September 2009

Congrats to Maria Finitzo and the entire Terra Incognita team for another well-deserved award.  The film won "Best Feature Documentary" at the 2009 Kos International Health Film Festival in Greece.  Director/Producer Maria Finitzo and Producer Justine Nagan attended the festival on behalf of the doc.  It screened to a crowd of nearly 200 people in the outdoor cinema in downtown Kos.

The Center for Social Media today published the landmark report "Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work" by Kartemquin Films' Board Secretary Pat Aufderheide.

The report is also being showcased on a panel at the Toronto International Film Festival’s first documentary conference, on Sept. 13, 2009.

In the report, dozens of documentarians frankly discuss workplace challenges to ethical standards, conflicting ethical values, and most concerning, a lack of open and shared standards and practices. The report discusses challenges ranging from subject payment to re-enactment to misrepresentation of archival material.

Kartemquin Film's Artistic Director Gordon Quinn is quoted extensively in the report, including this passage:

We say to our subjects, “We are not journalists; we are going to spend years with you. Our code of ethics is very different. A journalist wouldn’t show you the footage. We will show the film before it is finished. I want you to sign the release, but we will really listen to you. But ultimately it has to be our decision.” In some cases I will say, “If there is something that you can’t live with then we’ll discuss it, we will have the argument and real dialogue. In the end, if I can’t convince you then we’ll take it out.”

The D-Word Forum is hosting a discussion of the report all this week, with Pat Aufderheide answering queries from forum members.

To mark the finale of the Chicago PBS re-broadcast of The New Americans, Kartemquin will be hosting a live chat with Series Producer Gita Saedi Kiely, and many more of the producers and directors who worked on the epic 7-part series on immigration to the United States.

Join in with the chat at 1pm CST on 09/16/09 by visiting www.kartemquin.com/chat.

Can't make the live chat? Submit questions to the filmmakers in advance via tim@kartemquin.com

Excitement is escalating for the world premiere of acclaimed choreographer Bill T. Jones' "Fondly Do We Hope, Fervently Do We Pray" next week at Ravinia. The performances, on September 17th and 19th, mark the culmination of Ravinia's year-long celebration of Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial. They also entail a busy week for Kartemquin's filmmakers, who after months of recording the rehearsals and creative process will finally be capturing this momentous event for next year's film A Good Man.

Read articles about the upcoming performances from Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Daily Herald, and watch a brief video from The Wall St Journal.

Kartemquin is excited to announce that Typeface will have its California premiere at the Wine Country Film Festival on Sunday September 27th in the Napa valley.  Other screenings are in the works for Rhode Island, Memphis, Baltimore, Indiana and others.  Check the Typeface and Kartemquin websites for details.

Kartemquin is a proud partner of the Looking for Democracy: How to Make It, How to Sustain It 2^nd Annual Film Contest, launched today by the Public Square program of the Illinois Humanities Council. The contest asks for films of five minutes or less in any genre that address the theme of 'How do we create and sustain democracy in times of crisis?'

For more information, visit the official site.

Kartemquin's most famous film, Hoop Dreams - regularly voted one of the greatest films, let alone documentaries, ever made - is fifteen years old this year! Kartemquin will be celebrating the impact and legacy of this unforgettable film with an intimate celebratory event at the Gene Siskel Film Center on November 4th. The evening will include special guest speakers and exclusive previews of Kartemquin’s upcoming productions.

Email Matt Eckford to request ticket information or an invitation - matt@kartemquin.com

Meanwhile, read more praise for Hoop Dreams.

Kartemquin Films is delighted to accept a grant of $8,290 from the Illinois Arts Council for project support on (In)Visible Seasons. Director Maria Finitzo's film will look at the how the implementation of Title IX legislation changed the meaning of sports in the American experience.

The New York Times today waded into the debate on ethics in documentary filmmaking sparked by Kartemquin Board Member Pat Aufderheide's report for the Central for Social Media at American University, which was released last week. Reporting from a Toronto Film Festival panel discussion, the newspaper mentioned Kartemquin's Artistic Director Gordon Quinn as being one of the most "prominent" filmmakers interviewed for the report.

Read the full article.

Read the report: Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work.

Follow the evolving debate at D-Word.

The beautiful posters designed to promote Typeface are meeting with praise from typography and design communites online. A glowing mention of the film and its artwork from the respected printmaking resource site Printeresting first sparked the Cirox blog to post a reproduction of Dennis Ichiyama's stylish poster, before the "Je Ne Suis Qu'une Pauvre Plume" blog went one better with a tragic story of how they may miss the screening this Thursday 17th at Portland, Maine's Space Gallery.

