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In this week’s special Natpe: Miami International TV Newswire, Variety looks at the AVoD revolution through a new deal between Tubi and Mexico’s Azteca, ITV and Kew Media sell big across the Americas and two high-profile HBO Latin America series join Hulu Japan’s Latin American showcase.

Tubi and Azteca Presage AVoD Revolution

Tubi, the world’s largest AVoD (Advertising Supported Video on Demand) player, based out of San Francisco, signed this week a strategic partnership with Mexico’s broadcast network TV Azteca to launch a localized Spanish-language app.

As part of the deal, TV Azteca will sell ads on behalf of Tubi while promoting the service to the company’s audience across several platforms. Several of TV Azteca’s more popular titles will also be made available to Tubi members in Mexico, including: “Exatlón Mexico,” “MasterChef,” and “Lo que La Gente Cuente.”

That’s the deal. More will come.

Two romances anchor Nick Broomfield’s documentary “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love.” Both bloomed on the sparkling Greek island Hydra, many years apart. One was the great love and muse of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s life, Marianne Ihlen, the subject of at least five of his songs, including “So Long Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.” The other was Broomfield’s own, more brief affair at age 20 with Ihlen, who was 12 years his senior.

Ihlen stayed friends with both men through the years. As she battled leukemia at the end of her life in 2016, her friend Jan Christian Mollestad reached out to Cohen to let him know she was near the end. Cohen wrote an email back that Mollestand reads to Ihlen on video in “Marianne & Leonard”:

Dearest Marianne,

I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up,...

Two romances anchor Nick Broomfield’s documentary “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love.” Both bloomed on the sparkling Greek island Hydra, many years apart. One was the great love and muse of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s life, Marianne Ihlen, the subject of at least five of his songs, including “So Long Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.” The other was Broomfield’s own, more brief affair at age 20 with Ihlen, who was 12 years his senior.

Ihlen stayed friends with both men through the years. As she battled leukemia at the end of her life in 2016, her friend Jan Christian Mollestad reached out to Cohen to let him know she was near the end. Cohen wrote an email back that Mollestand reads to Ihlen on video in “Marianne & Leonard”:

Dearest Marianne,

I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up,...

Nick Broomfield’s longtime friendship with Marianne Ihlen is the point of entry for “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” which tells the story of the ’60s romance between Norwegian divorcee Ihlen and Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. It was a relationship that cast a long shadow in both their lives, as well as in popular culture, though its sporadic nature also spoke to the era’s Free Love ethos and Cohen’s short-attention-span romanticism in particular. Broomfield, a dogged protagonist in films like “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” and “Tracking Down Maggie,” to name just a couple, pretty much keeps out of the way here, letting plentiful archival footage and a few latter-day interviewees (but neither Ihlen nor Cohen) tell the tale.

Since Cohen’s relentlessly self-reflective life has been amply documented, and Ihlen’s considerably less so, much of this ostensible dual portrait ends up being a recap of Cohen...

“Love is not a victory march,” Leonard Cohen sang in one of the many verses of his signature song “Hallelujah” — and Nick Broomfield’s haunting documentary “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” which premiered on Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival, is a lovely illustration of the twists and turns of a complicated relationship that produced some of the gifted songwriter’s most indelible songs.

The Marianne of the title is Marianne Ihlen, a young Norwegian woman who Cohen met in the early ’60s on the Greek isle of Hydra, where artists of all stripes washed up to enjoy an idyllic life where, says one friend of Marianne’s, “there was so much freedom that people went too far with it.”

Leonard was a poet and novelist, Marianne a young mother with a rocky marriage. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen; she didn’t agree,...

Long before her death in 2012 at age 48, Whitney Houston had become a cultural icon as recognized for her personal downfall as her success. The dazzling yet tender new documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me — which is receiving its world premiere on April 26 at the Tribeca Film Festival — reconciles both her tragic spiral and her astonishing talent. Co-directed by veteran documentarians Nick Broomfield (Kurt & Courtney) and Rudi Dolezal (Freddie Mercury, The Untold Story), the film combines spectacular, sing-your-heart-out concert footage of Houston with intimate private videos of the singer and testimonials from those who knew her.

The result is an experience that,...

John McNaughton’s “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” about the nomadic killer Henry and his murderous exploits, based on the real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, made its world premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1986. It then traveled the festival circuit throughout the late 80s, including Telluride and Boston, where it garnered acclaim and controversy from critics, distributors, and the public for its graphic violence and nihilistic tone. Finally, in 1990, Greycat Films picked it up for limited release and it entered theaters unrated, as opposed to the Mppa’s X rating, which was usually saved only for pornographic films. Now for its 30th anniversary, Dark Sky Films will release a 4K restoration of the film that will open in theaters nationwide. Watch an exclusive clip from the restored film below.

Read More: ‘Tales of the Grim Sleeper’ Director Nick Broomfield on Serial Killer’s Death Sentence:...

