The Film Panel Notetaker

Defamation
Silverdocs 2009June 19, 2009

Defamation Q&A with Yoav Shamir at Silverdocs. Photo by Brian Geldin.

Defamation is Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir’s feature documentary that made its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year. I met Yoav at the Documentary Press Meet & Greet there, and was very intrigued by the premise of his film and [...]

[Read more →]

The Way We Get By
Silverdocs 2009June 19, 2009

Photo by Brian Geldin.
Aaron Gaudet’s The Way We Get By, which has been making its rounds on the festival circuit since it premiered at SXSW in March, made its way to Silverdocs in Silver Spring, Maryland, where The Film Panel Notetaker returned for the third year in a [...]

[Read more →]

2008 saw the birth of the One-on-One Q&A, where I interviewed a number of filmmakers including Lucia Small and Ed Pincus (The Axe in the Attic), Leah Meyerhoff (Unicorns), Paul Krik (Able Danger), Fritz Donnelly (To the Hills 2), Phillip Van (Come Wander With Me), Sue Williams (Young & Restless in China), Daniel Robin (My [...]

[Read more →]

Over the weekend while visiting my family in Maryland, Sujewa Ekanayake and I met up with Erica Ginsberg, Executive Director of Docs in Progress, at the not-for-profit organization’s new “Documentary House” in Silver Spring, Maryland, just a few short blocks away from the AFI Silver Theater, home of Silverdocs. Erica told us about the open [...]

[Read more →]

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival
Herb and DorothySilver Spring, MD
June 21, 2008

(L toR: Megumi Sasaki with Dorothy and Herb Vogel)

Last Saturday afternoon at Silverdocs, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to sit down and watch a more light-spirited documentary given that I had watched several hard-hitting and more serious docs on current [...]

[Read more →]

As you’ve been reading, The Film Panel Notetaker was at Silverdocs last week. Many more notes to come from panel discussions and filmmaker Q&As. In the mean time, here’s the winners of this year’s festival:

THE GARDEN Wins Sterling US Feature Award
Special Jury Mention to TROUBLE THE WATER
THE ENGLISH SURGEON Wins Sterling World Feature Award
Special Jury [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s some news from the 2008 AFI Silverdocs Film Festival. On Friday, a reception was held to announce the 2nd Annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking that will take place in March 2009. (The Film Panel Notetaker attended the very first Cinema Eye Honors this past March.) Friday’s announcement was made by Cinema Eye [...]

[Read more →]

In May, I met Lucia Gajá at the Tribeca Film Festival during a press meet and greet at the filmmaker lounge. She told me about her documentary My Life Inside, about a woman from Mexico named Rosa who was sentenced to what basically equates to life in prison on the counts of homicide and injury [...]

[Read more →]

Along the lines of my One-on-One Q&A with My Life Inside director Lucia Gajá, I saw another film at Silverdocs that dealt with the similar theme of illegal immigration to the U.S. called The Infinite Border, directed by Juan Manuel Sepulveda, who spoke to the audience after the screening of his film.
The Infinite Border
Silverdocs AFI/Discovery [...]

[Read more →]

Prolific filmmaker Spike Lee was honored at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium on June 19th. Clips from Lee’s documentary work were played including 4 Little Girls, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, We Was Robbed and Jim Brown: All American. And a preview of Lee’s upcoming narrative feature, Miracle at St. Anna (In [...]

[Read more →]