Typeface also screens in Green Bay this Wednesday 16th (with director Justine Nagan in attendance!).

Also just confirmed: The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and the AIGA will host the Maryland premiere of the film on November 9th, and Typeface has been accepted into the New Orleans Film Festival, where it will screen at 3pm on October 10th.

The highly anticipated Kartemquin documentary Typeface was featured on the WB/CW "Daily Buzz" this morning in advance of tomorrow's Wisconsin premiere!

Watch the video to see sneak peeks from the film and find out where the film's title came from!

In advance of tomorrow night's world premiere of "Fondly Do We Hope, Fervently Do We Pray" at Ravinia, TimeOutChicago published a short article on their experience of watching this landmark event being created back in May of this year. The Chicago Sun-Times' Hedy Weiss also today published an article featuring comments from Bill T. Jones and Kartemquin's Gordon Quinn.

Of course, for the full story of how this important artwork took shape, stay tuned for Kartemquin's upcoming documentary, to be broadcast next year!

The Chicago Tribune ranked Hoop Dreams as the 4th best film about high school made since 1987, stating:

"It's about a myriad of things — basketball, Chicago's West Side, promise — but chief among the triumphs of this extraordinary documentary is its portrait of teen pressures."

Hoop Dreams was the only documentary to make the list.

Kartemquin's multi award-winning documentary on community-based conservation in Africa, Milking The Rhino, has a full line-up of screenings this Fall, many of them regional premieres and festival appearances. Catch it at a theatre near you!

Highlights include the film's inclusion on the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, through which Milking The Rhino will screen 9 times, in 7 different States, in the space of 11 days in early November! Director David E. Simpson will attend each screening, including State premeires of the film in Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Festival screenings this Fall begin tomorrow with the International Black Docufest in Atlanta, GA, and are also confirmed for the United Nations Film Festival in Stanford, CA, the Flyway Film Festival in Pepin, WI, the Tales from Planet Earth Film Festival in Madison, WI, and the Ekotopfilm 36th International Festival of Sustainable Development Films in Slovakia!

Milking The Rhino Originator and Co-Producer Jeannie Magill will also introduce special screenings and panel discussions at Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Penn State.

Specific times and locations are yet to be announced for some screenings, so please check the Milking The Rhino events page for further details and updates, or sign up to the newsletter.

At the Death House Door has been nominated for the 2010 American Library Association Notable Videos for Adults list.  Each year a committee comprised of Video Round Table members selects up to fifteen noteworthy educational, performance or how-to titles released during the previous and current calendar years. The committee is composed of public and academic librarians, and makes its selections during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January.  The list is published in Booklist and Video Librarian magazines.

Get more information about the Notable Videos for Adults list, and see a list of the most recent winners.

As we gear up for upcoming California and South Dakota premieres this week, read this great review from last week's screening in Maine.

Kartemquin is excited to announce that its Executive Director, Justine Nagan, has been named a Future Leadership Fellow by National Arts Strategies in Washington DC. 

ESPN magazine has listed it's Top 10 Sports Documentaries of All Time and Kartemquin Films' iconic Hoop Dreams sits proudly in the #1 position.

The list was compiled by a 5-person panel of ESPN magazine journalists, filmmakers and critics. Hoop Dreams was listed on each panelist's top 10, and was chosen as #1 by all but one of the judges.

ESPN assmbled the list in anticipation of their upcoming 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries, which will feature Hoop Dreams co-director Steve James' eagerly awaited Allen Iverson documentary No Crossover.

When not working tirelessly to make the upcoming Hoop Dreams 15th Anniversary event a success, Kartemquin's Development Associate Matt Eckford is the 'driving force' behind the jewelry business he established with his partner Emma Carroll, Emma Carroll etc. Check out a recent feature about the business in TimeOut Chicago.

Professor, documentary filmmaker, and Kartemquin Board member Pat Aufderheide was interviewed today by On The Media for NPR. Listen to Pat discuss her new report on ethics in documentary filmmaking, and read the report here.

The New York Times is raving about the hotly anticipated ESPN sports documentary series 30 for 30. In ramping up excitement for the series, ESPN's Bill Simmons singled out Kartemquin Films' Steve James upcoming documentary No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson for special praise, stating that "James is our grand slam."

No Crossover will air on ESPN in 2010. For updates, check our news and events page, sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on twitter.