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As you know, it's wild out there right now. Exactly a week ago as I type this, I was sitting in the beautiful, massive Missouri Theater watching Kirsten Johnson's hysterical, deeply moving new tragicomedy DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD as the 2020 True/False Film Festival came to a close. Just a couple days before, I had read the news that SXSW was cancelled. In the days that followed my relatively uneventful flights home, the spread of COVID-19 has literally shut down entire countries, forced the cancellation of every major spring film festival, left countless new films in limbo and shuttered the doors of theaters across the country for at least the immediate future. I never imagined a week ago that this week's memo would shape up like this, but here we are. On the bright side, the past week has also seen the announcement of a wave of grants and fellowships awarded, so there will be plenty of new films on the horizon. Bunker down, read up, stay safe and hopefully I'll have better news to share next week.
-Jordan M. Smith

HEADLINES

The Doc Industry & COVID-19: How Do We Adapt?
The fine folks at The D-Word have created a special discussion topic for documentary professionals as we navigate through this most uncertain time, moderated by Brigid O'Shea (Head of Industry at Dok Leipzig and founder of Documentary Association of Europe), Jan Rofekamp (founder of Films Transit, executive producer and international strategy and sales consultant), Ove Rishøj Jensen (event and film consultant, producer, curator and outreach manager and founder of Paradiddle Pictures), Martijn te Pas (consultant, programmer at Nordisk Panorama, former programmer at IDFA), & Sean Farnel (marketing, distribution and sales consultant, former programmer at Hot Docs): “As the world reacts to the threat of COVID-19, there are many consequences for the documentary industry, including cancellations of festivals and events and restrictions on travel. This temporary topic is a space to share ideas about how we are adapting.”

Field of Vision's New Virtual Mentorship & Consultation Service
Announced via press release: “From Monday, March 16, the Field of Vision team will offer a virtual ‘office hours’ service for the documentary community. As we’re in a moment of uncertainty, we want to make ourselves available to filmmakers in any way we can. We understand that the industry is experiencing a lot of upheaval, and that this is a particularly difficult time for freelancers and people working independently. We have allocated time every weekday until Friday, May 1st (we may extend depending on the situation) to have video meetings and calls. We’ll be prioritising filmmakers who’ve been affected by festival postponements and production changes, but will also be available to offer a range of mentorship and consultation around a variety of areas. At Field of Vision we like filmmakers to lead and improve how we work. We were inspired by Jeanie Finlay, who has opened her time to mentoring after an upcoming film shoot had to be cancelled. Jeanie is working on a new film that we’re extremely honoured to be supporting. We are a small team and will try our best to make ourselves available to as many filmmakers and producers as possible. If any other members of our community would also like to donate their time, we are happy to facilitate this as well, so please feel free to reach out to us.”

KSFEF Announces 2020 Diversity in the Edit Room Program Mentees
Announced via press release: “The Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship (KSFEF), the only fellowship for documentary film editors in the U.S., announced today that it has launched the third year of its Diversity in the Edit Room Program. It is designed to cultivate the careers of talented emerging editors and assistant editors from diverse backgrounds and experiences working in the documentary field. Twenty people based in New York City and Los Angeles have been selected for the program. The mentees and their seasoned editor mentors will meet in small groups each month to discuss a range of self-selected topics centered around life and work experiences, the craft of editing, and the business of it. The mentees come from a range of backgrounds, identities and experiences traditionally under-represented in editing, including those facing discrimination and barriers due to race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic background, disability, age, gender, sexual orientation and/or gender identity...This year’s mentees are: Anisha Acharya, Andrès Arias, Maria Badia, Elizabeth Barrett, Gabrielle Berbey, Steph Ching, Sydney Friedman, Alma Herrera-Pazmiño, Samantha Kahrar, Francesca Kustra, Reena Mangubat, Rommel Mendoza, Sunita Prasad, Jean Rheem, Ruella Rouf, Jota Sosnowski, Dominique Ulloa, Andreina Velazquez, Sally Volkmann, and Dora Wu.”

