Documentary filmmaker Andrew Berends is still being held in Nigeria, along with is translator Samuel George. Get updates here: helpandy.wordpress.com and take action here: helpandy.wordpress.com/contact-your-representatives.

“CPJ calls for the immediate release of Samuel George and Andrew Berends whose only crime is carrying out their work,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “The Nigerian military must stop arresting local and international journalists on spurious allegations, and it should halt its effort to censor reporting of the Niger Delta region.”

CPJ’s board also expressed deep concern. “Nigeria’s democratic government must release Berends and George and allow journalists to freely cover this vital story,” said Christiane Amanpour, a CPJ board member and CNN chief international correspondent.

The Times of Harvey Milk has been one of my favorite documentaries ever since I first saw it in a politics class at Berkeley (it won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1984). Now Gus Van Sant is bringing the story of the first openly gay city official in the United States back to the screens with Sean Penn in the lead role. I’m really thrilled that more people will get to know the story of this remarkable man and this crucial moment in San Franciscan political history and the struggle for gay rights (and understand the outrage over Dan White’s “Twinkie defense”). The trailer is below and it looks really good.

From Thom Powers’ Doc Blog:

I received word from filmmaker James Longley this morning that our friend and colleague Andrew Berends has been detained in Nigeria while working on a film. Berends directed two memorable documentaries in Iraq Blood of My Brothers and When Adnan Comes Home that screened widely on the festival circuit…

…Berends colleagues have issued the following press statement, urging anyone who might have influence in politics or media to shine more light on this case. Contact: helpandyberends@gmail.com

American documentary filmmaker detained in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

NEW YORK, September 2, 2008 - Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detained Sunday August 31st by the Nigerian military along with his translator, Samuel George, and Joe Bussio, the manager of a local bar. Andrew entered Nigeria legally in April 2008 to complete a documentary film.

Andrew was held in custody without food, sleep, or representation, and with limited water for 36 hours. He was questioned by the army, the police, and the State Security Services in Port Harcourt. He was then temporarily released, with an order to return to the SSS office at 9AM Tuesday morning. The State Security Services has confiscated his passport and personal property. Andrew’s translator, Samuel George, remained in custody over night.

The US State Department is aware of the situation, and an attorney has been retained on Andrew’s behalf. We, Andrew’s friends, family, and colleagues, are deeply concerned that he has been held without cause and are calling for his safe treatment and immediate release.

No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson’s devastating documentary about the Bush administration’s catastrophic involvement in Iraq is free to view on YouTube at the moment - helpfully coinciding with the run up to the election. This really is a must-see film and even the more dedicated political pundits among you will find its surgical unravelling of what went wrong very informative.

Calling techynerdygeeky filmmakers! Today is your last chance to vote for your favorite SXSW Interactive panels. There’s some good stuff on there and a lot of it is very relevant to filmmakers. Have a look at all the panels listed under Digital Filmmaking for starters.

But don’t stop there digital citizens! Filmmakers who go to non-filmmaking panels at SXSW always seem to learn the most and get really inspired so have a look at everything on offer and start getting excited about SXSW 2009. It’s only 6 and a half months away after all!

If not, get thy butt to the cinema tout suite. There’s so much good indie fare to enjoy and support at the moment: Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man is playing at Angelika. I haven’t seen it yet but everyone I know who has raves about it - in the meantime let Manohla Dargis convince you.

Tia Lessin’s and Carl Deal’s Trouble the Water is currently playing at IFC Center. This doc has been getting fantastic reviews but in case you need further convincing let’s reel out Dargis again: “one of the best American documentaries in recent memory.”

And finally Patrick Creadon’s I.O.U.S.A. is playing at the Quad and Regal E-Walk Stadium 13. Debt ain’t just a theory to me so I’m interested to see this doc.

