Black Harvest color, 90 minutes
This, the final film in the The Highlands Trilogy, charts the progress of Joe Leahy in convincing the Ganiga tribespeople to join him in a coffee growing venture.

“…a documentary of extraordinary historical resonance… so rich that watching it feels like taking an inspired crash course in economics and
cultural anthropology.” — Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Festa color, 45 minutes
The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament is a four-day extravaganza that attracts crowds of up to 200,000 to the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. This documentary takes viewers on a journey from the excitement of the modern feast to the very roots of the Catholic celebration on the beautiful Portuguese island of Madeira. A simple story about the power of tradition, the bonds of family, and the contributions of immigrant communities to both their new home and to the land that they left behind.

Keep the Dance Alive color, 75 minutes
A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death.

Love Iranian - American Style color, 63 minutes
Sexual purity, money and a mother’s worries come together in this humorous guided tour of America’s status-obsessed Iranian Jewish community. The film follows Tanaz, the narrator, a hip New Yorker whose Iranian family attempts to marry her off now that she’s reached the age of 25. Tanaz vacillates between soppy American ideas of romance, and a more business-like Iranian approach, and in the end may be unable to execute either.

On the Other Side color, 51 minutes
Each summer, Jamaican migrant farm workers flood the sleepy towns of rural Massachusetts, arriving to work the tobacco harvest—the staple crop of the region and the last to rely solely on manual labor. On the Other Side follows a group of Jamaicans through the highs and lows of the tobacco season, where they must make the best of a life far from home and cope with the mundane and often unpredictable nature of farm work.

Patagonia B/W, 62 minutes
Available for the first time in the US, Alberto de Agostini’s 1928 film Patagonia documents the daily lives of the three native groups who inhabited Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina: the Onas, the Alacalufes, and the Tehuelches. Featuring life amidst a rough terrain of rocky ice-capped mountains, majestic glaciers, and thunderous rapids, the film presents an early record of their hunting methods, healing rituals, clothes and basket making and way of life.

Red White Black & Blue color, 53/86 minutes
Red White Black & Blue is the first feature-length documentary to tell the story of the Battle of Attu, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and the only invasion of the United States since the War of 1812. Walk through one of the bloodiest battles of World War II with the soldiers who lived it.

Screening Room with Bruce Baillie color, 72 minutes
One of the founders of the San Francisco avant-garde film movement, Bruce Baillie appeared on Screening Room in April 1973. He screened excerpts from his films On Sundays, The Gymnasts, To Parsifal, Tung and Castro Street.

Screening Room with Derek Lamb color, 75/75 minutes
Academy Award-winning animator Derek Lamb appeared on Screening Room in June 1973 with over a dozen films and film clips that demonstrated a wide range of animation techniques, including The Rocket, The Great Toy Robbery, I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Housemoving, and The Shepherd. In September 1975, Lamb returned to Screening Room to screen and discuss the films The Last Cartoon Man and The Psychic Parrot.

Screening Room with Hillary Harris color, 75/76 minutes
In March 1973, pioneering filmmaker Hilary Harris visited Screening Room to screen and discuss films such as Longhorns, Highway, and Seawards the Great Ships, as well as footage from a work-in-progress about New York City. Hilary Harris returned to Screening Room in January 1979 to screen and discuss his film, Organism, as well as an excerpt from The Nuer. He also demonstrated his sound mixer and image generator designs.

Screening Room with John & Faith Hubley color, 64 minutes
John and Faith Hubley appeared on Screening Room in April 1973 to discuss and screen their films Eggs, The Hat, Children of the Sun, and Zuckerkandl. They were the first animators to combine animation with jazz, working with such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Oscar Peterson. Later they were commissioned by Sesame Street to create television animation for children.

Vermont Kids color, 58 minutes
In the summer of 1975 John Marshall and Roger Hart documented the outdoor play activities of the children in a small Vermont town. The long takes of children completely absorbed in their own private worlds provide a rare document of the complexity, creativity, and spontaneity of children at play. DER is proud to present on DVD these four films - Playing House, In the Dirt, Treehouse, and Sandbank - cinema verité shorts without narration or text.

CONGRATULATIONS! to DER filmmakers Nina Hasin and Ruth Gumnit.

Nina’s delightul film about a Mexican wood carver, THE DANCING CHICKENS OF VENTURA FABIAN and DON’T FENCE ME IN Ruth’s moving portrait of Major Mary On, a 70 year old freedom fighter for the Karen refuges of Burma, have been selected for screening at California’s Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival on November 10th 2007.

2007 Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Deadline to submit: August 31, 2007, 5:00 pm

Just a friendly reminder that the deadline to submit your work to the 6th Annual Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival is August 31, 2007.

Submissions are now being accepted in 7 categories. Please note that WAFF charges no submission fee. Visit the 2007 WAFF Submission Form page to download the necessary forms (Word and Adobe Acrobat) or to submit your entry directly through our new on-line submission form.

Hope to see you all there!

–
6th Annual Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival
November 15-18, 2007
www.aboriginalfilmfest.org
1-204-774-1375 or 1-204-880-5381

SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2008
The 14th annual Slamdance Film Festival will be held January 17-25, 2008 in Park City, Utah.

Slamdance is currently accepting submissions.  The early deadline is August 27th for all films.  The final deadline is October 9th.
Visit www.slamdance.com/filmmaker for more information or to download an application.

