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Full List of Sundance Documentary Fund Grant Awardees

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program announced today the 20 film projects awarded financial and creative support from the Sundance Documentary Fund. The full list after the jump.

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DOX OFFICE | "Pray The Devil" Top Doc

[Peter Knegt] Balcony Releasing's "Pray The Devil Back To Hell" had the highest per-theater-average of all documentaries this past weekend. The film, directed by Gini Reticker, grossed a decent $8,227 from its one show at New York's Cinema Village cinema. Chronicling the story of courageous Liberian women, "Hell" expands to the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills and the Landmark E Street in Washington this Friday.

Other top docs included the second weekend of Zeitgeist's "Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed In The Mountains," which grossed $11,977 from 4 screens and brought its cume to $22,101 after 3 weekends, independent release "Call+Response," which grossed $12,246 on 5 screens, totalling $164,248 after 5 weekends, and Oscilloscope's "Dear Zachary," which took in $6,619 from 3 screens in its second weekend.



DOX OFFICE | "Matador," "Zachary" Open In NYC

[Peter Knegt] Two 2008 SXSW Film Festival favorites opened on a single New York screen this past weekend, with one finding moderately good numbers, and another not so much.

Stephen Higgins and Nina Gilden Seavey's "The Matador," released through City Lights Releasing, grossed a decent $6,695 on its one screen at the Angelika Film Center in New York. The doc - a story of a man truing to achieve his place in the world of Spain's greatest bullfighters opens in Tempe, Arizona this Friday, and two California screens the next.

Oscilloscope Pictures' "Dear Zachary," meanwhile, only managed $2,886 from its showing at the Cinema Village in New York. The film, which actually premiered prior to SXSW at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival, is director Kurt Kuenne's tribute to his murdered friend, Dr. Andrew Bagby. The woman who killed Bagby was pregnant with Bagby's son, Zachary, at the time of his murder. It opens in Chicago and Los Angeles this Friday.



DOCS-A-POPPIN' 10.31.08 | "Dear Zachary," "Monks," The Matador" & "The First Basket"

[Mark Rabinowitz] Four docs opened in New York City this week, Kurt Kuenne's "Dear Zachary," Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios' "Monks: "The Transatlantic Feedback," Stephen Higgins and Nina Gilden Seavey's "The Matador" and David Vyorst's "The First Basket."


Of the four docs opening this week ("The First Basket" opened on Wednesday, the 29th) "Dear Zachary" is receiving the most attention, due to both its long festival play before release and of course, its gripping subject matter. The film's getting strong reviews as well, picking up a 73 on Metacritic.com and a whopping 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. In The Village Voice, Martin Tsai writes: "A true-crime story so gripping, devastating, and ultimately unforgettable that it easily trumps any thriller Hollywood has to offer this year."

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Doc Linkage | IDA Awards-All XY; "Chisholm '72" For Next Week's STF

[Mark Rabinowitz] Here, for your reading pleasure, is another lovely collection of letters and manybe the occasional number, as they are put together into an order which may (or may not) make some sense about documentary films and whatnot.

IDA Doc Nods: Whither The Women?
The International Documentary Association announced their annual award nominees earlier this week and while AJ Schnack was applauding them for nominating five noteworthy and known films, others have been wondering where the female doc directors are. While it's true that "Trouble the Water" by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin was not nominated, were there other docs directed or co-directed by women that deserved a nod? Weigh in, won't you?

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DOX OFFICE | "Stranded" Opens, "Religulous" Top 2008 Doc

[Peter Knegt] Gonzalo Arijon's "Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains" was the top doc opener this past weekend. The Zeitgeist Films release, about the members of a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay that survived a plane crash, grossed a mild $3,077 on one screen at the Film Forum in New York City. This is not a particularly promising number as the film expands in coming weeks. It opens in Detroit, Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles on November 7, followed by numerous cities through November and December.

As specialty releases in general have been releasing a very competitive number of narrative films as awards season approaches, doc releases have slowed in comparison. Which suggests that Larry Charles' "Religulous," which recently became the highest grossing doc of 2008, may permanently hold that title. The Bill Maher anti-organized religion film has grossed $10,563,579, making it the ninth highest grossing doc of all-time, and the highest of 2008. Behind it this year, as of Sunday, are "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" ($7,720,487), "Young@Heart" ($3,966,690), "Man on Wire" ($2,730,908), and "Gonzo" ($1,242,996). Not bad considering last year only 3 films ("Sicko," "No End in Sight", "In The Shadow of the Moon") crossed the $1 million mark.



Doc News & Linkage | Cuban Films In Manila; Herzog Honored; Posh Doc?; Esther Goes Off on TONY!

[Mark Rabinowitz] Welcome to the last full week of the 2006-2008 election campaign. Whew! I don't know about you, but I am tired, but not too tired to keep my foot on the pedal and push on through to Tuesday night. But I digress.... I scoured the various doc sites and Google Alerts and picked out a few things I thought you, my faithful readers, might be interested in reading. They involve Werner Herzog, Cuba, Posh Spice and filmmaker Esther B. Robinson ("A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory"). How's that for a cross-section?

Another Career Honor For Werner
Werner Herzog, one of the world's greatest living filmmakers, will receive the International Documentary Association's Career Achievement Award at the annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony on December 5, 2008 at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles and I wish I could attend! Previous recipients have included Sheila Nevins, Michael Apted, Ken Burns, Albert Maysles, Haskell Wexler and Michael Moore and while I'd argue that Werner deserved his before Moore, I won't nit pick too much! I you still haven't seen Werner's "Encounters at the end of the World," please do. It's a beautiful film. On a tengential note, what is it, do you think, that makes people feel comfortable referring to him in print as Wener? Or is it just me?

» Continue reading "Doc News & Linkage | Cuban Films In Manila; Herzog Honored; Posh Doc?; Esther Goes Off on TONY!"


DOCS-A-POPPIN' 10.24.08 | Zidane, Haring, Gay Marriage, Soviets, Israelis & Palestinians and a Plane Crash!

[Mark Rabinowitz] No fewer than six docs opened in New York this week, five of them today and one, "Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains" on Wednesday the 22nd. I'm tempted to lower that to 5 and 4, but the New York Times decided to review Amos Gitai's "News From Home/News From House" even though it's screening as part of a Museum of Modern Art exhibition and not in a "traditional" theatrical release. But really, who am I to argue with the Old Gray Lady?

First on my list, if for no other reason than because I think it's a fantastic film is Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's "Zidane: A Twenty-First Century Portrait" which received a very unfair (IMHO) 53%, on Rotten Tomatoes and hasn't been ranked yet by Metacritic.com.

ZidaneSTILL.jpg

» Continue reading "DOCS-A-POPPIN' 10.24.08 | Zidane, Haring, Gay Marriage, Soviets, Israelis & Palestinians and a Plane Crash!"


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