Convicted serial killer Lonnie Franklin’s death sentence Wednesday was welcome news to the families of his murder victims looking for closure, but for Nick Broomfield, director of the HBO documentary about Franklin “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” the story is far from over. Though Franklin has been brought to justice for a series of murders dating back to 1985, the systemic problems that prevented him from being caught for 25 years remain today, according to Broomfield.

Read More: The ‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer, Subject of ‘Tales of the Grim Sleeper’ Doc, Is Sentenced to Death

“Somebody could probably do exactly what Lonnie Franklin did again today, because nothing significant has changed in terms of the police’s attitude,” Broomfield said. “I feel the story is really just beginning.” During the year and a half of shooting for his 2014 documentary, Broomfield encountered a police force in South Central Los Angeles that he...

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., better known as the “Grim Sleeper,” has been sentenced to death. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy announced the decision on Wednesday, August 10.

In May, a jury convicted Franklin of 10 counts of murder: nine women and one teenage girl between 1985 and 2007. During the trial, prosecutors also connected him to several other murders, with detectives believing he may have been responsible for the deaths of at least 25 women.

“This is not a sentence of vengeance,” said the judge, who denied the defense’s motion for a new trial, as the Los Angeles Times notes. “It’s justice.”

Franklin, 63, was also convicted of attempted murder in connection with an attack on Enietra Washington, who survived and went on to testifying against him, calling Franklin a “piece of evil.” “You’re Satan representative,” she said. “You’re right up there with Manson.”

Read More: ‘Tales From the...

Lonnie David Franklin, the so-called "Grim Sleeper" profiled in Nick Broomfield's recent documentary "Tales of the Grim Sleeper," was found guilty on Thursday of murdering 10 Southern California people (9 women and one teenage girl) over the span of three decades. As CNN notes, The conviction marks Franklin as one of the most prolific serial killers in California history. The verdict was issues after a two-day deliberation and a three-month trial that included the testimony of 61 witnesses. Franklin picked up the "Grim Sleeper" moniker because of the elongated gap between slayings (nearly 13 years), all of which occurred in and around Franklin's South Los Angeles home. CNN reports, "prosecutors portrayed Franklin as a sexual predator who killed his victims, then dumped their bodies like the trash he was paid to collect."  The outlet also adds that "police linked Franklin to the crimes in 2010 using DNA...

Today, Showtime Documentary Films announced the start of production on a film exploring the incredible career and complicated life of Whitney Houston.  Produced, directed and narrated by acclaimed BAFTA Award winner Nick Broomfield ("Kurt & Courtney," "Tales of the Grim Sleeper"), the film, which will shoot in Los Angeles, will talk to the key people in Houston's life to create an indelible portrait of the artist. With behind-the-scenes materials, candid interviews and performance footage, including many of Houston's greatest hits, this film will offer a raw and uncensored look at Houston and explore the impact her life and death had on the people around her...

Waiting For Tonight: Goded Finds Friends in Circle of Sex Workers

Having spent the last 20 years visiting Mexico and the notoriously dangerous streets of the La Merced district in search of raw and revealing still images, the renowned photographer Maya Goded has developed a close connection with the tight-knit community of miraculous women who’ve made a lifelong career of prostitution, despite the risks and emotional tumult inherent to the job. Much like the book of Goded’s photos published under the same title back in 2006, Plaza de la Soledad, which translates as Loneliness Square, the photographer-turned-filmmaker’s first foray into the documentary feature form reveals an intense, and ultimately moving sense of trust between her and her subjects, while painting a portrait of modern Mexico less haunted by drug cartel than survived by average people just struggling to find some semblance of happiness.

With an endearing sense of reverence,...

Everything on TV last week retroactively fell under the shadow of what happened in Paris on Friday, which made the weekend shows feel like either a welcome escape or an act of mass commiseration. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver kicked off with the host addressing the terrorists with, "Fuck these assholes." Saturday Night Live — coming back strong from last week's Trump debacle — served up both remembrance and relief, with a touching bilingual nod to France. Even when television offered comfort food, we first had to say a somber grace.

The American Film Festival is building families. The 6th edition (October 20-25, 2015) of the Wroclaw, Poland film fest was better than any of the previous four I have attended as a jury member for the Us in Progress section. Networking with the USiP filmmakers, past participants Matt Sobel (“Take Me to the River”),Leah Meyerhoff (“I Believe in Unicorns”),Reza Sixo Safai (“A Girl Walks Home at Night Alone”) and whose present project “ The Loner” (he produced and stars in it, Daniel Grove directed) won at USiP, etc. mingled with Indie Star Awardees David Gordon Green and Hal Hartley and other filmmakers like Jenner Furst ("Welcome to Leith") invited to present their films and to eat and party together over five days and four nights which lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

African American Women's classics also showed for the first time ever to appreciative Polish audiences. Though luckily for them, but a sad miss for the audiences, every one of the filmmakers was too busy with other work to attend. The selected films brought rarely before scenes of life in America to a new public.

