The Film Panel Notetaker

White Reindeer Premiere Q&A @ SXSW Film Festival
Screening Time:4:15 PM, Alamo Ritz Theater
Cast & Crew of White Reindeer
Q&A Moderator:Chad Hartigan, Director, This Is Martin Bonner
With:Zach Clark, Director, White ReindeerAnna Margaret Hollyman, Actress, White Reindeer
White Reindeer tells the story of Real Estate agent Suzanne (Anna Margaret Hollyman), who seems to have everything going for her. [...]

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Not Fade Away – Screening and Q & A with David Chase
Paramount Theater –  Austin, TX
October 18, 2012
Notes by Erin Essenmacher

You probably know David Chase best as the creative genius behind The Sopranos.  The show may have ended, but Chase’s career not only lives on, he can now add feature film director to his list of [...]

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One-on-One Q&A with Jonathan Goodman Levitt, Director of FOLLOW THE LEADER
By Brian Geldin

Since less than a week ago, I’ve been hard at work helping to promote a Kickstarter campaign, which ends on Thursday, for filmmaker Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s documentary, FOLLOW THE LEADER, a real-life coming-of-age story of three traditional American boys with Presidential dreams. A [...]

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“Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey”
AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs
June 18, 2012
Silver Spring, Maryland
Notes by Erin Essenmacher

Silverdocs kicked off its 10th annual film festival Monday night with a special screening of Ramona Diaz’s “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey.”
As festival director Skye Sitney said when introducing the film, it’s one of those stories that “if it were a [...]

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Delta Boys – World Premiere
Q&A with director Andrew Berends
Stranger Than Fiction at IFC Center
May 29, 2012
New York, NY
Notes by Brian Geldin

In 2008 while making his documentary Delta Boys, filmmaker Andrew Berends (The Blood of My Brother, When Adnan Comes Home) was arrested and falsely accused of espionage at the bustling Nembe waterside in Port Harcourt, [...]

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A Day of Docs at the Montclair Film Festival
First Position, Unraveled & Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
Notes from the Discussions by Brian Geldin

Montclair, New Jersey, is a town in which I fondly spent some time working for a public relations firm a few years back. On Saturday, I returned to the happy hamlet to [...]

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Hard to believe 2011 is almost over already. It’s been another great year of notes from film panels and filmmaker Q&As, but I have to give most of the credit to my contributing notetakers Erin Scherer, Liz Nord, Erin Essenmacher, and Rebecca Banach, all of whom have an incredible knack for transforming source discussion into compelling summations and analysis. We also had the great privilege to be chosen by The Christian Science Monitor as a blog partners in its Culture Cafe.

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WIFV DC Presents: Thelma and Louise 20th Anniversary Screening
and
Q and A with Geena Davis
by Erin Essenmacher
This year marks the 20th birthday of some of America’s greatest exports: The World Wide Web.  Pearl Jam. Thelma and Louise.  While I missed Eddie Veder and the guys at Destination Weekend festival in Wisconsin, I was able to [...]

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Notes from The Swell Season Q&A
AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs
Silver Spring, Marlyand
June 20, 2011
Notes by Erin Essenmacher
June 24 Update: Read this also on The Christian Science Monitor’s Culture Cafe.

I know it won’t exactly come as a newsflash, but love stories in the movies don’t always reflect the reality of love stories in real life. Real world [...]

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DIY Days New York
March 5, 2011
Notes by Brian Geldin
DIY Days returned to New York where I attended another full day of discussions and workshops at the New School organized by WorkBook Project founder and Do-it-Yourself filmmaker and guru Lance Weiler. Below are my raw notes I typed on my laptop that I hope can be [...]

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