DocuWeeks Doc Showcases: True Grit

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2011 03:24

Written by Laura Blum

This year, more than ever, August is not a good time for shrinks to go on vacation. The world economy has tanked, Somalia is starving, Heaven help the Japanese, Norway must start locking its doors and now even stiff-upper-lipped England has descended into mayhem.

Into the abyss rushes the IDA-sponsored 15th Annual DocuWeeks Theatrical Documentary Showcase (August 12 to September 1, 2011) with its added testimonies of global ruin. Who will be in New York to take care of audiences as they learn about a military cover-up of water contamination, an assassinated Russian journalist and other tales of woe?

Luckily, not all is gloom and doom among the 24 films to strobe the IFC Center's (323 Avenue of the Americas) screens.

DocuWeeks’ organizers at the International Documentary Association (IDA) have made sure to include a few mood leaveners in the mix. There’s Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, for example, about the man behind the famous muppet. Dying To Do Letterman promises some laughs, though its saga of a stand-up comedian who faces a terminal illness must ultimately fall in the bittersweet bin.

Whether uppers or downers, the films will leave DocuWeeks fit to be considered for The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Oscar Awards.

The same lineup will run in Los Angeles August 19 – September 8, 2011, at the Laemmle Sunset 5.

Showcase curators have scoured such festivals as Berlin, Sundance, Tribeca, Hotdocs, Sheffield and Los Angeles for what IDA Executive Director Michael Lumpkin calls “some of today’s most talked about docs.”

Among the 17 feature films appearing in this year’s Showcase are:

• Better This World
• A Bitter Taste of Freedom
• The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan
• The Carrier
• Darwin
• Hell and Back Again
• The Mexican Suitcase
• Miss Representation
• Phnom Penh Lullaby
• The Power of Two
• Semper Fi; Always Faithful
• S.O.S. / State of Security
• The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Mas Pequeno)
• To Be Heard

DocuWeeks will also show seven documentary short films:

• The Barber of Birmingham
• The Home Front
• Library of Dust
• Maya Deren’s Sink
• Poetry of Resilience
• Sand
• Sun City Picture House

Oscar winners from past DocuWeeks runs include:

• Smile Pinki (2008)
• Taxi To The Dark Side (2007)
• The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006)

In the nominated category, there’s Wasteland (2010), Sun Come Up (2010) Killing in the Name (2010), Rabbit à la Berlin (2009), among others.

For additional information visit: www.documentary.org/docuweeks2011

DocuWeeks Theatrical Documentary Showcases

New York
August 12 to September 1, 2011
IFC Center
323 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10014
www.ifccenter.com

Los Angeles
August 19 – September 8, 2011
Laemmle Sunset 5
8000 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, 90046
310-478-3836
www.laemmle.com

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