Many folks have asked me how to get into film writing, and there is no one answer. The only advice I can give is to just start doing it. If you are good at it, people will notice and offer you gigs. Interesting that this caught my eye right when there is a lot of discussion going on about documentary criticism. For those wishing to change the system, here is an opportunity to start a new trend

Film Quarterly Anniversary Film Review Prize
Film Quarterly will award a prize of $500 for the best review essay submitted in accordance with the rules of the competition. In announcing this prize, we hope to encourage the practice of essayistic, intellectual review-writing, which has somewhat declined in the face of longer academic formats or shorter journalistic ones. The prize offers an opportunity to write about any work or pair of works,
contemporary or historical. The deadline for entries is 30 March 2008. The winning essay will be
published in the fiftieth-anniversary issue (fall 2008) of Film Quarterly.
______________________________
Notes
1. Essays in English (which must not have been submitted to any other publication) should fall within the span of 2500­3500 words and should not contain notes (though parenthetical references are acceptable).

2. Submission is, in the first instance, by email only: fq.submissions@gmail.com. Please entitle emails “Anniversary Competition.” Submitted essays will be acknowledged promptly and entrants whose work is
shortlisted (see 8., below) will be notified by 1 June 2008.

3. Although all entries are welcome, we especially encourage submissions from younger academics and other writers.

4. Essays should concern themselves principally with one or two works and should have no title other than the title(s) of the work(s) reviewed. Comparative approaches are encouraged. “Film Review” is a generic
description: essays concerned with video, television, and avant-garde work are welcome.

5. The work(s) reviewed should be available on DVD (any territory) or otherwise in the public domain. (There may be legitimate exceptions to this rule, but no exception will be made unless there has been prior correspondence with the editor.)

6. There is no restriction on the date of work(s) reviewed, but essays that seek to explore contemporary issues‹especially the impact of digital technology‹will be welcome. For example, an essay might compare a recent film that utilizes digital technology to a work of early cinema. Entrants should not, however, be at all deterred if they wish to write without any new-media angle.

7. Entries will be judged by a panel. Please email the editor after 1 January 2008 to receive the names of the judges.

8. The process of judging shall be as follows. The editor will draw up a longlist of up to fifteen essays. These will be discussed and scored by the panel, leading to a three-essay shortlist. Panel members will then vote on the shortlist; the winner shall be the essay with the most votes.

9. A winner and two runners-up will be announced on 15 June 2008.

10. The winner’s prize will be paid on publication of her or his essay.

I saw this film at the Austin Film Festival, and for the most part, I was captivated while watching it, but afterwards, I started nitpicking about all these things I thought were weak. Reading this Reeler review, it started to make sense. I don’t normally trash movies, but I’m getting weary from all the average to poor films out there. I want to see something good in my limited viewing time. Suggestions?

Reservation Road by Vadim Rizov, “Adapted from John Burnham Schwartz’s novel, Terry George’s Reservation Road — like In The Bedroom and House Of Sand And Fog, its immediate predecessors in the domestic-tragedy-from-respected-fiction-source micro-genre — is overwrought and unabashedly allegorical, begging us to consider the implausible events on screen as a fresh and convincing examination of how revenge corrodes the soul. This movie corroded mine, at any rate.”