Chicken & Egg Pictures Awards 10 Grant Recipients of (Egg)celerator Lab
Announced via press release: “Chicken & Egg Pictures announced today the ten grant recipients of their (Egg)celerator Lab emerging documentary filmmakers program. The filmmakers are set to receive a total of $400,000 toward their first or second feature-length documentaries. Since its founding in 2005, Chicken & Egg Pictures has awarded over $8 million in grants and thousands of hours of mentorship to over 320 women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. Now, in its 15th anniversary year, the organization has committed to granting over $1 million for 2020 across its five main programs—more than they have ever given out in a single year—and increasing the (Egg)celerator Lab grant from $35,000 to $40,000 per film project.”

Meet the 2020 Film Independent Doc Lab Fellows
Announced via press release: “Making a documentary is easy—right? You just buy an old handycam off eBay, tape down the ‘record’ button and go follow around, I dunno, some stuff. Then throw a few bucks at an editor you met on Craigslist and voila! Instant Sundance hosannas and seven-figure Netflix streaming deals. Wait, what’s that you say? Making a feature documentary is actually super-difficult? It’s a skill that requires Herculean long-term commitment to one’s subject and an innate sense of dramatic structure, all while navigating the ability to earn trust, cultivate access and depict complicated real-life individuals and scenarios in a responsible way? Ugh, too hard. We’ll just focus all our energy on TikTok instead. Fortunately, there are plenty of other filmmakers out there whose investigative fortitude far outstrips our own—whose curiosity and sense of adventure prompts them to dive deep into subjects ranging from the immediately relevant to the deeply esoteric and obscure. And at the very least, we’re proud to be able to support these true-blue documentarians, today announcing the 11 new filmmakers participating in the 2020 Film Independent Documentary Lab.”

Fork Films Reveals Documentary Grant Recipients
Mia Galuppo of The Hollywood Reporter had an exclusive on the grant announcement: “Fork Films— the New York-based production company founded by Abigail Disney— has announced the documentary film recipients of over $400,000 in grant funding. The 10 films, nine of which are from female filmmakers, are at various stages of development and were chosen for their ability to promote human rights and social justice. The docs cover such topics as free speech, police brutality, Indigenous rights and the refugee crisis, among others. ‘Each of these films is provocative, inspiring, complex, nuanced and artistically adept,’ Disney said Monday in a statement. ‘I am so proud of every single one of them. I look forward to their emergence and engagement with the public, where I am sure they will have a great impact for the good.’”

ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
 
Tribeca Film Festival 2020 Postponed
Announced via press release: “We founded the Tribeca Film Festival as a way to heal our community after the devastation of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. We were determined to overcome our fear and anxiety by joining together. It is in our DNA to march forward while caring about our community. We have made the difficult decision to postpone the 19th Tribeca Film Festival (April 15-26) based on the announcement by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that events of 500 people or more are banned due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. We are committed to ensuring the health and safety of the public while also supporting our friends, filmmakers and storytellers who look to Tribeca as a platform to showcase their work to audiences. We will be back to you shortly with our plans.”

Hot Docs 2020 Festival Postponed
Announced via press release: “Hot Docs regrets to announce that due to the recent declaration by the World Health Organization of COVID-19 as a pandemic, and with the health and safety of Hot Docs participants at our Festival as our first priority, we will be postponing this year’s Festival, which was scheduled for April 30-May 10 in Toronto. This follows Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer having called for the immediate suspension of gatherings with more than 250 people and also having learned that many companies are placing restrictions on their employees’ attendance at large events. We remain committed to bringing these outstanding documentary films to our audiences and are currently investigating ways that we can do so at a later date.”

CPH:DOX Cancels - But Resurfaces Digitally
Announced via press release: “In light of the current COVID19 crisis and in response to the Prime Minister's recent press conference, the documentary film festival CPH: DOX has decided to cancel all events in and outside Copenhagen. 220 films and directors have been sent home, but the festival's employees work from home to ensure that the festival can be released in a new digital version focusing on the major Danish and international films. The program, which includes will consist of major Danish main competition titles such as LEVER LOVES MISS by Sine Skibsholt and SONGS OF REPRESSION by Estephan Wagner and Marianne Hougen-Moraga will be presented on a new online cinema platform where the audience - just like in cinema - can access the movies.”

