmmakers share their lessons learned in interviews in the glossy trade magazines, their tales seem to follow the arc of otherworldy heroes rather than real documentary makers, i.e. human beings like you and me. So each month, the Doc Doctor will go out into the world (this real world) of filmmakers who are successful and find out how they made it. The "Anatomy of a Film Column" is a chance to learn from filmmakers' hits and misses in real life examples. —Fernanda Rossi, story consultant a.k.a. the Documentary Doctor

Health Insurance for Artists

Health insurance options for artists, writers and filmmakers.


A doctor's office (Photo by striatic).

Filmmakers, writers and other freelancers are often ineligible for health insurance through a company. But there are still plenty of options out there, if you know how to find them. So The Independent put together this list, broken down by state with the aim of helping artists learn their insurance options.

As freelancers, many members of the creative community -- writers, artists, and filmmakers -- often struggle to find the best health insurance for themselves and their families. Since artists typically do not work as employees, they are not eligible for insurance through a company. And it's not always an option to tag onto a partner's or parent's policy. But there are still plenty of options out there, if you know how to find them. Emerging and veteran artists may not realize that, in fact, they are eligible as artists to join certain organizations, and thus obtain a variety of more affordable health insurance options. So The Independent put together this list, broken down by state with the aim of helping artists learn their insurance options.

Blogging Woodstock: Talk, Talk, Talk

Blogger Sarah Coleman boils down the panel discussions at the Woodstock Film Festival.


Michelle Williams in "Wendy & Lucy" demostrates the trend of Hollywood stars working in low-budget films.

Sure, panel discussions are useful, but the information-gleaned-to-time-spent ratio doesn't always work out in your favor so we had blogger Sarah Coleman get the inside scoop from critics, actors, producers and filmmakers, like Jay Duplass (see the trailer for Baghead here), who were willing to share their filmmaking experiences, from post-production to distribution.

Saturday at the Woodstock Film Festival is a day filled with panel discussions. At best, panels can wonderfully stimulating, filled with useful information delivered by vibrant, inspiring people. At worst, they can be mind-numbingly dull.

Blogging Woodstock: Ready, Set, Activism!

Blogger Sarah Coleman takes a look at the themes of activism and genre bending at the Woodstock Film Festival.


A still from Bill Plympton's dark take on animation with "Idiots and Angels."

Not-your-everyday animation finds a home with the audience at Woodstock with Bill Plympton's Idiots and Angels (view trailer here) along with a passionate forum for environmental concerns following a screening of Dan Stone's documentary At the Edge of the World.

Nikki Goldbeck, the deputy director of the Woodstock Film Festival, is the point person for organizing filmmakers’ visits to the festival. This year, some 80 filmmakers are coming to discuss their movies, the highest number ever, which Goldbeck sees as a testament to the festival’s growing success. “It really makes a difference,” she says.

Blogging Woodstock: Politically Independent

With the 2008 presidential election quickly approaching, the 9th Annual Woodstock Film Festival brings political and social issues to the forefront.


A still from "The New Year Parade."

Independent blogger Sarah Coleman gives readers a peek into the politically-charged first day at the Woodstock Film Festival where films addressed issues such as the environment, broken families (see the trailer for "The New Year Parade"), world culture (see the trailer for "Throw Down Your Heart"), and religion (see "Religulous" trailer).

On the day before this year’s Woodstock Film Festival screenings are due to begin, festival director Meira Blaustein sits in her office, enjoying a moment of calm before the storm. As it’s grown in stature and reputation, this “fiercely independent” festival in the well-known Catskills town has been finding itself increasingly spoiled for choice.

Making a Film Is Only Half the Battle

Filmmaker Paul Devlin looks back on the film festival strategy he used for his documentary "BLAST!".


Lift Off: "BLAST!" follows a NASA team that seeks to launch a telescope into space.

Filmmaker Paul Devlin gives advice to filmmakers trying to find their niche in the festival circuit with anecdotes from his own experience in sending out his latest film BLAST! (watch the trailer here), which screened at RIFF, Hot Docs and Mountainfilm in Telluride and has upcoming screenings at the Corona Cork Film Festival in Ireland and the Bergen International Film Festival in Norway this month.

For decades, film festivals have partnered up with great independent films to give them a healthy life. Filmmakers have relied on the hard work of festival programmers and organizers to get our films out to audiences and to reach wider markets through press and distributor attention.

Blogging TIFF: Pontypool Changes Everything

A review of "Pontypool", one of TIFF's "groundbreaking films", which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival this month.


Director Bruce McDonald on the set of "Pontypool" his eighth feature films, which screened at TIFF this month.

Blogger Gillian Moody takes a look at the zombie-esque "Pontypool", a part of Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard series, which imagines a world where a virus is spread through the English-language.

On Tuesday, Septemer 9, Canadian-made film Pontypool, a movie by director Bruce McDonald of The Tracey Fragments, (starring 2007 Oscar nominee Ellen Page from the movie Juno) screened at TIFF’s Vanguard, a program dedicated to groundbreaking films.