You can be sure Ava DuVernay was invited, and you can be equally certain that she was very busy with multiple projects.

When I was in Trinidad, I heard from the film's distributor, Michelle Materre, a well known lecturer and film curator whose film series and discussion group, Creatively Speaking, takes place at the N.Y. Film Society’s Lincoln Center and in L.A. that Julie Dash was busy working on a TV series or a doc. I hope one of you reading this will email me a more news of her, because since her film “Daughters of the Dust” premiered at Sundance in 1991, her fan base has grown and eagerly awaits more stories from her. For those who missed her instant classic at Sundance, "Daughters of the Dust" presents a transgenerational saga set on the fictitious island of Ibo's Landing in 1902 about a young woman's quest for identity. Guichees, or Gullahs, aka the Georgia Sea Islanders are U.S.'s most African community still living today off the Georgia and South Carolina coast. The film was presented to the audience as a radical feminist manifesto and landmark of independent American cinema.

Other films included in the series, curated by Ula Sniegowsk and a young film academic Ewa Drygalska, included Katherine Collins' (who tragically died of cancer at age 46) 1982 film "Losing Ground", Tanya Hamilton's "Night Catches Us", the popular and fabulous " The Secret Life of Bees" another Sundance premiering film, by Gina Prince-Blythewood (2008), Dee Rees' 2012 Sundance film "Pariah" and her recent HBO (who incidentally is an important sponsor of the festival with a showcase of its own films) fictional doc "Bessie" starring the one and only Queen Latifah, and Ava DuVernay's "Middle of Nowhere" and "Selma".

While we're on the subject of African American movies, the Spike Lee mentored new talent Michael Larnell, was here with my favorite "Next" generation film " Cronies".

Us in Progress had two out of six selected films about African Americans, the Four Award winning "Alaska Is a Drag" directed by former L.A. and Sundance Festival worker, debuting director Shaz Bennett, produced by Melanie Miller and Diane Becker; and "The Alchemist Cookbook" written and directed by Joel Potrykus. Other films included "Dope", documentarians' Albert Maysles' " In Transit", Nick Broomfield's "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" and Frederick Wiseman's "In Jackson Heights", Mark Silver's "3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets", sleeper hit "Tangerine" by Sean Baker, "Field Niggas" a nocturnal portrait of Harlem by Khalik Allah, David Gordon Green's “George Washington", and last, but by no means least, Clint Eastwood's "Bird" as part of his extensive retrospective.

This festival is held in the largest Arthouse multiplex in Europe, built and owned (as is the festival itself, along with New Horizons Film Festival in July and several others) by arthouse film distributor and entrepreneur Roman Gutek.

Fabulous. Written by Sydney Levine in her hotel room at The Monopole where an opera rehearsal wafts through the morning air of a sunny, dry 50*F metropolis mixing with the sound of the streetcar. This has been a fabulous experience topped off by a fabulous tour of the city and today a visit to Europe's most fabulous zoo and aquarium.

Asif Kapadia’s Amy, Anna Muylaert’s The Second Mother, Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu, John Maclean’s Slow West and Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood are among the fiction and documentary line-up.

The fiction selections are: Chus Gutiérrez’s Ciudad Deliro (Colombia); Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court (India); Miguel Llansó’s Crumbs (Ethiopia-Spain); Girlhood (France), Mario Crespo’s Gone With The River (Venezuela); Ana V. Bojórquez, Lucía Carreras’ The Greatest House In The World (Guatemala-Mexico); Alonso Ruizpalacios’ Güeros (Mexico); Rebecca Johnson’s Honeytrap (UK); Shonali Bose’s Margarita, With A Straw (India); Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s My Friend Victoria (France); and Carolina Borrero, Pinky Mon, Luis Franco, Abner Benaim and Pituka Ortega Heilbron’s Panama Canal Stories (Panama).

The section continues with: Nagesh Kukunoor’s Rainbow (India); Debbie Tucker Green’s Second Coming (UK); The Second Mother (Brazil, pictured); Walter Tournier’s Selkirk, The Real Robinson Crusoe (Uruguay-Argentina-Chile-Spain); John Maclean’s Slow West (UK-New Zealand); Jim Chuchu’s Stories Of Our Lives (Kenya-South...

Ever since “The Jinx” aired back in February one thing has been clear. HBO is on point in 2015 with their documentary programming. They have aired one hit documentary after another and we are barely over half way through the year. If you only have time for a few docs to watch this year, make sure most of them are from HBO because none of them will disappoint you.

Let’s start with the six week special that started it all. The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst. The series was directed and produced by Andrew Jarecki, the director behind the film All Good Things, a film that was also based on the strange events surrounding the disappearance of Durst’s wife. In the documentary, “The Jinx,” Jarecki follow Durst, the scion of New York’s billionaire real estate family, who has been accused of three murders over the past 30 years,...

