Silverdocs Photo Highlights

Reverend Billy (performance artist Bill Talen) appears at Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in support of his new film, "What Would Jesus Buy," an irreverent attack on our consumer society.

Director Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense, Silence of the Lambs) appears at Silverdocs to accept his award at the annual Guggenheim Symposium, honoring the legacy of four-time Academy Award-winner and Washington-area filmmaker Charles Guggenheim.

Silverdocs - On the Radio

The folks who produce Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland took a chance on something unusual this year and invited a radio festival to take part in the festivities.
(Gwen Macsai and Johanna Zorn of Third Coast)
The Third Coast International Audio Festival originates in Chicago, and brings together the country's most innovative and talented radio producers to talk shop and listen to each other's work each fall. With inspiration from Chicago producers like Ira Glass, host of This American Life, the festival has thrived and will be presenting its sixth edition in November.

At Silverdocs, festival co-director Johanna Zorn was joined by public radio host and producer Gwen Macsai for a listening session attended by about 50 people. Work from Third Coast's archives was played, including And I Walked, a compelling and unusual look at immigration across the Sonoran desert, and 'Til Death Do Us Part, a multi-layered audio home movie.

The idea was to present radio--with a focus on complex storytelling and craft--in a setting that is usually reserved for watching movies.

The producers of And I Walked, Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler have both gone on to create an impressive body of work in their early careers, helping reinforce Third Coast's reputation as a builder and nurturer of talent.

To this listener, the pleasure of listening to the radio features would have been enhanced by contact with the writers and producers of the work, but the format instead presented a survey of material associated with the festival. The listeners seemed please to hear something so familiar in a new setting, and Third Coast has plans to take the show on the road to film festivals and other venues as it evangelizes for radio art.

Silverdocs - In the Shadow of the Moon

Where were you on July 20, 1969? If you can answer that question, and if you remember the moon landing as a major event in your life, then In the Shadow of the Moon is sure to fill you with chills. Can you complete this sentence: "One small step for a man..." ? For Neal Armstrong, there was no doubt that the moon landing was a giant leap for mankind. This new movie was a major event over the weekend at the Silverdocs festival in Silver Spring, Maryland. Most of the audience members seemed to be of the generation that heard President John Kennedy's exhortation to the country to figure out how to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. NASA made it with only a few months to spare, but the effort is still considered a technological feat without parallel in the modern age.

But what of the men, and they were all men, who set foot on the moon? How did the experience change them? What did they learn, and what can they share with us?

Silverdocs Opening Night

When the press office at Silverdocs, the AFI - Discovery Channel Documentary Festival suggested that we might want to take a look at their list of films specifically connected with seniors or age-related issues, I balked. We would be interested in everything, I imagined, not just the stuff for oldsters.
(filmmaker Jim Brown and Odetta, photo by Lauren Ruane, courtesy AFI)
But after the opening night film, celebrating the life and work of legendary singer/activist Pete Seeger, and several other films that revisited some of the signal moments of the 1960s, I backed off my high horse. Yes, the Festival had something for absolutely everyone, but what it offered to filmgoers of a certain age was a reminder about the important times, places, and faces of our lives.
"Pete Seeger: The Power of Song" is a straightforward biography of an American hero. Seeger never did the easy or the expected thing in a wide-ranging career of sharing music to change the world. From standing up for workers, to the struggle for Civil Rights, to the early realization that environmentalism was as important an issue as human rights, Seeger knew that music had the power to change the world.
The toll was often high, as he was blacklisted from television and major concert appearances during the McCarthy era, and called in to appear before the House Unamerican Activities Committee to answer questions about his political affiliations. But no matter what the threat, Seeger never backed away from a fight.

Silverdocs Film Festival

We're going to be covering Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Channel Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland next week.

We'll hope to talk with some of the filmmakers, and give you early notice of some of the best new documentaries coming to theaters in about a year or so after they make it through the Festival Circuit.

Stay tuned!!