November 2003

Now in its 25th year, the IFP Market has clearly grown up. The fall 2003 event brought out its usual commendable list of industry attendees – HBO, Sony Pictures Classics, Sundance Channel, ITVS, and Independent Film Channel, to name just a few. As well, it screened an impressive variety of completed and in-progress documentaries, narratives and shorts.

In 1940, the farming community of Goshen, New Hampshire had 342 inhabitants. By year’s end, 47 of those 342 would be shipped off to various parts of the world, beginning their journey as soldiers of World War II.

The morning after the Boston Red Sox’s heartbreaking loss to the New York Yankees in the last game of the American League Championship Series, there is sadness in Patricia Alvarado’s voice as she speaks of the team, the season and what might have been. As the producer of two films about the Red Sox, including "El Tiante: A Red Sox Story" and "Getting to Fenway," she understands the weight of history for this team and the magnitude of the loss.

Filmmakers with a doctorate in Renaissance studies aren’t a dime a dozen. Nonetheless, Larry Benaquist, documentary producer and head of film studies at Keene State College, is quick to point out the connections between his current profession and his academic training.

The popular perception about the horrors of the Holocaust is that they ended with the surrender of Germany. In reality, the passive neglect of the victorious Allies, while not as devastating as the active persecution at the hands of the Nazis, proved a prolongation of many of the same inhumane conditions. The nearly eight million refugees (as many as 250 thousand of them Jews), were met with indifference at best. Often released far from home, they found themselves herded into displaced person camps with inadequate shelter, food, hygiene, and read more...

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Looks like we can start calling the Industry News the Reality TV Review. Such shows are cheap to make and can bring in big bucks, so everyone's trying to get in on the action.

About seven years ago, Dan Akiba’s brother, Jonah, made some changes in his life: he dropped out of college, and embarked upon an extensive world tour. He went out to ‘find himself.’ Along the way, he found himself in Israel, taking a class called ‘Discovery,’ which endeavored to prove that in the Torah were the actual words of God.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy teamed up with Lyndon Johnson on the Democratic ticket for the Presidential race: in politic-speak, the "Boston to Austin" connection was born. On October 8, I, a Bostonian, journeyed to Austin, Texas, but the reason for my trip was far from political in nature. It was as a screenwriter and an artist that I traveled to Austin for the 10th annual Austin Film Festival (AFF).

Richard Day is a funny guy.

And, fortunately for audiences, (like the pretty girl in high school who only hangs out with other pretty girls) he’s got a caboodle of funny friends. And when those funny friends also perform as cross-dressing alter egos named Evie Harris, Miss Coco Peru, and Varla Jean Merman? then "Girls Will Be Girls" happens.