For over two decades, Lonnie Franklin (dubbed the "Grim Sleeper") terrorized South Los Angeles, brutally killing prostitutes before getting caught in 2010. While murders were reported throughout the years, law enforcement was generally quiet about most of them, withholding information from the public, and not issuing so much as a warning to those he explicitly targeted. His friends, wife, and kids didn't have a clue what he was up to. Nick Broomfield's documentary, "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" (read our review), picks up the story right after Lonnie is arrested, exploring the community the man lived in and those he left in his wake. The movie investigates why Franklin was able to get away with this dangerous behavior for so long, but its interest mainly lies with the people surrounding the killer, lending an compassionate eye to the casualties of both a psychopath and a system that discarded them long ago.

Nick Broomfield’s new documentary is a little bit "Dateline," a little bit Ferguson. "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" offers up the identity of the titular serial killer in the opening minutes, but it still revolves around a whodunit. Or, really, a who-didn’t-do-anything, since the movie’s central mystery is why the Lapd took decades to find a killer believed to have murdered dozens (maybe hundreds, Broomfield suggests) of African-American prostitutes over a 25-year period in perpetually troubled South Central L.A. The likeliest answer to that puzzle of apparent police inaction may be so self-evident as to not generate much suspense. But Broomfield still has a knack for keeping audiences grim and alert, thanks to an inexhaustible ability to find indelible characters to put on screen. 'Grim Sleeper' ultimately turns out to be less about ineffectual policing in the African-American community — although that angle is clearly more relevant than ever at the moment.

There’s always been something irritatingly honest about Nick Broomfield’s documentaries, even when they’re not delivering what they’ve promised --- Margaret Thatcher, just for instance, who was never quite tracked down in “Tracking Down Maggie” back in 1994. But in his explorations of Extreme Americana -- exemplified by “Heidi Fleiss,” “Kurt & Courtney” and/or his two films on serial killer Aileen Wuornos -- he’s always an unabashedly goggle-eyed guest engaged in documentary tourism, who invades his own films, uses what he can get, glosses over what he can’t, but usually manages to peel a few scabs off the mottled surface of our national psyche, and psychoses. What the English director does in “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” is take a truism – that the Lapd’s relationship with the city’s minority communities historically sucks – and establish a story of lethal malpractice. When sometime-car-thief Lonnie Franklin was arrested in 2010 (and,...

There’s the myth of serial killing, the myth that it’s a “white thing”, the myth that black people may kill, yes, but never from sadistic pleasure. And then there’s reality. The names - Jake Bird, Wayne Williams, Chester Turner, Lorenzo Gilyard, and Andre Crawford - historical proof that whatever compulsion it is that moves the Ted Bundy’s and John Wayne Gacy’s of the world to murder, can be found in black men, too. It’s a compulsion that’s explored in “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” Nick Broomfield’s latest documentary about the now infamous serial killer, Lonnie Franklin Jr. Between the mid-1980s up until his eventual arrest in 2010, Franklin would kill nearly a...

17th edition of festival to open with Quentin Dupieux’s Reality and Sacha Jenkins’ Fresh Dressed.

RiverRun International Film Festival has unveiled the full lineup for its 17th edition, expanding from 10 to 11 days and running April 16-26.

The festival will open with Quentin Dupieux’s Reality and Sacha Jenkins’ hip-hop and fashion documentary Fresh Dressed, while David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn will close this year’s edition.

Overall, the festival will screen 165 films, 74 of which are features, from 35 countries.

Its narrative competition will screen 10 films, including Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou, Keith Miller’s Five Star and Naomi Kawase’s Still the Water, while Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence and Nick Broomfield’s Tales of the Grim Sleeper are among the 10 films screening in the documentary competition.

Along with its openiing and closing films, RiverRun will host special presentations of Benoit Jacquot’s 3 Hearts, Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery and John Maclean’s Slow West, among...

The True/False Film Festival has announced the lineup for its upcoming annual event, which takes place in downtown Columbia, Missouri from March 5-8. Selected from roughly 1,200 submitted and solicited films, the 38 chosen titles reflect the festival's typical focus on the art of non-fiction cinema. Many titles will be making their North American premieres, while others screened earlier this year at Sundance. The 2015 True/False Festival Lineup includes: "Something Better to Come" "Spartacus and Cassandra" "Rules of the Game" "Those Who Feel the Fire Burning" "White Out, Black In" "Heaven Knows What" "The Visit" "Drone" "(T)error" "Of Men and War" "Cartel Land" "Western" "Invasion" "Il Segreto" "Tea Time" "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" "Finders Keepers" "Meru" "I Am the...

Nick Broomfield's “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” screens at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, which kicked off on February 5, and will run through February 16th. Upcoming screenings: Saturday, February 14 at 2:10pm & Sunday, February 15 at 4:45pm There’s the myth of serial killing, the myth that it’s a “white thing”, the myth that black people may kill, yes, but never from sadistic pleasure. And then there’s reality. The names - Jake Bird, Wayne Williams, Chester Turner, Lorenzo Gilyard, and Andre Crawford - historical proof that whatever compulsion it is that moves the Ted Bundy’s and John Wayne Gacy’s of the world to murder, can be found in...

