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Doc Memo: A Powerhouse Documentary Roundtable, The Golden Age of Documentaries

November 14, 2016 | POV’s daily list of essential reading for the documentary and independent filmmaking community.

Documentary Roundtable: ‘O.J.,’ ‘Weiner’ Filmmakers and 4 More on Dealing With Death Onscreen and When to Turn the Camera Off
THR gathered six non-fiction filmmakers — Ezra Edelman (O.J.: Made in America), Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno, Lo and Behold), Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson), Josh Kriegman (Weiner), Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) and Roger Ross Williams (Life, Animated) — for a discussion about when to intercede in a scene, how much brutality to reveal on screen and why the diversity issue is “worse” in the doc world.
Read more | Hollywood Reporter »

From ‘Weiner’ to ‘Making A Murderer’: This Is the Golden Age of Documentaries
As long as there have been films, a few have had the temerity to be about stuff that actually happened in the real world. Yet across the course of the last century, documentaries were relegated to the bottom of the industry’s cultural hierarchy, coming to be seen as something less than cinema – glorified television perhaps, or the hallmark of a slow release week.
Read more | The Guardian »

A&E’s the Killing Season Is Only a so-so True Crime Series, but It’s a Powerful Social Documentary
If you set out to find a serial killer based primarily on the speculation of an amateur internet forum, you might get as far as tracking down a couple of leads, but you probably wouldn’t be able to dedicate your time, money, and energy to following those leads as far as you could go. And you probably wouldn’t get a sweeping eight-part documentary series out of it.
Read more | Vox »

‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Is A Race Documentary That Should Be Essential Viewing For All Americans
You won’t find a documentary over the next few months that’s more important than I Am Not Your Negro. Raoul Peck uses James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript about the civil-rights movement — specifically Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers — to frame America’s racial divide. The results are searing.
Read more | Huffington Post »

Documentary Filmmakers Stand Up to Trump Presidency at DOC NYC Awards Lunch
The documentary community is not backing down from Donald Trump. At the DOC NYC annual Visionaries Tribute lunch in New York Thursday, four honorees from the documentary world received prestigious awards, but rather than bask in the glow of accolades, the winners seized their time in the spotlight to address the urgent need to expose the truth now more than ever as the start of Trump’s presidency draws near.
Read more | IndieWire »

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