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2020 Cancelled
Announced via press release: “Duke University cancelled all sponsored events through April 20, 2020, which includes this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. At this time, we are in the process of notifying filmmakers, sponsors, donors, ticket buyers, and all of our stakeholders. We humbly ask for patience as our team works through the many details involved with canceling an event of Full Frame’s scale. Updates will be posted on our website at fullframefest.org/covid19 as more information becomes available. We are deeply grateful for the understanding of our incredible Full Frame community, along with the continued support from Duke University. Know that we remain committed to our mission of celebrating and enhancing the documentary art form and now look ahead to next year’s festival, running April 8­-11, 2021. Our hearts go out to all of the people and communities impacted by COVID-19.”

San Francisco International Film Festival 2020 Cancelled
Announced via press release: "We are deeply saddened and disappointed to announce that we are canceling the 63rd San Francisco International Film Festival. As the situation with COVID-19 evolves and concerns around public safety grow, SFFILM is committed to being a part of the solution to keep our community audiences and artists safe and is abiding by the current recommendations from state and city health officials. The Festival press conference and Members Night preview event originally scheduled for March 18 have also been canceled. For our patrons who have already purchased tickets to our Opening Night program, we will contact you directly on Monday, March 16 about your ticketing options. Purchased ticket packages continue to be valid for year-round screenings and events, and expiration dates have been extended to May 2021 to accommodate next year’s Festival. Stay tuned for news from SFFILM on how we can gather together in celebration of film throughout the rest of 2020 and into the future. Thank you for your support and understanding during these challenging times!

Cinéma du réel 2020 Cancelled
Announced via press release: “Dear festival-goers, friends of reality and documentary cinema, following the latest recommendations from the public authorities, and in agreement with the Public Information Library and the Pompidou Center, we are making the difficult decision to cancel this 42nd edition of Cinéma du réel. In the current context, it has indeed become impossible to preserve the quality and the user-friendliness of the festival while meeting safety instructions. We would like to thank our loyal public, but also our team, the volunteers, all of the guests and our partners. We are working on other ways to bring the programming of this 42nd edition to life in the weeks or months to come.”

Thessaloniki Documentary Festival's Agora Doc Market Celebrates Success
Announced via press release: “The Agora Doc Market was successfully completed online for the first time in its history, after the postponement of the 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, due to the coronavirus. Hundreds of film professionals from all over the world, defying the challenges of time zones, participated in the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum and the Docs in Progress. Aiming to strengthen the Agora Doc Market, the Festival presents a Golden Alexander award, which is bestowed upon important figures of the audio-visual sector for their achievements in documentary. The first Golden Alexander award in the history of Agora Doc Market is bestowed to sales agent Catherine le Clef. Le Clef is considered one of the best-connected figures in the world of documentary sales. As a sales agent she has taken on award-winning docs such as: CITIZENFOUR, CAMERAPERSON, COMMUNION, SONITA, OUR TIME MACHINE, FIVE BROKEN CAMERAS, CHINA’S VAN GOGHS, LAST TRAIN HOME. The jury of the first Thessaloniki Pitching Forum announced its awards after participating in the online Pitching session that took place on Monday March 9.”

True/False Film Fest: When a Festival Means Something
Daniel Kasman at MUBI’s Notebook outlines the importance and function of film festivals as COVID-19 continues to disrupt the festival circuit: “While attending True/False Film Fest in Columbia, MO came the news that South by Southwest later this month would be canceled due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. Along with the additional looming possibility that the Cannes Film Festival in May might similarly be disrupted or postponed, this prompts the question of what such cancellations mean for film, which can only be answered by asking what purposes such festivals serve.”