★★★★☆ The opening moments of Nick Broomfield's Oscar long-listed documentary, Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014), call to mind the narrative inspiration for recent podcast, Serial. Pitching up in South Central L.A. in search of the story behind the eponymous serial killer, Broomfield is met with strident claims that the man awaiting trial has been wrongly accused. The stage seems set for an investigation into innocence, but instead morphs to become a gripping exposure of institutional culpability. Broomfield's expert focus widens from the killer, Lonnie Franklin Jr., to a compelling study of the sociological factors that allowed him to remain at large for so long.

11th edition of festival to close with UK premiere of Force Majeure, and will feature 33 UK premieres and a record 11 world premieres.

While We’re Young is to receive its European premiere as the opening film of the 11th Glasgow Film Festival (Gff) (Feb 18-Mar 1).

Noah Baumbach’s comedy stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a settled married couple who are offered a second chance at youth when hipsters Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) come into their lives. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival last year.

This year’s festival will close with the UK premiere of Cannes Jury Prize-winner Force Majeure, written and directed by Ruben Östlund. The film explores the flaws and cracks in a marriage after an avalanche hits in the French Alps where the couple are on a skiing holiday with their children.

Supported by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, EventScotland, Creative Scotland and BFI, this year’s...

What a difference four months, and some good campaigning, makes.

When “Nightcrawler” and “Cake” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival back in September, the former movie seemed too dark and creepy and the latter too small to figure in the Oscar race. But as PricewaterhouseCoopers reps prepare to unveil this year’s nominations to the Academy staff on Wednesday night and to the entire world on Thursday morning, both of those films have found themselves in the thick of the race, as two of the unlikeliest potential success stories of this year.

Although I thought they were both near-prohibitive longshots only a few months ago,...

The THR roundtable brings together Brit Nick Broomfield ("Tales of the Grim Sleeper"), Laura Poitras ("Citizenfour"), Alan Hicks ("Keep On Keepin' On"), Ryan White ("The Case Against 8"), Rory Kennedy ("Last Days in Vietnam"), Orlando von Eisiendel ("Virunga") and Steve James ("Life Itself"). Each filmmaker takes time to tell his or her story, from the perils of financing to the pressure they put upon themselves to deliver socially important work. The smoothly-phrased Laura Poitras and eccentric Brit director--who in his film deliberately plays the fish-out-of-water card while chasing a murder story in South Central Los Angeles--come off especially strong, with zesty remarks about one another's films. Poitras: "I just want to say in terms of Nick's film, I can't believe it's not on the front page of every newspaper in this country, what's happening. That that many women could be killed and that the police...

It seems with each passing year the flood of year end lists are published earlier and earlier, assuring that at least a handful of films deserving a place on any given list are missed due to a lack of time and opportunity. Even here at Ioncinema.com, posting my list after the calender year has actually closed, it feels a little premature writing up a list, knowing there are plenty of films that I’ve yet to see due to a lack of screenings nearby – Mr. Turner, Foxcatcher, Leviathan, Winter Sleep and Selma just to name a few. I should note that it seems there is a lack of international releases on this list as well, but rest assured, of the many I saw this year, most won’t reach a domestic release until sometime in 2015, so films like Christian Petzold’s Phoenix, Tsai Ming-liang’s Journey to the West,...

Documentaries are not my favorite type of film. Most feel like they have enough material for 30-45 minutes of running time, and they just repeat their point over and over again. Some are very skillfully crafted. This Hollywood Reporter roundtable brings together a group of directors or some of the most respected documentaries of 2014. The group includes Steve James (Life Itself), Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), Ryan White (The Case Against 8), Nick Bloomfield (Tales of the Grim Sleeper), Alan Hicks (Keep On Keepin' On), Rory Kennedy (Last Days in Vietnam), and Orlando Von Einsiedel (Virunga). Of the bunch, I have only seen Citizenfour, which I regret. I don't regret seeing it, just that it is the only one. I want to catch up on the rest as soon as I possibly can. Even if documentaries are not my favorite, I still need to see them. I was particularly bad about seeing them this past year.

The year has finally drawn to a close. They're celebrating 2015 already in some parts of the globe (I guess our troops in Afghanistan are popping champagne right about now). But before really send 2014 off into the the sunset, a last look at the best of what silver screens had to offer this year...in one guy's opinion, anyway. Following up on yesterday's "If I Had an Oscar Ballot" post, I've run down my top picks in each standard Oscar category below. On the second page, you'll find a list of supplementary awards, stuff that the Academy doesn't recognize (but in a few cases, perhaps should). Feel free to offer up your own favorites in the comments section. And allow me to wish you a Happy New Year as the clock turns. *** Best Visual Effects: "Under the Skin" (Runner-up: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes") It's a shame this branch can't see past internal politics,...

