HEADLINES
 

The Making of A YouTube Radical
Kevin Roose’s extensively researched feature in The New York Times is a must read this week: “Google Brain’s researchers wondered if they could keep YouTube users engaged for longer by steering them into different parts of YouTube, rather than feeding their existing interests. And they began testing a new algorithm that incorporated a different type of A.I., called reinforcement learning. The new A.I., known as Reinforce, was a kind of long-term addiction machine. It was designed to maximize users’ engagement over time by predicting which recommendations would expand their tastes and get them to watch not just one more video but many more. Reinforce was a huge success. In a talk at an A.I. conference in February, Minmin Chen, a Google Brain researcher, said it was YouTube’s most successful launch in two years. Sitewide views increased by nearly 1 percent, she said — a gain that, at YouTube’s scale, could amount to millions more hours of daily watch time and millions more dollars in advertising revenue per year. She added that the new algorithm was already starting to alter users’ behavior.”

YouTube Pulls TRIUMPH OF THE WILL For Violating New Hate Speech Policy
Eric Kohn writes at IndieWire, “YouTube hovers in paradox: It’s a platform for expression that vacillates on the kinds of expression it wants to support. Even when the site makes constructive changes in the content it promotes or prohibits, the outcomes raise questions about censorship and curation. On Wednesday YouTube revealed extensive new policies around hate speech in a move to “reduce more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube,” as the company announced in a blog post. The policy also meant the removal of Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 Nazi propaganda epic TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, which left the site hours after YouTube announced its new standards. After all, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL falls under the rubric of “videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory,” as YouTube explains one prohibited category. The movie is also regarded as one with major historical value, raising essential questions about the nature of the film medium.”

Nick James, Longtime Editor of Sight & Sound, Steps Down
In an open letter, Nick James bows out, “It is with tremendous pride, but no hesitation, that I’m stepping down from what I have often described as the greatest job on earth. Editing Sight & Sound has been a thrilling switchback adventure for much of my life but I have long nurtured wider writing ambitions that I now want to pursue. I believe the magazine has never been better than it is right now, and that’s down to our fantastic team, who have always made me look good, and to our many brilliant contributors, so my first thanks is to them. The magazine’s huge international reputation is safe in their hands. I want also to thank our readers, regulars and casual, who have trusted what we have to say about our beloved art of film. Finally, I want to thank and commend Amanda, Heather and my BFI colleagues in general for their support of my opinions, the editorial freedom of Sight & Sound, and for the continued importance of critical writing about film.”

Gazing Back on Julia Reichert’s Forward-Looking Career
Reporting for IndieWire, Farihah Zaman looks at Julia Reichert’s career as the Museum of Modern Art preps a new exhibition on the influential documentarian: “‘They made a decision to be radicals. To challenge the very fabric of their society. How that decision affected their lives is the thread of our story, and it’s by no means a simple story to tell.’ This spare but potent statement by filmmaker Julia Reichert in the narration of SEEING RED, her 1983 Academy Award–nominated documentary on the history of the American Communist Party, could well apply to the broader arc of the politically engaged, culturally attuned body of work that Reichert and those fortunate enough to collaborate with her over the years have created. Long before the current generation’s embrace of feminism, socialism, and radical action, Reichert tackled these subjects with rigor and compassion in her films and allowed them to resonate more deeply with viewers by humanizing, rather than weaponizing, their arguments. Her films don’t function solely as calls to action; they have shaped and challenged our very notion of what political filmmaking looks like—whether we know it or not. It is both the blessing and curse of many a great documentarian for their process and aesthetic achievements to be undervalued in favor of their passion for inspiring content. What makes Reichert’s work so continually relevant is not just its dedication to the cause but its development of a cinematic language supple enough to convey the subtle contours and emotional registers that live within it.”

Cinereach Bestows $50,000 Awards to 4 Independent Film Producers
Brian Welk had the exclusive for The Wrap, "Cinereach announced the four recipients of 2019’s Producer Award, a $50,000 filmmaking prize as part of the Cinereach Producers Initiative, on Friday. The indie film company has selected Jessica Devaney (ALWAYS IN SEASON), Alexandra Lazarowich (FAST HORSE), Kishori Rajan (RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS) and Jamund Washington (TRAMPS) as independent producers that have demonstrated vision and integrity, contributed to the film community as mentors and leaders, and enriched the culture through their films."

