The Forensic Files: Team Qatar’s Alex Just

Alex Just, second to the right, leads Team Qatar

Premiering Sunday, August 1 on Global Voices on PBS WORLD, Team Qatar introduces us to the world of competitive high school debate. Five team members from the Muslim nation of Qatar rally behind debate veteran Alex Just, who was only 22 when the film was shot. A former president of the Oxford Union, Just joined BTB for a conversation about the film. Note: Team Qatar is currently available for download to own and download to rent on iTunes.

First off, let’s go over the rules. This is not a debate or formal argument of any kind. At no point during the course of this conversation should you feel the need to contest anything I say or ask with fact, logic, or reason. Do you agree to these terms, Alex?

Yes. That sounds fine to me.

When was your first competitive debate?

When I was in high school, I was 13 and we had a debate club. On the first Friday of term, they have meetings for new members. And I can’t quite remember all of this, but my debate coach claims they had a game where you had to talk about any subject for a minute and I gave a speech about sausages. I spoke for a full minute and impressed my debate coach Mr. Wylie enough that he worked with me for six years and made me the debater I am today.
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Tags: debate, debate club, documentary, Global Voices, ITVS, oxford university, PBS, qatar, team qatar, world schools debating championships

Insufficient Justice: Socheata Poeuv Reacts to Khmer Rouge Verdict

Director Socheata Poeuv

Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv was outside the courtroom on July 26, 2010, as Kaing Guek Eav (aka Comrade Duch) was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years (19 including time served) by an international tribunal. The director of the Independent Lens film New Year Baby, Poeuv was born in a refugee camp in Thailand during Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, which took the lives of many of her family members. She reacts to the verdict and the sentence for Beyond the Box.

On July 26, I went to the Khmer Rouge tribunal (at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh) to listen to the judgment of Comrade Duch, the former commander of S-21 (Tuol Sleng), the Khmer Rouge’s most infamous prison and torture center. Hundreds of Cambodians and journalists also gathered to witness the historic moment.

As the judge read the guilty verdict, I was moved to hear the narrative of Duch’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. Although I had read of and heard an account of the crimes of S-21 many times in books and films, hearing the legal summary help to legitimize and validate the suffering of victims, including those in my family. I was glad this was now entering the official historical and legal record.
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Tags: Cambodia, commrade duch, documentary, Independent Lens, ITVS, khmer rouge, new year baby, PBS, socheata poeuv, Thailand

Jon Reiss Says: Do It Yourself!

Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch,” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss has directed three feature films most recently Bomb It about graffiti, street art, and the battle over visual public space throughout the world. His experience releasing Bomb It with a hybrid strategy was the inspiration for writing Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era, the first step-by-step guide for filmmakers to distribute and market their films. Reiss will be conducting a workshop from July 31^st to August 1^st all about DIY distribution, at the San Francisco Film Society. BTB spoke with Reiss via Skype last week while he was in Melbourne, Australia.

How did you get started with DIY filmmaking?

Jon Reiss is the author of Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era

I guess I got started with DIY filmmaking back in the San Francisco punk rock scene. That’s how I got into film in first place. At the time, I was an Economics major at Berkeley and was a planning on getting a PhD in Economics at Stanford but somehow ended up living in a rat-infested loft in San Francisco shooting punk rock bands.

[I went] to Paris to show the videos and I thought, “Why not go to the rest of Europe?” So, I started booking tours throughout Europe and that was really my first experience with DIY distribution. It was also my first experience with creating events and using non-traditional venues — that I’ve now come to champion — which is, I believe, the future for independent films.
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Tags: Bomb It, digital distribution, DIY, Jon Reiss, trans-media

The Trials of Comrade Duch

Kaing Guek Eav or "Comrade Duch"

Much ado about the sentencing of Kaing Guek Eav — known by his Khmer Rouge nickname “Comrade Duch” — to 35 years in prison (to be reduced to 19 considering time served) on July 26 in Phnom Penh by a United Nations-led tribunal. The verdict and sentence shocked many Cambodians who remember Duch’s reign of terror as a remorseless prison chief in charge of torturing and murdering as many as 16,000 Cambodians on the orders of the notorious Pol Pot. Many Cambodians were angry that the sentence had not been harsher, given the horrific nature of the crimes.

Adrian Maben, director of a recently funded ITVS film called Comrade Duch, is currently in Phnom Penh to document the sentencing and the reaction to it. Maben has directed three previous films on the Khmer Rouge for ARTE.
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Tags: adrian maben, Cambodia, comrade duch, documentary, ITVS, kaing guek eav, khmer rouge, PBS

Open Call Deadline Two Weeks Away!