Academy Awards

On December 2, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that they’d whittled down the 134 eligible documentary submissions to a 15 film shortlist. The chosen films include:

Art and Craft – Purple Parrot Films

The Case Against 8 – Day in Court

Citizen Koch – Elsewhere Films

Citizenfour – Praxis Films

Finding Vivian Maier – Ravine Pictures

The Internet’s Own Boy – Luminant Media

Jodorowsky’s Dune – City Film

Keep on Keepin’ On – Absolute Clay Productions

The Kill Team – f/8 filmworks

Last Days in Vietnam – Moxie Firecracker Films

Life Itself – Kartemquin Films and Film Rites

The Overnighters – Mile End Films West

The Salt of the Earth – Decia Films

Tales of the Grim Sleeper – Lafayette Film

Virunga – Grain Media

EntreVues Belfort International Film Festival - France - November 22nd – November 30th

The 29th edition of the Entrevues Belfort International Film Festival jury members announced the 2014 Awards, giving Anna Roussillon’s Je suis le peuple,...

We're winding down the year-in-review game here at HitFix as 2014 draws to a close. For whatever reason I took a year off of the ballot/superlatives posts, but I'm back with those personal assessments of the best of the year, beginning today with my top picks across the Academy's 24 categories. Check back in tomorrow for a list of winners from this lot, as well as others in a slew of peripheral categories. And of course, feel free to let us know what your Oscar ballot would look like in the comments section below. (Oh, and naturally it goes without saying this post is living in a parallel reality where I'm not confined to a specific branch for nominations and reign supreme over all categories with selections for each.) We'll find out if the Academy agrees with any of this when the 87th annual Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 15. *** Best...

Serving as the director of programming for this year’s Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival meant I watched way too many nonfiction films in 2014, some filled with stunning artistry, others with cringe-worthy talking heads. And since the Academy doc committee’s shortlist had me both cheering (Last Days in Vietnam! Tales of the Grim Sleeper!) and scratching my head (Citizen Koch? Really?) I thought I’d compile my own wish-it-were-this list for Oscar 2015. So here, in alphabetical order, are my 10 Doc Picks — only two of which overlap with the Oscar documentary shortlist — from the 134 submitted for Oscar […]...

Serving as the director of programming for this year’s Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival meant I watched way too many nonfiction films in 2014, some filled with stunning artistry, others with cringe-worthy talking heads. And since the Academy doc committee’s shortlist had me both cheering (Last Days in Vietnam! Tales of the Grim Sleeper!) and scratching my head (Citizen Koch? Really?) I thought I’d compile my own wish-it-were-this list for Oscar 2015. So here, in alphabetical order, are my 10 Doc Picks — only two of which overlap with the Oscar documentary shortlist — from the 134 submitted for Oscar […]...

Voters for the Academy Awards can begin casting their ballots online next Monday, Jan. 29 — and those who’ve opted out of the Internet option and requested paper ballots already have those in their hands.

So as the start of voting nears, TheWrap has pored over Academy lists to offer some facts, figures and fun about the 2014 Oscar race. For starters, here are a few things you might not know unless you’ve examined the Academy’s 33-page “Reminder List of Productions Eligible for the 87th Academy Awards.”

See photos: Golden Globes 2015: The Nominees (Photos)

It ranges from “About Last Night” to “Yves Saint Laurent,...

HBO opens the film this week in NYC, playing at Quad Cinema in lower Manhattan. It'll eventually premiere on HBO next April. There’s the myth of serial killing, the myth that it’s a “white thing”, the myth that black people may kill, yes, but never from sadistic pleasure. And then there’s reality. The names - Jake Bird, Wayne Williams, Chester Turner, Lorenzo Gilyard, and Andre Crawford - historical proof that whatever compulsion it is that moves the Ted Bundy’s and John Wayne Gacy’s of the world to murder, can be found in black men, too. It’s a compulsion that’s explored in “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” Nick Broomfield’s latest documentary about the now...

HBO has been in the non-fiction game for a long time, supporting everything from the great “Paradise Lost” trilogy to Spike Lee’s searing Hurricane Katrina documentary, “When The Levees Broke.” The cable network’s long and storied tradition continues with Nick Broomfield’s “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” and the film’s first trailer has arrived online. Running just under a minute, the trailer quickly sets up the launching pad for the documentary: for over two decades, a serial killer has haunted South Central La, preying on African-American women as the city’s police force turned a blind eye. What follows is an often frustrating look at how a neighborhood can be ravaged over time. We caught the film at Telluride and were mightily impressed by Broomfield’s latest. “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” ends a small awards-qualifying run in Los Angeles tonight at the Laemmle Playhouse 7, and...

