Stranger Than Fiction Inhales Documentaries

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 22:17

Written by Laura Blum

In the immortal wisdom of comedian Robin Williams, "Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs." Judging by the high that Stranger Than Fiction has been delivering its audiences since the documentary showcase began in 2004, reality is quite the opiate (though perhaps less mutually exclusive than Patch Adams would have it).

Each STF screening — whether a sneak preview, special tribute or retrieved classic — is punched up with commentary from its filmmaker(s). The moveable feast resumes at the nearby Alibi bar, letting participants swap thoughts with a film’s creators, or hit them  up for professional tips, without a couple hundred other pairs of ears intercepting.

Programmed by Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen and hosted by New York’s IFC Center, Stranger Than Fiction opened its 12th season on January 12, 2010, with a preview of Vikram Jayanti’s Snowblind, about a blind dogsled racer in Alaska.

Upcoming titles are The September Issue, which deconstructs Vogue and its editor, Anna Wintour; The Cove, Louie Psihoyos's baring of Japan's dolphin racket; and Dan Klores’s sports-rivalry epic, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks. Other entries in the series, which convenes every Tuesday night through March 16, are listed below and at http://STFdocs.comorifccenter.com.

On offer last night was Weijun Chen’s kitchen and class portrait, Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World, followed by a Q&A with editor Jean Tsien. It played to a sold-out crowd of mostly filmmakers, including such industry grandees as Barbara Kopple and Michel Negroponte.

"We turned away 10 pretty unhappy people in the wait line," faux-lamented Powers.

As vying entertainment platforms hack away at theatrical box office, interactive, personality-driven forums like STF assume an increasingly prized place in the cinema cosmogeny. Attendance for the hosted documentary series has grown incrementally with each season, making it a top performer for the IFC Center and fueling the amoeba-like division from two annual editions to spring, fall and winter trimesters.

"I could see these movies on Netflix, but the reason I come is because the filmmakers are here," said Bill Gallagher, associate producer of Marshall Curry’s forthcoming Earth Liberation Front exposé, If A Tree Falls.

Fellow STF regular Anne Checler is also drawn to the industry fold and its networking possibilities. "As an editor, I sometimes feel isolated, and here you really get that sense of community that I was missing."

To promote STF as a place to "meet accomplished people" in the New York scatter, "Passholder" bios are posted on the festival website, explained artistic director Powers, who also programs the documentary section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Beyond providing the glue for current encounters, STF celebrates the "continuity of documentary filmmaking," per Powers. On January 19, cinema verité legend Albert Maysles joined Powers in retro-examining Running Fence, his 32-year-old portrait of Christo and the recently deceased Jeanne-Claude’s vast fabric fence along 24 miles of California soil.

On February 2, Sherman’s March director Ross McElwee will show two of his rarely-seen short works, Charleen and Backyard; and the February 9 session features Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim’s 2001 study in Silicon Alley hubris, Startup.com.

For the spring lineup, Powers is keeping tabs on current Sundance favorites. Though on a far more modest scale, the ongoing West Village series has begun to serve as a distribution platform not unlike a film festival.

"We are one of many incubators trying to find ways to bring documentary films to larger audiences," said Powers. A key impetus behind STF’s launch was to provide filmmakers with a venue to show their work to decision makers — without having to rent screening rooms — after failing to secure distribution on the festival circuit, he explained. Rather than pay to showcase their creations, filmmakers receive a $250 honorarium per STF screening.

Several of the series’ selections have gone on to commercial runs at its host multiplex. "The IFC Center has used our series as a barometer of how a film might perform," said Powers, citing Erik Gandini’s Videocracy as an example. Having sold out at STF, the documentary about Italian celebrity worship is now slated for a week’s run at the IFC Center in February. 

Still Bill is another title whose STF sellout swayed IFC Center programmers. Music fans have the series to thank for the currently extended showing of Damani Baker and Alex Vlack’s filmed biography of soul great Bill Withers.

As Powers put it, "The series is sometimes used as a buzz builder." STF screenings accommodate either 114 or 210 voluble cinema mavens, depending on the IFC Center plex.

In today’s glutted content marketplace, credible arbiters of taste command an increasingly important role, both viewers and curators alike, Powers opined. "Because you can’t stay on top of all the work that’s out there now, you look to other people to help you decide."

That glory once fell to film critics, he pointed out. "Film critics have been reduced to giving thumbs up or down or four stars," he said. "They haven't been supported by their publications."

What's more, film critics don’t run theaters. Said Powers, "If I see something at a festival, I can bring it straight to an audience."

With today's competition for public screens to exhibit documentaries, some might say that gratifying scenario is stranger than fiction.
 

Stranger Than Fiction: Spring 2009 Season
 
January 5: Pre-Season Special – Which Way Home (2009, Q&A w/ dir. Rebecca Cammisa)
January 11: Pre-Season Special - Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008, Q&A w/ dir. Matt Tyrnauer & editor Bob Eisenhardt)
January 12: Opening Night - Snowblind (2009, Q&A w/ dir. Vikram Jayanti)
January 19: Running Fence (1978, Q&A w/ co-dir. Albert Maysles)
January 26: The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World (2008, Q&A w/Jean Tsien)
February 2: A Night with Ross McElwee (Q&A w/ dir. Ross McElwee)
February 9: Startup.com (2001, Q&A w/ co-dir. Chris Hegedus)
February 16: The Art of the Steal (2009, Q&A w/ dir. Don Argott)
February 23: Winning Time: Reggie Miller VS. The New York Knicks (2010, Q&A w/ dir. Dan Klores)
March 2: A Healthy Baby Girl (1997, Q&A w/ dir. Judith Helfand)
March 9: Best of Orphans Film Symposium (Q&A w/ curator Dan Streible)
March 16: Closing night - David Holzman’s Diary (1967, Q&A w/ L.M. Kit Carson aka David Holzman)
 

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