Center for Independent Documentary

Join us at this months Filmmakers workshop on January 17 for a rough cut screening of FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES. VISIT THE FILMMAKERS WORKSHOP BLOG FOR COMPLETE INFORMATION.

Today, film criticism is everywhere, whether composed for newspapers, debated on TV, written up for magazines, typed up for blogs and websites. Surprisingly, despite its ubiquity, film criticism has been unexplored as a subject for film. Until now. For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (working title) is the first documentary to dramatize the rich, sociologically fascinating history of American film criticism.

Produced by Amy Geller (Co-producer on Murder at Harvard, and The War that Made America) written and directed by veteran film critic Gerald Peary, For the Love of Movies offers a unique insider's view of the film critics' profession with commentary from America's best-regarded reviewers, including Roger Ebert (Ebert & Roeper), A.O. Scott (The New York Times), Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Andrew Sarris (The New York Observer), Kenneth Turan (The Los Angeles Times), Elvis Mitchell (National Public Radio) and the late Pauline Kael (The New Yorker).

This film has been funded in part by the LEF Foundation and produced in association with the Filmmaker-In-Residence Lab, WGBH Boston.

Writer/Director: Gerald Peary Producer: Amy Geller Editors: Aleksander Lekic Sabrina Zanella-Foresi

Read an interview with Gerald Peary on NEFilm.com

It’s the end of a busy year—and we hope you’ll take a moment to look back with us as we do a brief year in review—and have a sneak peek at the year ahead. During 2006, CID entered its 25th anniversary year…and we plan to celebrate that accomplishment in the coming months as we head into 2007. Keep checking back for news.

Two projects produced in association with CID will be broadcast in January on the PBS series Independent Lens- TWISTED (Laurel Chiten, producer) and A FISH STORY (Tim Gallagher & Courtney Hayes, producers). Judith Helfand and Dan Golds’ new documentary EVERYTHING’S COOL (formerly titled “Melting Planet”), will have its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Congratulations to everyone at Toxic Comedy Pictures! If you attended the filmmakers workshop in July, you had a chance to help filmmakers Anita Clearfield, Shoshanna Hoose and Geoffrey Leighton as they worked through the editing of their film THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW (the working title was “Lethal Means”) – you can see how they utilized your comments by attending the films premiere on Sunday January 7, 2007 in Maine.

If you missed the June national public television broadcasts of WOODY GUTHRIE: AIN’T GOT NO HOME (Peter Frumkin , producer) and SMITTEN (Nancy Kelly, producer) you can check their web sites to see when they might be broadcast again in your area or released on dvd.

We are currently providing fiscal and advisory services for 66 active documentary projects which have received some (or all they need) funding, and an additional 9 projects that are currently in development. Of the projects with funding, 31 are with producers in Massachusetts, an additional 7 from Rhode Island, Vermont and Maine. The remainder are from other parts of the country, with most in New York or California. We are working with our producers to get all of the projects listed up on the new Alliance for Independent Motion Media (AIMM) web site. Please visit the filmmography section of the AIMM web site and set the search for CID films to review the listings to date. If you’d like to help make these films come to a screen near to you—please give generously through our online donation button in the sidebar.

FILMMAKERS WORKSHOP
The monthly workshops continue to attract between 40-70 attendees each month (depending on the topic of the workshop). Here’s a round-up of the past six months: In May 06 we hosted students from area film programs and their professors to share their work and to meet industry professionals. In June, John Kusiak, the composer for Errol Morris and other filmmakers offered tips on how to collaborate with a composer to create a great film score for films. In July we screened a rough cut of “There Ought to be a Law” (which will have its premiere in Maine in January 07). In October we featured a lighting workshop to help filmmakers make the most from a small lighting kit with special help from Rule Broadcast Systems. In November, blogging gurus Steve Garfield and Ravi Jain offered instruction on how to become a blogger and utilize video on the web. In January 07, we will kickoff the new year with a rough cut screening of Amy Geller & Gerald Peary’s FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES. Please join us at one of our upcoming workshops in 07—and if you’ve got an idea for a workshop you’d like to see happen—PLEASE leave a comment below or send us an email. We very much welcome your ideas! These workshops are made possible through the generosity of many people. We would especially like to thank Julie Mallozzi, Tracy Heather Strain and Megan Gelstein for the many hours that they have contributed to organizing the workshops. The Bernard Toale Gallery has provided us with a beautiful space in which to meet (and has helped us with lugging more chairs up and down stairs than we can count! Thank you!) Shannon Bradley designed our terrific logo-thank you! Rule Broadcast has provided technical support as well as the expertise of their staff. Rule rules! Thank you, John! A very important portion of each workshop is the time that’s spent networking and relaxing together over refreshments. We greatly appreciate the contribution of Harpoon Brewery each month—our favorite beer! (Root beer too!)These workshops just couldn't happen at all without the support of the LEF Foundation.

CID/KOPKIND FILMMAKERS CAMP
CID collaborated with Kopkind this past August to bring 11 filmmakers up to Vermont for a week of “radical relaxation”. The filmmakers who attended came from all around the country (though several were from Massachusetts) and shared a highly memorable week of intense discussion, film viewing, sharing , swimming, paper making , hiking and eating great food. We roughly followed the format that Kopkind has based their prior camp sessions for writers on…though we changed it somewhat to allow our morning sessions of each day to cover some specific information (such as having guest speakers from archival footage houses, a representative from First Run Features to speak about distribution and Lisa Simmons to talk about issues around diversity). We were thrilled with our first attempt at this workshop—and are beginning planning for summer camp 07. Check out the photos from our week at camp--and watch this blog for an upcoming post on that week in review. Watch for details on how to join us there next summer!

ADVOCACY
In addition to the work that we do with the producers on their projects, CID has been an active founding partner in two important new Massachusetts organizations- the Alliance for Independent Motion Media (AIMM) and the Massaachusetts Production Coaltion (MPC). AIMM is a network of several Boston area non-profits who are all committed to making it easier for independent producers to make their work and get it seen. The MPC is a membership organization of producers, businesses, non-profits—just about everyone-who work in the Massachusetts motion media industry. These two organizations have been working closely together to make Massachusetts a great place to make media…please take a few moments to read the year end report on the AIMM blog for a complete review of what has been done to date, what the plans are for the coming year, and how you can get involved.

Finally, we want to thank all of the Center for Independent Documentary board of trustees for their continued commitment: Tony Logalbo, Marion Burke, Vince Canzoneri, Martin Alpert and Leslie Hitch. Your dedication to CID over many years has been awesome! We would also very much like to thank our funders for their support. The Massaachusetts Cultural Council and the LEF Foundation continue to provide CID with important funding critical to our day to day operations. We are very grateful.

We wish you all our very best wishes for the holidays and a very Happy New Year.
Susi Walsh & Fred Simon