Firelight Documentary Lab Open Call
“The Firelight Media Documentary Lab is an 18-month fellowship program that supports filmmakers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities working on their first or second feature length documentary film. The Lab provides filmmakers with customized mentorship from prominent leaders in the documentary world, funding, professional development workshops and networking opportunities...The Deadline for submissions is Monday, June 17th at 11:59 pm EST.”

Documentaries Awarded from Coast to Coast
Pat Mullen looked at the onslaught of awards for POV Magazine: “The trophy shelves of documentary filmmakers from coast to coast are a bit more crowded following a busy weekend of awards. The past weekend saw prizes handed out in Quebec for the annual Prix Iris, in Vancouver for the Leo Awards, and in Toronto for the Canadian Cinema Editors (CCE) Awards and Inside Out LGBT Film Festival. The prizes generally shared with the wealth with INNU NAKAMU: RESIST AND SING, DRAG KIDS, I AM MLK, JR., and SHARKWATER EXTINCTION landing the top honours in feature categories with many other docs taking home worthy gold. Here’s the list of winners from the past weekend.”

PURE NONFICTION
 

Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at IFC Center at 8 pm

THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY
Q&A w/ dir. Petra Costa, prod. Joanna Natasegera, & author
Steven Levitsky (How Democracies Die)
 

Was Brazil’s democracy a short-lived dream? As a child in 1985, filmmaker Petra Costa (ELENA, OLMO AND THE SEAGULL) saw democracy take root in Brazil following years of authoritarian rule under a military dictatorship. Gaining unprecedented access to working-party leaders Lula da Silva and his protégée Dilma Rousseff, Costa traces the downfall of both democratic leaders following corruption scandals that resulted in the impeachment of Rousseff and the imprisonment of da Silva. Merging the personal and the political, Costa delves to the heart of her country’s unfolding identity crisis, examining widespread institutional corruption while connecting her own family’s complex political and industrial past to Brazil’s current crisis. Capturing a unique historical moment, THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY examines the complex forces at play that erode one system and replace it with another.
 

Episode 109: Running with Beto

ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
 

Seven Takes on Truth and Transparency at Hot Docs 2019
In Sight & Sound, Sophie Brown asked, 'How successfully do the documentaries at one of the world’s biggest nonfiction festivals construct their truths, and give a voice to the voiceless?': “The nonfiction industry is saturated with earnest, issue-driven content, to the point that one periodically hears decision-makers use phrases such as ‘climate change fatigue’. Factual information presented as narrative is not enough; nor are aesthetic triumphs without emotional depth. How can documentary defy the system and be radical in its voice? And what does documentary achieve by taking a radical form? The politics of how to tell a story are complex and require inspired alchemy, and their implications can make or break the system.”

Program Highlights from Sheffield Doc/Fest 2019
Cinevue’s Rhys Handley previews their favorite highlights at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest: “Among more than 180 films, the festival has confirmed that its roster boasts more than 50% films made by women, which will be spearheaded by an all-women lineup of key speakers in the Alternate Realities Summit including Google Creative Lab director Tea Uglow, African artist Jepchumba and storyteller Karen Palmer. Big-hitters will be present in the form of both the screenings on offer and the guests appearing across the weekend. Coming in with Sundance buzz are Penny Lane’s Satanism doc HAIL SATAN?, Rachel Lears’ KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE and Todd Douglas Miller’s APOLLO 11 (complete with footage sourced by Sheffield-based NASA archive expert Stephen Slater), while Charles Ferguson’s monolithic three-hour opus Watergate dominates Saturday morning. Among the speakers sure to draw large crowds across the weekend will be Werner Herzog, Paul Greengrass and Stacey Dooley.”

Japanese Experimental Documentary Now at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2019
Matt Turner of Sight & Sound previewed at Sheffield Doc/Fest is spotlighting the latest shapeshifting nonfiction cinema to emerge from Japan: “One of the safest bets in recent years has been the regional focuses, a side-lying strand that offers a small selection of new work from a specific country. Last year it was Lebanon in focus, the year before that India. This time Japan falls under the lens. The strand’s peripheral nature seems to grant the programmers an opportunity to pick the sort of projects that might not find space in the festival’s main selection, pulling in more marginal work or films from lesser-known voices. This seems especially true this year, with a selection of work from contemporary Japanese artists and filmmakers working at the edges of what would usually be constituted as nonfiction, blending documentary subjects with aesthetic techniques that are more familiar in the avant-garde.”