“It was an honor and a privilege to premiere at Slamdance. We signed papers with New Line right after our first screening.”
-Seth Gordon, Director, THE KING OF KONG,  Slamdance 2007 world premiere documentary.

It’s time to register for the Banff Adventure Filmmakers’ Seminar, an intensive 7-day session designed for filmmakers, directors and producers. Take your next adventure film to a new level!

Best Wishes,
Shannon 0′Donoghue
2007 Festivals Director

Producers Lab (Fall)
Early application deadline: August 3, 2007
Late application deadline: August 24, 2007
Click here to download an application. The application is in PDF format and you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open it. Click here for a free download of Adobe Reader.

Every fall, Film Independent presents its Producers Lab. A maximum of ten producers will be chosen to complete this intensive seven-week program, designed to help filmmakers develop skills as creative independent producers. The 2007 Producers Lab is sponsored by Technicolor and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

During the Lab, participants develop a strategy and action plan for bringing their projects to fruition, including a detailed budget, schedule, and business plan. Lab participants have one-on-one meetings with lab advisors — established producers, directors, and other industry professionals - who advise them on both the craft and the business of filmmaking.

The lab meets on Monday and Thursday nights for seven consecutive weeks. Additionally, Producers Lab fellows attend our annual Filmmaker Forum, which kicks off the lab.

Guest speakers and advisors include Craig Emanuel, Amy Israel, Janet Yang, Peggy Rajski, Midge Sanford, Debra Grieco, Nicole Arbusto, Peter Wetherell, and Steve Nemeth. Past Producer Labs have been taught by Effie Brown (In the Cut), Eric d’Arbeloff (Lovely and Amazing), Matthew Greenfield (The Good Girl), Jasmine Kosovic (D.E.B.S.), and Shelby Stone (Lackawanna Blues).

To be eligible, applicants must submit a completed application form, cover letter explaining one’s interest in producing and status of their project, one feature-length script to which they have the rights, a short synopsis of the script (no more than two pages), resumes/bios of other key people attached to the project, and $50 application fee (checks should be made payable to Film Independent).

The Filmmaker Labs are open to all filmmakers, regardless of educational background or previous accomplishment in film. You are not required to be a member of Film Independent in order to apply to the Labs.

For more details, please call Filmmaker Labs Assistant Jennifer Kushner at 310.432.1275.

Sloan Producers Grant

Film Independent has received a two-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to establish a new Sloan Producers Grant as part of the Producers Lab. The first grant recipient, who will be selected this Fall, will receive admission to Film Independent’s 2007 Producers Lab, a $25,000 development grant, and year-round support from Film Independent. Submissions are now being accepted. The deadline is August 28, 2007.

The grant is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which seeks to create and develop new scripts and films about science and technology and to see them into commercial production with national and international distribution. It has screenplay development programs with the Tribeca, Sundance, and Hamptons Film Festivals, as well as other select independent partners and film schools.

To apply for the Sloan Producers Grant, applicant must apply to the 2007 Producers Lab and indicate in their letter that they wish to be considered for the Sloan Grant. To be eligible for the Sloan grant the applicant must be attached as producer to the script with which they are applying and the screenplay should have a scientific, mathematical, and/or technological theme and storyline or have a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, or mathematician.

The Producers Lab application can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here.

Among the projects developed in Film Independent’s Producers Lab are: Scott Prendergast’s debut feature Kabluey, which premiered at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival; Dark Matter, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won the Sloan Prize there; IFC’s American Gun, which was nominated for three 2007 Spirit Awards including best Picture; So Yong Kim’s In Between Days, which is being released theatrically this year; and Jessica Sanders’ award-winning documentary After Innocence, which was short-listed for the Oscars in 2006. Sponsored by Technicolor, participants in the Producers Lab also receive a pass to Film Independent’s third annual Filmmaker Forum “Empower the Filmmaker”, a year’s membership with Film Independent, a pass to the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival, and free Axium Budgeting and Scheduling software.

For questions regarding the Sloan Producers Grant and/or the Lab, please contact Filmmaker Labs Manager Josh Welsh at JWelsh[at]FilmIndependent.org or 310.432.1219.

Three separate grant opportunities will be offered in September—each supporting a new film premiering in April 2008.

WGBH Boston and Twin Cities Public Television announced the next two films in the Take One Step: A PBS Health Campaign series. They are “The Truth about Cancer” (Production of WGBH) and “Depression: The Darkness Within” (w.t.) (Co-production of TPT and WGBH). In addition, WGBH will present “Caring for Your Parents,” produced with special thanks to AARP.

For information about the grants, contact:

“Caring for Your Parents” and “The Truth about Cancer” - Elizabeth Cohen, WGBH, Elizabeth_cohen@wgbh.com
“Depression” - Sallie Bodie, s.bodie@comcast.net or Roselle Kovitz, rosellek@comcast.net

SEEKING EMERGING NEW YORK STATE FILMMAKERS

Submit films and videos: To the monthly Emerging
Filmmakers Series at the Little Theatre, Rochester,
NY. Open to New York State filmmakers, regardless of
age or educational status. Maximum length: 30 minutes.
No fee. No honorarium. No return without SASE, even
locally. Deadline: ongoing. Send VHS or DVD screener,
cover letter (including one-sentence film description,
one-sentence director bio and exact running time) and
SASE for return of your submission to Karen vanMeenen,
Programmer,
Emerging Filmmakers Series, Little Theatre, 240 East
Ave, Rochester, NY 14604.