AFI's Silverdocs 2011

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 18 June 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The 9th annual AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival screens June 20 - 26, 2011 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

"AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival is a seven-day internationally recognized event that honors excellence in filmmaking, supports the diverse voices and free expression of independent storytellers and celebrates the power of documentary to improve our understanding of the world."

"This year we received more high-quality submissions than ever before, making it harder than ever to select the films for the 2011 program," said Sky Sitney, Festival Director. "The slate represents the very best the documentary form has to offer, covering a wide range of issues and voices, always representing cinematic excellence."

"Also worthy of note are the number of strong films exploring issues of law and order, a subject that has always figured prominently," Sitney added. "But this year speaks to a more pronounced focus on eroding civil liberties, false imprisonment, entrapment and explorations into some of our nation’s most high-profile legal dramas."

The Festival is screening in five tracks:

• Sterling US Feature Competition
• Sterling World Feature Competition
• Sterling Short Film Competition
• Silver Spectrum
• Spotlight Programs

The Festival also presents a retrospective series of films by Guggenheim honorees Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker and a special "Peacebuilding On Screen" strand organized in collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace.

Another Festival feature is the five day International Documentary Conference, which celebrates the art and business of documentary storytelling and creates a hothouse environment that connects filmmakers, educators, broadcasters, business leaders, distributors, private and public media, and funders from both established and emerging media markets.

The Opening Night Film is The Swell Season, directed by Nick August-Perna, Chris Dapkins and Carlo Mirabella-Davis. Folk-rock musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová launch a two-year world tour with their band, The Swell Season.

"Through stunning black-and-white photography and an abundance of exquisite music, the first-time filmmakers weave together an intimate portrait of a budding romance threatened by life on the road, and a powerful musical bond that can endure any hardship." Bob Boilen, host of NPR’s All Songs Considered, moderates a conversation with the filmmakers after the screening.

The Closing Night film is Revenge of the Electric Car, directed by Chris Paine and narrated by Tim Robbins. A follow-up to Who Killed the Electric Car?, one of the most successful documentaries of the last five years, Paine delves inside Detroit, Tokyo and Silicon Valley to explore why the electric car is making a phoenix-like comeback. Four dynamic entrepreneurs are dedicated to creating a fast, furious and clean electric car that doesn’t require a single drop of foreign oil.

Some of the US films are:

Bob and the Monster
dir. Keirda Bahruth
Bob Forrest first made his name as an outspoken indie-rock hero and popular front man for the band Thelonious Monster. But it is his role as one of the most influential drug counselors in the US today that he would cherish most.

Give up Tomorrow
dir. Michael Collins
In 1997 two sisters vanished without a trace on the island of Cebu in The Philippines. Paco Larra–aga was sentenced to death for their rape and murder despite overwhelming evidence to support his innocence. Spanning more than a decade, the film chronicles the shocking corruption within the Philippine judicial system and one of the most sensational cases in the country’s history.

The Loving Story
dir. Nancy Buirski
Mildred and Richard Loving never imagined that their unassuming love story would be the basis of a watershed anti-miscegenation civil rights case. But in 1967, when this soft-spoken interracial couple are exiled from Virginia for the mere crime of falling in love and getting married, they feel they have no choice but to fight back.

Al Franken: God Spoke
dir. Chris Hegedus, Nick Doob
A cinema vérité pursuit of Al Franken, from his highly publicized feud with Bill O’Reilly over Franken’s best-selling book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them to his tireless verbal campaign against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. The filmmakers were granted access to one of the most effective political satirists of our time.

The Rescuers
dir. Michael King
Rwandan anti-genocide activist Stephanie Nyombayire teams with noted Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert to trace the little-known story of 12 diplomats who put themselves at great risk to help save tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi concentration camps.

Some of the films in the World Competition are:

Bakhmaro (World Premiere)
dir. Salome Jashi (Georgia/Germany)
IThis is a quiet, unhurried film about the persistence of hope in the face not of tragedy, but of irrelevancy. A restaurant where nobody goes and a staff that serves no one in a building in rural Georgia’s Guria region are at the center of this compellingly claustrophobic documentary.

Fire in Babylon
dir. Stevan Riley (UK)
This documentary looks back at the legendary West Indies cricket team that rose to prominence in the 1970s and 80s. Led by the dynamic Clive Lloyd, the team used the game of cricket to battle oppressive forces of prejudice on the playing field through superior athleticism and a bold, insuppressible spirit.

The First Movie
dir. Mark Cousins (Canada/Iraq/Kurdistan/UK)
Director Cousins’ whimsical film explores what transpires after he exposes the children of a small rural village in Iraq to the magic of film. Through their experiences, viewers see a side of Iraq that they are rarely allowed to experience.

El Velador / The Night Watchman
dir. Natalia Almada (Mexico)
The turmoil of Mexico's bloodiest conflict since the Revolution plays out in subtle yet poignant detail as the filmmaker quietly observes the daily routine of Martin, the night watchman and groundskeeper of the cemetery that houses the remains of Mexico's most notorious drug lords.

Karamay
dir. Xu Xin (China)
This film tells the story of a horrific fire that broke out on December 8, 1994, in the Chinese city of Karamay, killing more than 300 people -- mostly schoolchildren, who were participating in a performance for government leaders. Ordered to remain in their seats while the state officials exited first, the children’s stories are heart wrenchingly told by their still-grieving families. This six-hour film will be shown with one 15-minute intermission.

For more information, go to http://silverdocs.com.

Silverdocs Documentary Festival
June 20 - 26, 2011

AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
8633 Colesville Road
Silver Spring, MD,

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