The Film Panel Notetaker

Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy)
Q&A with Director, Stephanie Wang-Breal
Silverdocs
June 22, 2010
By Erin Essenmacher
Stephanie Wang-Breal’s Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy) provides incredible emotional access into the complex world of transracial, international adoption.   The film is equal parts heartwarming, laugh-out-loud funny, uncomfortable and at times, viscerally upsetting (the woman next to [...]

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Funding/Self-Distribution Case Study: The Way We Get By
Silverdocs
June 23, 2010
By Erin Essenmacher
I was totally mesmerized by Aron Gaudet’s and Gita Pullapilly’s The Way We Get By when I first saw the film at last year’s International Film Festival Boston.  I was intrigued (but not totally surprised) when I heard they had developed a DIY distribution [...]

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Violet Tendencies
Q&A with director Casper Andreas and Cast & Crew at Newfest
New York, NY
June 12, 2010
By Brian Geldin

Violet Tendencies, director Casper Andreas’ latest film, premiered last night during the Closing Night of NewFest: The New York LGBT Film Festival. The film stars the very charming and funny Mindy Cohn (perhaps best known for her role [...]

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10th Annual Media That Matters Festival
June 2, 2010
New York, NY
By Brian Geldin
A screening of the tenth annual Media That Matters collection took place June 2 at the SVA Theater in New York (and simultaneously in Minneapolis). 12 incredible thought-provoking, mostly social issue documentaries, each 12 minutes or less, were screened. Themes included health insurance, [...]

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Tribeca Film Festival
Joan Rivers – A Piece of Work
April 26, 2010
By Brian Geldin
Joan Rivers – A Piece of Work is a vérité portrait of the tireless, ballsy and hilarious veteran of show business, Joan Rivers, who has been through many highs and lows, and will do almost anything for a laugh, no matter what the obstacle. A [...]

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Posted by Liz Nord / Twitter @lizfilm
American Mystic Q & A with Director Alex Mar
Tribeca Film Festival
New York, NY
April 22, 2010
Filmmaker Alex Mar and I worked together in the MTV Newsroom until she left to direct her first documentary. Lo and behold, less than two years later, I got to attend her film’s world premiere [...]

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Posted by Liz Nord / Twitter @lizfilm
Tanner Hall Q & A
GenArt Film Festival
New York, NY
April 13, 2010
Of all seven start-studded Gen Art Film Festival nights, I was happy to be covering this one, as Gen Art’s Jeff Abramson called it an evening “celebrating women in film.” Being a woman-in-film myself, I’m always happy to support [...]

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Seven Shorts Screening & Filmmaker Talkback
GenArt Film Festival
New York, NY
April 10, 2010
Of the seven short films shown this afternoon at the GenArt Film Festival, my favorite was The Poodle Trainer (paired last night with the feature Teenage Paparazzo), not only because it was the only short documentary, and not only because the poodles were incredibly [...]

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Teenage Paparazzo
GenArt Film Festival
Q&A with Director Adrian Grenier
New York, NY
April 10, 2010
When does snapping photos of celebrities go too far? Don’t celebrities deserve their privacy? Does being a celebrity or public figure give the paparazzi the right to do what they do? Don’t celebrities need the paparazzi to make their careers? These and other issues [...]

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“The Cove”
Q&A with Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens
Stranger Than Fiction
February 8, 2010 (Notes by Brian Geldin)
IFC Center
New York, NY

(L to R: Thom Powers, Louie Psihoyas & Fisher Stevens. Photo by Brian Geldin)
Stranger Than Fiction continued its string of screenings this season of 2010 Academy-Award nominated documentaries Monday night with “The Cove.” (STF recently screened Oscar [...]

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