A "weak" year? It's subjective, really. And even then, it can mean a number of things. A weak year for Oscar films? Ok, sure. That's just 6,000 people with a certain broad prestige taste, though. A weak year for the nuts and bolts of the trade? I've already argued not. A weak year for box office? I think we've long-proved that's a volatile game of up and down, so who cares? It's just what you like, man. And I liked some stuff. I liked that the year really set sail when an immaculately crafted Wes Anderson yarn ("The Grand Budapest Hotel") bowed at the Berlinale and went on to a hugely successful theatrical release. I liked that Jonathan Glazer ("Under the Skin") got back in the saddle and was as uncompromising as ever while Brendan Gleeson and John Michael McDonagh ("Calvary") were enriching their on-going partnership. I liked that the summer,...

Pretty much every month, HBO has a great new documentary premiering, and one of them has already played at the New York Film Festival. Tales of the Grim Sleeper dives into the life and crimes of Lonnie Franklin Jr., a man arrested as the suspected murderer of a string of young black women. But what's really scary is that police seemed to ignore this ongoing murder case despite claiming a victory after 20 years of investigations. Director Nick Broomfield exposes the past of Franklin, from the friends who knew the killer, to those who lost someone to his vicious crimes, but he also exposes something else very horrifying. Here's the teaser trailer for Nick Broomfield's documentary Tales of the Grim Sleeper direct from HBO: Tales of the Grim Sleeper is directed by Nick Broomfield, and follows the filmmaker as he heads to the neighborhood of alleged killer Lonnie Franklin Jr.

Director Broomfield ("Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer") exploits his charmingly klutzy persona as the fish-out-of-water Brit to get close to the African American community in South Central La where he investigates a serial killer who ran amuck for two decades before his arrest in 2010. But en route to the truth, Broomfield pokes holes in the case, and the prosecution, revealing a sordid history of municipal neglect and police discrimination happening in Los Angeles. Read More: "Tales of the Grim Sleeper Provokes with Irritating Honesty" Sure to push buttons, this bracing film premiered at Tiff and opens in La December 11 and NYC December 18 via HBO Films ahead of its April premiere on HBO. Alongside more widely regarded contenders "Citizenfour," "The Overnighters," "Keep on Keepin' On" and more, "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" is on the Academy's shortlist of 15 films vying for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. It's...

As is usually the case, 2014 held a rich vein of great nonfiction cinema … that went mostly untapped by any wide audiences. But just because documentaries are perpetually under-served by popular (and even critical) attention doesn’t mean that we should neglect these films. This is a celebration of all the best docs to come out this year.

But first, for the sake of full disclosure, here are all the notable docs of 2014 that I haven’t gotten around to seeing yet:

1989, 20,000 Days on Earth, Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, Big Joy, Big Men, Code Black, Evolution of a Criminal, The Great Flood, The Great Invisible, The Kill Team, National Gallery, The Missing Picture, Maidentrip, Manakamana, The Naked Opera, Virunga, Watchers of the Sky, What Now? Remind Me, Whitey

Next,we have some honorable mentions — other docs of 2014 that are well worth seeking out:

A Will for the Woods, Art and Craft,...

Citizenfour, Laura Poitras's documentary on Edward Snowden, has been named best feature at the International Documentary Association awards.

The filmmaker was presented with the award on Friday night (December 5) in a ceremony held at the Paramount Studios lot.

"What [Snowden] did was probably the most extraordinary act I've ever seen so we could know more as citizens," Variety quotes Poitras as saying.

She met Snowden whilst working on an investigative programme into government surveillance following 9/11, receiving emails from Snowden under the alias "citizenfour."

Poitras eventually met Snowden, who handed over classified documents that revealed surveillance programmes being carried out by the Nsa.

Citizenfour beat Finding Vivian Maier, Point and Shoot, The Salt of the Earth and Tales of the Grim Sleeper to the title.

It has been announced that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Snowden in a new film to be directed by Oliver Stone.

It is believed the as-yet-untitled film...

It's sort of a bummer to me that the two films at the forefront of this year's Best Documentary Oscar race — Laura Poitros' "Citizenfour" and Steve James' "Life Itself," each of which I like just fine — can't really hold a candle to some of the very best films in contention, whether "The Overnighters" (my favorite), "Tales of the Grim Sleeper," "Virunga," etc. Alas, that's how it's shaping up. And that's just, like, my opinion, man. But I get it. We must protect whistleblowers and the spotlight of the Oscars is important for this kind of thing, yada, yada, yada. (Not that there isn't a ton of nuance in this situation to be chewed on no matter what side of the political line you fall on.) But... Anyway, Poitros' film won the International Documentary Association's Best Feature prize Friday night, out of a field of nominees that included the aforementioned "Grim...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its shortlist of films under consideration for inclusion in the best documentary feature category of the Academy Awards next year. A huge 134 titles were submitted, which the Academy’s documentary branch has meticulously whittled down to just 15. Branch members will now decide which of those shortlisted will receive an Oscar nomination. Among the titles in competition are the much-discussed CitizenFour, Life Itself and Last Days In Vietnam – all three of which are widely considered to be frontrunners.

