Thom Powers, filmmaker, programmer of Toronto Film Fest docs and NYC screening series Stranger Than Fiction, is looking for real documentary critics. His advice from Wanted: Documentary Critics:

A few words of advice to the aspiring Documentary Critic: 1) ignore the way most periodicals divide their reviews by formats of theatrical, television and DVD. These boundaries prevent meaningful connections. Good documentaries show up in many places besides theaters, including HBO, POV, Independent Lens, Sundance Channel, and straight to DVD via the festival circuit. All these works should fall under the same purview. 2) Don’t obsess over pegging a review to a release date. That timing had more relevance when a film played only one week in a theater or one night on TV. Now audiences are more likely to access at their own will on DVD or download. As with books, a review has just as much relevance published weeks or months after its debut. 3) Keep in mind what Rosenbaum said at the New York Film Festival, “I think it’s important, when you’re writing about a film, to think about how it connects to the rest of your life, to other arts, things that are happening to you. I think that film criticism tends to be way too much cut off, when it seems to me if it’s an important art form, it’s important because it addresses the way we live.” Read the entire article>>