Cinemocracy invited short film submissions addressing the question: “what is democracy?” The top ten films were screened last night at an event at the Democratic National Convention. You can watch all the submissions online too. I rather like this one:

Rooftop Films are a good reason to stay in hot, sticky NYC during the Summer months. They curate some incredible film programs (both shorts and features), coupled with great music and beautiful outdoor locations. They are also developing grant programs to help the independent film community that they are part of. Their latest grant is an Equipment Grant provided through a partnership with Eastern Effects. Filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung has been awarded a two-ton lighting and grip package for 30 days to be used on his next film Lucky Life. You can see his critically-acclaimed debut feature, Munyurangabo, at The Old American Can Factory on Saturday. Congrats to all involved!

Still from Lee Isaac Chung’s Munyrangabo, playing at Rooftop Films this Saturday.

Well, yes of course it does. But this is a sticky, tricky issue that the independent film community is going to have to grapple with as new sources of funding become available and new partnerships are sought. I just finished writing an article for MovieScope Magazine in the UK about the possibilities for outreach around documentaries, focusing on the productive partnerships that Third Sector funding(NGOs, charities, social enterprises, voluntary organizations etc.) can help foster. However a couple of recent Guardian articles (click here and here) have highlighted the ethical issues involved when financial support is given by organizations with a particular agenda. Who has editorial control if a film is funded by Amnesty or Oxfam? The Guardian quotes Chloe Baird-Murray, Amnesty’s director of creative relationships: “If the film-maker wants to tell both sides of the story, they can do that. We support … freedom of expression. Any storytelling is positive for us if it shines a light on what is happening in the world. We get involved to tell our side of the story correctly. Documentaries can be overwhelming if they do not contain a solution to the problems they highlight. NGOs can give that. Al Gore’s film ended with an example of what people can do. People are ripe for that kind of activism.”

The Good Pitch at BRITDOC opened many people’s eyes to the possibilities of Third Sector and commercial funding (see also the work that the Channel 4 Documentary Film Foundation did in bringing the non-profit world together with filmmakers last year at The Media Conference). Just take a look at the list of observers - many will not be folk you would consider “the usual suspects” when it comes to documentary funding:

Fledgling Fund
IMPACT PARTNERS
ITVS
C4BDFF
Sundance Institute
AOL True Stories
Participant
CBA-Dfid
Christian Aid
Oxfam
Avaaz
Amnesty
NCVO
RED
Gucci Fund
The Sunday Telegraph
Hartley Film Foundation
One World Broadcasting Trust
Vice Magazine
JRRT
Gulbenkian Foundation
Channel 4 (Corporate Affairs)
No2ID
Oak Foundation
Ecostorm
Greenpeace UK
British Beekeepers Association
Camfed
MySpace
World Development Movement

There is definitely a need for funding outside of television/government in the UK but filmmakers will have to be alert as they navigate this new landscape. There is a longer tradition of this kind of funding in the US (much of it necessitated by the profound lack of government/public service funding here) but the recent Nike/Beautiful Losers deal on this side of the pond has led to much debate about the ethics and politics of big corporations giving support to independent films. As Spout’s Karina Longworth put it: “Beyond the knee-jerk “corporate=bad” response, what should we think about indie documentaries looking to multinational giants for the kind of support that studios are no longer willing to give?”

Transparency is clearly key in all these instances. I’m inclined to agree with the Frontline Club’s Vaughan Smith who says: “I can’t think of subjective journalism that I have a problem with, if it is marked as subjective and clear. Most journalism is already subjective, even if it is labelled as objective. I am suspicious of all organisations, including news organisations. There always needs to be proper controls to protect editorial integrity.”

Thank you to Mark Rabinowitz/Docsider for the heads up about the Guardian articles.