Hurry hurry hurry! If you need funding for your film, don’t miss the deadline for Open Call funding on Friday, August 6, 2010.

Open Call provides completion funds for single nonfiction public television programs on any subject and from any viewpoint. Projects must have begun production as evidenced by a work-in-progress video. Open Call funding is only available to independent producers who are citizens or legal residents of the U.S. and its external territories.

One question we get asked by many filmmakers concerns the previously completed work and work-in-progress requirements. If you’re still cutting, here are some tips on what to submit and what we’re looking for when we do our evaluations.
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Tags: funding, Open Call, programming, work-in-progress

Karate Kid Takes on Global Voices

Shadya airs on Global Voices Sunday, July 25

A young Muslim Israeli is trapped between her passion for karate and religious tradition in Shadya, airing this Sunday on Global Voices on PBS World (check local listings).

Directed by Roy Westler, the film takes place in Northern Israel and profiles a 17-year-old charismatic karate champion. Shadya is a rare breed, a feminist in a male-dominated culture and a Muslim Arab living in Israel.

As she grapples with the looming tension of an early marriage and her Palestinian identity, Shadya refuses to play by the rules of her traditional Muslim community.

Check out the trailer for Shadya ahead of the broadcast this Sunday.

Tags: documentary, Israel, ITVS, karate kid, Muslim, palestinian, PBS, shadya

ITVS Goes Ever More Global

ITVS International’s Global Perspectives Project has welcomed five broadcasters to its growing distribution network, bringing Season One of the series True Stories: Life in the U.S.A. to millions of viewers in Bosnia, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Ecuador, and El Salvador.

Beginning this fall, these new television partners will broadcast independent documentaries that reveal the complexity of life in the United States and offer a greater understanding of Americans in all their diversity. To date, 21 countries around the world have licensed the series for broadcast in more than 10 languages — including French, Portuguese, Farsi, Arabic, and Urdu — reaching an estimated 150 million people. The 32-program series was hosted by actors Benicio del Toro in Season One and Danny Glover in Season Two.

Launched in 2005 as a major public-private partnership, the Global Perspectives Project created a two-way television exchange that brings documentaries from other nations to U.S. audiences and delivers insightful True Stories documentaries to audiences abroad. Through this model, ITVS connects people by shattering the stereotypes that pervade commercial media.

Tags: documentary, global perspectives project, ITVS, PBS, true stories

Meet the Real Slumdogs on NatGeo

A scene from The Real Slumdogs directed by Steve Baker

The Real Slumdogs, airing tonight at 8 PM on the National Geographic Channel, examines what it’s like to live in Asia’s largest slum.

Directed by Steve Baker, the film takes place in Dharavi, Mumbai — which was also the setting for the Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Much more than a slum, this mini-city bustles with industry, culture, and dreams. The Real Slumdogs, an ITVS International film, aims to show the true faces of Dharavi by talking to the people who live and work everyday of their lives in the slum and struggle to survive in a community that defies expectations.

You’ve seen the Hollywood version; now meet the real slumdogs.

Learn more about the broadcast by visiting the National Geographic website >>

Tags: documentary, India, ITVS, Mumbai, National Geographic, PBS, slumdog, Slumdog Millionaire

On P.O.V., Uncovering a Family Legacy

In El General, airing tonight on P.O.V. (check local listings), filmmaker Natalia Almada tells the story of her great-grandfather, former Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles.

The famous revolutionary general, who assumed the Mexican presidency in 1924, comes to life through audio recordings inherited by the filmmaker.

Known as the foremost chief in his time, Calles is remembered today as a dictator, who ruled through puppet presidents until his exile in 1936.

Almada stitches together recordings of her grandmother, as she grapples with history’s harsh portrait of her father and the weight of his legacy on the country today.

Filmmaker Geeta Patel Searches for Love

One in a Billion, follows a 29-year-old Hindu man across the globe as he searches for a woman his parents will approve of. The film, by Indian American Directord Geeta Patel, was one of several projects selected by ITVS’s Open Call in 2009 (Note: this year’s deadline is August 6th!).

Ravi Patel is the star of the documentary, co-director on the project, and the filmmaker’s brother. Together, the Patel’s bring a comedic touch to the high-pressured world of arranged marriages.

Geeta Patel previously directed Project Kashmir, which aired last season on Independent Lens.

Learn more about One in Billion and the filmmaker from her interview below…

Tags: comedy, documentary, funding, geeta patel, hindu, ITVS, one in a billion, Open Call, PBS, project kashmir