February 24, 2017 | POV’s daily list of essential reading for the documentary and independent filmmaking community.

‘O.J.: Made In America’ Director Dedicates Oscar To “Victims Of Police Violence”
Ezra Edelman’s mammoth, 7 1/2-hour O.J.: Made In America capped off a strong awards season by winning the Best Documentary Oscar tonight. And he made sure to say during his short acceptance speech that he hoped his film would draw attention to the issues of police violence and brutality.
Read more | Deadline »

Here Are Your 2017 Oscar Winners
Jimmy Kimmel ushered us through movies’ most important night with much fanfare, an ill-advised viral stunt, and plenty of mean tweets. And as expected, Damien Chazelle’s showbiz musical La La Land swept the 2017 Oscars, winning six statuettes. But the one big shocker of the night came at the very end, when a mix-up led presenter Warren Beatty to accidentally announce La La Land as the night’s Best Picture winner – only to realize midway through their acceptance speech that Moonlight was actually the winner of the award.
Read more | Vulture »

‘White Helmets’ Bags Oscar on Politically Charged Night
A film celebrating the White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group that operates in rebel-held parts of Syria, has scooped an Oscar for best short documentary on a night marked by politics.
Read more | Aljazeera »

A New Documentary Explores The Troubled, Brilliant Life Of Pianist Bill Evans
Bill Evans was a genius: The jazz world, which can be roiled by factions and jealousies, usually agrees on that. He was a composer and pianist with a light, lyrical touch that was once described as what you might hear at the gates of heaven. But like many geniuses, Evans died too young — in 1980, at the age of just 51, after years of heavy drinking, cocaine, and heroin addiction. A new documentary by filmmaker Bruce Spiegel helps capture that genius with interviews of musicians, family members, and archival footage of Bill Evans himself.
Read more | NPR »

Martin Scorsese’s 1990 Short Documentary About Giorgio Armani is Now Streaming Online — Watch
The future of Martin Scorsese was making headlines nonstop last week as Netflix bought his upcoming gangster movie The Irishman, but today sees the filmmaker’s past returning to the spotlight. The Hollywood Reporter’s Pret-a-Reporter vertical has exclusively debuted Scorsese’s 1990 short documentary Made in Milan, which is returning to the small screen 27 years after its debut film thanks to IMG | WME’s Made-2-Measure network. The original documentary ran 20 minutes long, but the new version has been cut down to 10 minutes.
Read more | IndieWire »

Upcoming Festivals and Deadlines

This Week

  • Deadline: Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Feb 27
  • Deadline: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Submissions Feb 28
  • Deadline: Visions Sud Est Fund Feb 28
  • Deadline: Vision Maker Media Public Media Content Fund Mar 1
  • True/False Mar 2 – 5
  • Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Mar 3 – 12
  • Deadline: 2017 IFP Labs (Narrative, Documentary, and Serialized Projects) Mar 3

Next Week

  • True/False Mar 2 – 5
  • Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Mar 3 – 12
  • CAAMFest Mar 9 – 19
  • SXSW Film Festival Mar 10 – 18

Get more documentary film news and features: Subscribe to POV’s documentary blog, like POV on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @povdocs!

Published by

POV Staff
POV (a cinema term for "point of view") is television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 400 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.