Blogging TIFF: Someone Who Is Nothing Has Everything to Lose

A review of "Slumdog Millionaire", a film by acclaimed director Danny Boyle of "Trainspotting" fame, that screened at Toronto International Film Festival this month.


A still from Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire," screened at TIFF.

Blogger Gillian Moody views "Slumdog Millionaire" (see trailer), a film that flirted with the idea of a straight-to-DVD release, becomes a popular favorite at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and is picked up by Fox Searchlight for a happy ending to a long journey that parallels the film itself.

On Sunday, September 7, English-made film Slumdog Millionaire made its debut at TIFF, where it handily won the Cadillac People’s Choice Award. All of this considering that Slumdog Millionaire nearly went straight to DVD after Warners’ Independent Pictures closed its doors earlier this year.

The 10 Best Academic Programs for Documentary Filmmakers

An overview of the best programs from Duke to Stanford to Maine


The Digital Media Academy's Documentary Filmmaking Camp has programs for adults, kids and teens (pictured).

Choosing the right school is hard, but it can be even harder when you have a specialized focus, like documentary filmmaking. Whether you're a novice or a veteran filmmaker looking to try something new, this top ten list of the best documentary film programs, both degree granting and non-degree granting, boils down the programs so you can find exactly the right fit.

These days, it’s fairly easy to find an excellent place to learn how to make narrative films. Ten Best lists exist by the fistful, and a Google search of “learn filmmaking” returns more than 30,000 hits.

From Dreams to the Screen: From Nightmare to Toronto

Australian screenwriting duo, Armstrong & Krause talk about their writing process, horrific influences and how near-death experiences led them to the craft of portraying nightmares.


A still from Acolytes, screening at TIFF this month.

Up-and-coming Austrialian screenwriting duo, Armstrong & Krause, talk to the Independent about brainstorming horror films and their new film, Acolytes (see trailer), which screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

For the most part, our nightmares are something on which we try not to dwell. However, in the case of Australian screenwriting duo Shanye Armstrong and S.P. Krause, nightmares are explored, outlined and used as the basis for many of their chilling storylines.

Blogging IFP: Let's Talk About It

As the Indepdendent Film Week winds down, festival-goers are eager to discuss filmmaking techniques at the conferences.


Kouross Esmaeli, Muthana Mohmed & Nina Davenport from "Operation Filmmaker," a film at one of the filmmaker conferences at IFP.

Documentary filmmakers discuss the relationship with their subjects during one of the festival's most popular segments: the Independent Filmmaker Conference. SILVERDOCS director of programming, Sky Sitney, and other panelists try to define the ethical role of documentarians.

A crowd of filmmakers and other members of the film industry gathered outside the Haft Auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) at various times today, as they did every day this week, waiting to get into the Independent Filmmaker Conferences, in which filmmakers, producers, distributors, agents, and buyers discussed a variety of issues pertaining to independent filmmaking.

Blogging IFP: Short Shorts

A snapshot into the upcoming films from Canada.


A still from Michael Melski's "Growing Op" a film about a teenage boy stuck in suburban hell.

Blogging from Independent Film Week, Writer Kayla Soyer-Stein gets a sneak peak of upcoming Canadian films with excerpts and trailers (see The Baby Formula for example). Plus, she heads over to the Short Film Showcases to view documentaries of upcoming filmmakers from CUNY.

From 9:30 to 10:30 this morning, bits of new works from talent supported by the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund were presented at Chelsea Cinemas to members of the industry.

Blogging IFP: Death Becomes It

The first in a series of blog entries about the 30th anniversary of Independent Film Week (formerly the IFP Market) in New York City.


A still from PJ Raval and Jay Hodges' film "Trinidad" screened at IFP.

Blogger Kayla Soyer-Stein takes a peek at Independent Film Week in New York City, with a first look at the slightly morbid side of IFP, along with a glimpse into exactly what it takes to make a documentary from start to finish.

Short narrative films by emerging filmmakers from the City University of New York schools were screened from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. today at Chelsea Cinemas, as part of the NextGenNYC Short Film Showcases, a new program initiated by IFP and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting. Most of the filmmakers were in the audience, but the theater was nearly empty.

Living with a Mutation

An interview with the director and subject of "In the Family," a documenary about living with the breast cancer gene.


A still from "In the Family," as Rudnick examines the results of one of many tests.

Joanna Rudnick, director and subject of the documentary In the Family (see the trailer) discusses living life with the knowledge she has an 85 percent chance of getting cancer and what effect this documentary has had on her life, so far.

It’s hard enough being a single woman dating in your early thirties. But, imagine having to tell the person you're dating that you carry the gene mutation for cancer, and will eventually need to remove your ovaries and possibly breasts. Now, imagine having to tell that person you’re delaying the process because you’re waiting to have kids.

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