Report from True/False 2020
Alissa Wilkinson covered this year’s edition of the nonfiction festival for Vox: “Every year, a handful of nonfiction films are selected to play at the annual True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, which is one of the most respected all-documentary festivals in the world. In three days, the festival pulls together some of the most exciting filmmaking in the country and packs out theaters to celebrate and explore what nonfiction film can do. For the most part, the festival skips the talking-head, issue-driven docs that dominate other festivals; instead, it’s a showcase for movies that challenge the audience in both form and content. The 2020 edition of the festival — its 17th — featured films from the US and abroad, with political, cultural, and social aims. Filmmakers discussed their work with festival attendees, the majority of whom hailed from mid-Missouri. The event, as always, was a confounding and delightful experience. Every movie that plays at True/False is worth seeing. But here are 18 of the most interesting films from the 2020 festival, and how you’ll be able to watch them in the months ahead.”

IndieWire Will Cover SXSW 2020 Movies Despite Festival Cancellation
Eric Kohn broke the news at IndieWire: “Despite the unprecedented decision by the mayor of Austin to cancel the SXSW Conference last week due to coronavirus fears, IndieWire will proceed with much of its planned coverage of the movies in its lineup. This will include overviews, features, and reviews, with many films seeking distribution. This decision emerged in the aftermath of Friday’s news about SXSW’s cancellation and the unparalleled challenge it created for much of the industry. It was made in close consultation with a number of entities impacted by the cancellation, including filmmakers, sales representatives, publicity firms, and programmers at other festivals, with the approval of representatives for the movies we plan to cover.”
DOC BOOKS
PERPETRATOR CINEMA: CONFRONTING GENOCIDE IN CAMBODIAN DOCUMENTARY
By Raya Morag
 
"Perpetrator Cinema explores a new trend in the cinematic depiction of genocide that has emerged in Cambodian documentary in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries. While past films documenting the Holocaust and genocides in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and elsewhere have focused on collecting and foregrounding the testimony of survivors and victims, the intimate horror of the autogenocide enables post–Khmer Rouge Cambodian documentarians to propose a direct confrontation between the first-generation survivor and the perpetrator of genocide."

MISCELLANEOUS
 
With All Sports on Hiatus, Ken Burns Gets PBS to Share BASEBALL
Ken Burns posted on Twitter with the news that PBS is now streaming his film BASEBALL for free: “With events canceled and so much closed, I asked PBS to stream BASEBALL for free so we can participate in the national pastime together. Watch at the link below or on any streaming device. And please look out for those with greater needs. Play ball.”

The Best Documentaries Streaming on Hulu This March
Christopher Campbell listed his top docs to watch on Hulu this month at Nonfics: “It’s been a year since our last listing of Hulu documentaries, but it’s about time for an update. Especially after a few of them, thanks to the streaming service’s deal with Neon, were either nominated for Academy Awards or topped end-of-year polls. And with Neon and Hulu both continuing to pick up great nonfiction films for the foreseeable future, we have to recommend you subscribing now and getting a start on the best that’s already available. This month already brings about new titles of its own, too, including the docuseries Hillary, a look at Hillary Clinton’s life and presidential bid from Oscar-nominated director Nanette Burstein. That one’s not on our listing since I haven’t finished watching it, plus I haven’t decided if series need a separate spot. As for features, Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power arrives at the end of March. I haven’t seen that yet since Hulu claims to not have screeners available.”
 
NEW RELEASES
 
HEIMAT IS A SPACE IN TIME
THE DOG DOC
HUMAN NATURE

DOC NYC ALUMNI

Alyssa Fedele & Zachary Fink's THE RESCUE LIST
2018 DOC NYC Fight the Power
Will have its primetime premiere via PBS on March 23rd.
FEATURED STREAMING DOC SHORT
LIONS IN THE CORNER
Directed by Paul Hairston
"In the rural mountains of Virginia, "Scarface" starts a fight club in his backyard to end gang violence. He calls it Streetbeefs."
FUND THIS PROJECT

Crowdfunding has become an integral means of raising capital for documentary filmmakers around the globe. Each week we feature a promising new project that needs your help to cross that critical crowdfunding finish line.

This week's project:

SOUL OF HONG KONG
Directed By
Youma Konishi

Funding Goal: $27,794
As always, if you have any tips or recommendations for next week's Memo, please contact me via email here or on Twitter at @Rectangular_Eye.
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