Would you please speak up?! Eugene Hernandez posted a discussion starter on his blog about The Festival That Shall Not Be Named Here and their absurd new policy that accredited festival press may not post film reviews in advance of the premiere screening. Journalists and film writers like myself have a sense of our own importance, for better or worse, but what really matters is filmmakers. It’s the internet for God’s sake–you can post anonymously, but let your thoughts be heard.

If I see 5 filmmaker comments on Eug’s blog that say this is a great, welcome policy, then maybe we shift our understanding of what is helpful and what isn’t. If you say it’s not helpful, then maybe (and I give that a big maybe), the fest will shift its policy. I’m so utterly sick of this particular festival bullying everyone who tries to participate and no one speaking up. Hey, they supposedly made changes to respond to criticism for this year, so at least give it a shot. Read Eugene’s post and share a comment, PUULEEZ!

Thanks to AJ for pointing out the POV blog; I remember some staffers telling me they were going to implement one, but sadly I never got an email about the launch. Some of my favorite doc folks are posting, including Simon Kilmurry. He posted a great response to David Poland who writes on The Hot Blog, about the WGA nominations for best documentary writing, “has anyone outside of the WGA seen the top doc vote-getter, The Camden 28?”Kilmurry’s response:

What Poland’s post raises, I believe, is the more problematic issue of equating box office success with the importance of a documentary—a crude measurement. Let’s get real here, the vast majority of docs have a very limited box office appeal. I can’t believe that other WGA nominees made millions at the box office—despite how much I might admire The Rape of Europa and the excellent No End In Sight. Most of them make little or no money. (As far as I’m aware, the WGA does not take box office in account in their awards, God bless them.) Read the whole article 

I’ve been slow in reading and posting lately and part of that is being busy but part of it is also boredom with what people are writing about film. Awards are great because they raise awareness among new audiences about great films that they may not have seen - The Camden 28 is a great example of that. It’s a wonderful movie. It revisits a 1960s act of civil disobedience and asks the participants to relay those events, which they do. The film is conventional in style but it is so inspiring to see the story of people who were willing risk their own liberty to send a message to the government, as that doesn’t seem to be happening now, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the actions of our government… but I digress. The issue is that so many writing about film are only focusing on box office, and seemingly ignoring anything film-related that doesn’t have to do with theatrical release.

Via WIRED, “A report released Wednesday by Scarborough Research reveals that Austin, Texas has the highest percentage of residents who read or write blogs. In Austin, 15% of adults had read or contributed to a blog in the past 30 days, while #2 Portland followed with 14% and tied for third was San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (an odd clumping, we must say) and Seattle/Tacoma, both with 13%. Other top cities: Honolulu, San Diego, Dallas, Columbus, Nashville, Colorado Springs, and Washington D.C.Where is the creation of consumption of blogs the lowest? Only 2% of the population in Buffalo, NY and Pittsburgh has anything to do with the blogosphere. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania and Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia fare hardly better with 4%.”