Recapping Week One of the 2014 IFP Documentary Labs
by Erik Luers on May 22, 2014 in Uncategorized
The ninth installment of the Independent Filmmaker Project’s Documentary Labs concluded their first week last Friday, and the ten selected projects hit the ground running. Diverse in tone, content and location (with filmmakers hailing from New York, Pennsylvania, California and beyond), this year’s work is sure to provoke and intrigue. From offering notes on each other’s projects to listening to thoughtful and constructive advice from industry professionals, the filmmakers have spent the past few days emerged in rigorous documentary storytelling. Whether it comes in the form of something deeply personal (Project Dad, Man of the Monkey) or observational (Mad Tiger, T-Rex), gritty (Quest: The Fury and the Sound) or whimsical (Very Semi-Serious), each film now possesses the ideas that will help steer them toward completion. Below are brief synopsizes of their Lab-selected projects. Be on the lookout for personal blog posts documenting their experiences in the coming weeks. The selected projects for the 2014 IFP Documentary Lab and Lab Fellows are: The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha The film traces Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s emergence as an artist, her tragic death, and her continuing influence as a creative pioneer who came of age during the transformative, experimental culture of 1970′s. This chronology is interwoven with events from Korean history and Cha’s experience of emigration, contextualizing her unique examination of universal human processes of memory, language and communication. Fellows: Woo Jung Cho (Director, Producer, Writer), Cindy Yoon (Producer, Editor); JiYe Kim (DP, Editor). New York, NY Mad Tiger An old Japanese man named Yellow toured the country for fifteen years in his boy band until his partner, Red, decides to quit. Yellow struggles to keep the band together while Red tries to move on. Only after finding himself completely alone, Yellow is forced to face the parts of himself that he kept hidden in his fantasy. Fellows: Jonathan Yi & Michael Haertlein (Directors, Producers, DPs). New York, NY Man of the Monkey Intrigued by the tale of a scary man living in isolation with his chimpanzee wife, David Romberg travels to his childhood home on Ilha Grande, Brazil, to find him, only to discover that the tale pales in comparison to what he uncovers. His search guides him to the island’s dark histories that contradict his family’s own history in this place. Fellows: David Romberg (Director), Èlia Gasull Balada (Editor). Philadelphia, PA Project Dad When Sharon Shattuck’s father came out as transgender, Sharon was in the awkward throes of middle school. Her father’s transition to female was difficult for her straight-identified physician mother to accept, but her parents remained married. As the Shattucks approach Sharon’s wedding day, they address the truce at the heart of their family, and discover what it means to stay together. Fellows: Sharon Shattuck (Director, Producer), Martha Shane (Producer), Frederick Shanahan (Editor). Brooklyn, NY Quest: The Fury and the Sound Quest runs a hip hop studio from his home in North Philadelphia. He attempts to balance family and musical ambitions while recording neighborhood artists struggling with criminal records and drug addictions. His commitment to the neighborhood and family is tested when one of his children is diagnosed with cancer and another is shot by crossfire. Fellows: Jonathan Olshefski (Director, Producer, DP), Tim Fryett (Editor), Christopher Rainey (Music Supervisor). Philadelphia, PA Romeo Is Bleeding Donte Clark’s poetic voice was honed on the violent street corners of a struggling city. Yet rather than succumb to the pressures of Richmond, CA, Clark uses his artistic perspective to save his city from itself. Fellows: Jason Zeldes (Director), Michael Klein (Producer), Kevin Klauber (Editor). Los Angeles, CA (T)error (T)error is the story of Omar ****, a 62-year-old former Black Panther turned counterterrorism informant for the FBI. Interweaving Omar’s turbulent past, with unprecedented access to his current investigation, (T)error probes the moral and ethical dilemmas behind the scenes of the war on Terror. Fellows: Lyric Cabral (Director, DP), David Felix Sutcliffe (Director, DP), Laura Minnear (Editor) Bronx, NY T-Rex T-Rex is the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, the seventeen-year-old from Flint, Michigan who became the first woman to win the middleweight gold medal in Olympic boxing. While her journey to the top of the podium in London was epic – and historic – success for a young, black girl in Flint doesn’t always make things easier. Fellows: Zach Canepari (Director, Producer, DP), Drea Cooper (Director, Producer, Editor, DP), Sue Jaye Johnson (Producer). Berkeley, CA The Seventh Fire An Ojibwe community in rural Minnesota is caught between the violent rise of Native American gangs and the struggle for cultural identity. The Seventh Fire is a raw cinematic journey into a rarely seen part of America that reveals the crisis facing American Indian communities across the country. Fellows: Jack Pettibone Riccobono (Director, Producer, DP), Jihan Robinson (Producer), Shane Slattery-Quintanilla (Producer, DP), Andrew Ford (Editor). Brooklyn, NY. Very Semi-Serious Very Semi-Serious goes behind the scenes of the New Yorker and introduces the past, present and future generations of cartoonists who create the iconic cartoons that have inspired, baffled—and occasionally pissed off—all of us for decades. Fellows: Leah Wolchok (Director), Davina Pardo (Producer), Nels Bangerter (Editor). San Francisco, CA