CitizenFour documents the initial meetings between Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden and a small number of journalists – including filmmaker Laura Poitras. Life Itself is a detailed portrait of renowned film critic Roger Ebert, and Last Days In Vietnam examines the withdrawal from Saigon by American forces at the close of the Vietnam War.

Other films selected for further consideration include subject matter such as...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Nick Broomfield’s Tales of the Grim Sleeper follows the case of the serial killer in South Central Los Angeles that spans more than 20 years. The first murder took place in 1985, but an apparent 14-year break between murders earned him the nickname of “the Grim Sleeper.” Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested in 2010 and is currently awaiting trial for almost a dozen women, though the number could increase. Though the case is a major part of the film, Broomfield also explores poverty, racism and the police investigation that failed to warn the neighborhood that a serial killer was suspected until 2008.

The film made the Academy’s documentary feature shortlist and could land a nomination at the 87th Academy Awards. Here are seven other documentaries about murder in America that scored nominations (in chronological order):

Four Days in November (1964)

Released just a year after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination,...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Yesterday, the Academy’s documentary branch narrowed down the list of 134 documentaries to 15 for the shortlist. Of these 15, five will be announced Jan. 15 as the nominees for the 87th Academy Awards, which will be held on Feb. 22.

Over the past few months, I wrote about three documentaries and the precedent past nominees set for them: Rory Kennedy’s Last Days in Vietnam, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s Finding Vivian Maier and Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga. All three films made the shortlist. The lists of related documentaries that landed nominations for best documentary consist of eleven Vietnam documentaries, six photography-related documentaries and eight documentaries about the animal world.

Two weeks ago, I looked at ten of the top documentary contenders that debuted at Sundance, and five made the shortlist: The Case Against 8, about the battle to overturn California’s Proposition 8; Last Days in Vietnam,...

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced the 15 films that will be competing for the Oscar’s 5 documentary feature nominations. The 15 were selected from a longer list of 134 eligible submissions, and from these 15, Academy members will now vote to select the five films that will eventually become the nominees at next year's Oscars event. The semi-finalists include 3 films covered on this blog: "Keep on Keepin’ On" (which captures the moving relationship between blind piano prodigy and jazz icon Clark Terry, and 23-year-old Justin Kauflin, who's just starting out as a jazz pianist in New York City); "Tales of the Grim Sleeper"...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 87th Oscars®.

Out of 134 films, 15 movies have been chosen! Out of these 15 films, Documentary Branch members will select the final 5 nominees!

The 87th Academy Awards® nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 5:30 a.m. Pt in the Academy.s Samuel Goldwyn Theater with the Oscars being held on Sunday, February 22!

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

"Art and Craft," Purple Parrot Films

"The Case against 8," Day in Court

"Citizen Koch," Elsewhere Films

"CitizenFour," Praxis Films

"Finding Vivian Maier," Ravine Pictures

"The Internet.s Own Boy," Luminant Media

"Jodorowsky.s Dune," City Film

"Keep On Keepin. On," Absolute Clay Productions

"The Kill Team," f/8 filmworks

"Last Days in Vietnam," Moxie Firecracker Films

"Life Itself," Kartemquin...

Jodorowsky’s Dune

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 87th Oscars. One hundred thirty-four films were originally submitted in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“Art and Craft,” Purple Parrot Films

“The Case against 8,” Day in Court

“Citizen Koch,” Elsewhere Films

“CitizenFour,” Praxis Films

“Finding Vivian Maier,” Ravine Pictures

“The Internet’s Own Boy,” Luminant Media

“Jodorowsky’s Dune,” City Film

“Keep On Keepin’ On,” Absolute Clay Productions

“The Kill Team,” f/8 filmworks

“Last Days in Vietnam,” Moxie Firecracker Films

“Life Itself,” Kartemquin Films and Film Rites

“The Overnighters,” Mile End Films West

“The Salt of the Earth,” Decia Films

“Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” Lafayette Film

“Virunga,” Grain Media

The Academy’s Documentary Branch determined the shortlist in a preliminary round of voting.

Depending on the year, sometimes the Academy appear to have their heads up their asses. Some terrific films get snubbed, some obviously strong contenders don’t make the grade, etc. But the Oscar Documentary Feature field just released their 15-strong shortlist, and we’re happy to say it includes many of our favorite documentaries of the year, as well as six of the films we placed on our Best Documentaries of 2014 So Far list that we ran in July: "Jodorowsky's Dune," “The Overnighters,” “The Internet's Own Boy,” the fabulous Congolese National Park doc “Virunga,” the Roger Ebert story “Life Itself” and the art-forgery tale “Art & Craft” (somehow we missed “Kill Team” which we gave an A-grade to). Released after the fact, and what would certainly make our updated list now is the powerful Edward Snowden doc “Citizenfour,” Nick Broomfield’s "Tales of the Grim Sleeper," and Wim Wenders’ very-excellent photography/soul-of-a-photographer doc,...