The team behind Black Gold at The Media Conference in 2007

Scott Macaulay had some interesting things to say about how the way that we watch stuff affects our impression of it in the latest Filmmaker newsletter. He writes about a comment left in response to Noah Harlan’s post about new business models:

Rather than debate business models, this poster said, why don’t filmmakers just focus on making a good picture? He (or, perhaps another anonymous poster) wrote, “I don’t see distribution as the thorn in indie’s side. I see quality as its biggest shortcoming. Seriously. Where are the filmmakers with the ambition to makes sex, lies & videotape or She’s Gotta Have It or Reservoir Dogs or Clerks or Gas Food & Lodging or Blood Simple or Stranger Than Paradise or Pi or whatever else?
 Those movies weren’t just made for nothing (though the budgets and name actors varied), they were GREAT MOVIES made by directors who really had personality and style.”
My response was that if the above films came out today, half wouldn’t get theatrical distribution and of the ones that did, half of those would be IFC releases. And I also think that bringing the conversation down to a basic question of “good films versus bad films” is too simplistic. In fact, I think the one of the biggest challenges for the independent scene right now is to come up with new notions of “what’s good” that we can all agree on and share among ourselves. I think there’s a relationship between viewing platform and one’s impression of a film. Buying a ticket and seeing something in a theater places you in one kind of critical mindset while clicking on a website and sitting through three bumper ads while watching a streamed film places you in another. Is “what’s good” when discovered through one experience the same “what’s good” that’s discovered in another? And does the price leveling effect of the Internet, Chris Anderson’s dictum that everything wants to be free, apply to quality as well? Will the dog on the skateboard – or the Burger King employee in the sink – always trump the well-crafted narrative? Lots of people – everyone from Josh Whedon to struggling indies who are dicing up their unsold features into five-minute webisodes – are trying to figure this out.

I think that it is absolutely true that context changes our viewing experience in very important ways. If you are watching something at home or in the office (especially if you are watching it on your computer with other applications open) you will often be in a state of continuous partial attention. Kathy Sierra’s Twitter Curve gives us some idea of the contemporary assault on our attention:

I think one of the wonderful things about going to a movie theater is that it serves to remove us from the world of cell phones, IM and Twitter for a couple of hours - in theory at least (and hardly ever in press screenings!). All we need to do when we go to the cinema is sit in a dark room and watch the flickering screen - like an updated version of sitting around the campfire and listening to stories - and this experience fulfills a primordial need in us. Nicholas Carr’s recent Atlantic article Is Google Making Us Stupid? made me think about the parallels between deep reading and deep cinema experiences:

The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture.

I’m not claiming that watching a movie will do what reading War and Peace does to our brains but there is something thoughtful and contemplative about the space of the cinema (although perhaps not The Dark Knight at 7pm on a Friday in Union Square!) that you simply cannot get when you’re at home surrounded by technology and other distractions.

I’m not a luddite. In fact, the older I get the more I love to delve into the possibilities of technology. I even have aspirations of geekdom. But I am becoming more and more aware of how much the space and context of a viewing experience affects my feelings about the film I am watching. This was one of the many things I really appreciated about the Flaherty Seminar that I attended back in June. It was simply a huge pleasure and privilege to watch films in such a highly-curated atmosphere, where we were introduced to the bodies of work of directors and given time to talk to the filmmakers and to debate and think about what we were watching. I feel a connection to all the films I saw at Flaherty as a result, even the films that I didn’t much like and I have a much deeper appreciation for filmmakers like Pedro Costa, Bahman Ghobadi, Oliver Hussain, Syliva Schedelbauer, Alison Kobayashi and Ursula Biemann, many of whom I wouldn’t have known about if it hadn’t been for Flaherty and the excellent curation of Chi-hui Yang.

So what is my argument here? I guess it is just to say that I absolutely agree that the way we live digitally now is opening up all sorts of exciting possibilities - and it is a given that new distribution models will have to be figured out because the technology is going to continue to change, and us along with it. But the medium is still the message and I still long to be thoroughly immersed in films. Long, difficult, beautiful films that I pay money to see in a dark room full of strangers. I don’t want everything to be reduced to “content” because this obfuscates the very different experiences we have when we watch work in different contexts. And I don’t think it is anti-progress, or anti-technology, to argue that spaces for deep-viewing, deep-thinking and deep-curation are perhaps more important now than ever.