For immediate release:
GIMME SOME TRUTH:
THE WINNIPEG DOCUMENTARY PROJECT
November 6-9, 2008 - Winnipeg, Canada
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GIMME SOME TRUTH: THE WINNIPEG DOCUMENTARY PROJECT is an intensive four-day conference scheduled for November 6-9, 2008 at the Winnipeg Film Group’s Cinematheque that will inspire discussion on a variety of topics - technical, ethical and cultural - related specifically to the production of documentary film.
The conference was initiated by Cinematheque assistant Kier-La Janisse, who succeeded in bring the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences on board as the primary sponsor, and facilitated by a partnership between the Winnipeg Film Group and DOC Winnipeg, a chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada, The National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC) and the National Film Board of Canada.
Master classes (lectures by master level filmmakers) and panels (keynote discussions on broader thematic topics) will explore current challenges as well as provide strategic market intelligence and innovative professional development. Technical workshops will provide hands-on training in lighting, sound and editing techniques for documentary filmmaking. Screenings will honour those whose films have had a lingering impact on the world's cinematic landscape.
In a time when the affordability of digital media has made a filmmaker of everyone, and many young filmmakers turn to cheap means of honing their skills, it is important to recognize the immense artistic heritage of documentary film and learn from the great stalwarts of the genre as to what separates a passable documentary from a great, lasting work of art.
Award-winning filmmakers confirmed at this date include Steve James (Hoop Dreams), Nettie Wild (Fix: The Story of an Addicted City) and Allan King (Warrendale), with more to be announced shortly. In addition, acclaimed directors Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens) and Peter Watkins (The War Game) will provide exclusive video introductions to precede rare screenings of their work. See below for biographies of the confirmed participating filmmakers.
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Media passes will be available, and interviews with participating guests will be facilitated as their schedules allow.
For further information, contact Kier-La Janisse at kier-la@winnipegfilmgroup.com / 204-925-3454.
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GUEST BIOS:
Steve James is the award-winning director, producer, and co-editor of Hoop Dreams, which won every major critics award as well as a Peabody and Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 1995. The film earned James the Directors Guild of America Award and the MTV Movie Award’s “Best New Filmmaker.” James’ next documentary, Stevie, won major festival awards at Sundance, Amsterdam, Yamagata and Philadelphia, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. The acclaimed feature was released theatrically and landed on a dozen “Top Ten Films of the Year” lists for 2003. He will be presenting the Winnipeg Premiere of his new film At the Death House Door (2008) at the conference.
Allan King was born in Vancouver. He was a pioneer of the cinéma-vérité documentary style, developing the genre of "actuality dramas" with such widely acclaimed films as the long-banned-from-television Warrendale (1968), A Married Couple (1970), Who's In Charge? (1983), The Dragon's Egg (1999) and Dying at Grace (2004). He has also directed many films for television and dramatic features including Who Has Seen the Wind (1977) and Termini Station (1989). Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and company (2005) is his most recent film. Mr. King was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2002, and we are extremely proud to present Warrendale at the conference with Mr. King in attendance.
Nettie Wild is as much an advocate as an activist; the quixotic figure behind a series of profound and controversial political documentaries that have earned acclaim around the world. Coming from a background in journalism and theatre, Wild eschews objectivity and takes a very definite ideological and political stance in her films. She made her feature debut with A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution (1988), which won a jury award and the People’s Choice Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, earned a Genie nomination for Best Feature Documentary and received several other international awards, and all of her subsequent films - including Blockade (1993), A Place Called Chiapas (1998), and Fix: The Story of an Addicted City (2002) - have swept up awards and courted controversy in equal measure.
Peter Watkins first gained notoriety for short subjects The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (1959) and The Forgotten Faces (1961). But it was with Culloden (1964), commissioned by the BBC, that he established his innovative style combining drama played out by non-actors with newsreel techniques – a style now known as “mockumentary”. The scope and formal innovation of Culloden drew immediate critical acclaim for the previously unknown director, and the BBC commissioned him for another ambitious production, the nuclear-war docudrama The War Game (1965); but when the finished film turned out to be graphically horrifying as well as an open rebuke to government policy, the BBC were pressured into banning it from broadcast by the government. The film was subsequently released to cinemas and won the 1966 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, eventually being screened on the BBC in the 1980s. His reputation as a political provocateur was amplified by Punishment Park (1970), a story of violent political conflict in the United States that coincided with the Kent State Massacre. Since then he has made over a dozen controversial and incendiary films – including Privilege (1967), The Trap (1975), The Freethinker (1994) and La Commune (2000) that continue to be plagued by distribution problems, leaving the bulk of his work unseen in North America. This conference’s screening of Punishment Park will be one of only two screenings the film has ever received in Canada, and we are grateful to have an exclusive video lecture from Peter Watkins to precede it.
Albert Maysles and his brother David (1932-1987) are recognized as pioneers of "direct cinema," the distinctly American version of French "cinema verité." Albert taught Psychology at Boston University for three years before making the transition from Psychology to film in the summer of 1955 by taking a 16mm camera to Russia to film patients at several mental hospitals. The result, Psychiatry in Russia, was Albert’s first foray into filmmaking. He was made a Guggenheim Fellow in 1965, and his next three films became cult classics: Salesman (1968) won an award from the National Society of Film Critics and is regarded as the classic American documentary; Gimme Shelter (1970) is the dazzling portrait of the Rolling Stones on their American tour which culminated in a killing at the notorious concert at Altamont; Grey Gardens (1976) captures on film the haunting relationship of a mother and daughter living secluded in a decaying East Hampton mansion. Since his brother’s death in 1987, Albert Maysles has continued to make documentary films, and in 2005 he founded the Maysles Institute, a non-profit organization that provides training and apprenticeships to underprivileged individuals.
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Host organization the Winnipeg Film Group is a unique film organization like no other in Canada it is a 34 year-old film co-op that offers subsidized production/post production equipment and venue rentals to independent filmmakers; it is a funding and mentorship organization that provides independent filmmakers with financial and technical / logistical assistance; it is a training organization that provides workshops in creative and technical aspects in all fields of filmmaking; it is a distribution centre that disseminates the work of independent filmmakers from the region, internationally; and it operates Winnipeg's only art-house film theatre, our Cinematheque. The Winnipeg Film Groups support works both in film and digital media.
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