press release

In the competition category, there are 55 feature length films and 28 shorts. Full Frame will premiere twenty-five films this year (broken down into World, North American, U.S., East Coast, Southeast, and Theatrical). There are twenty-two invited films. A total of 105 films will be shown during the festival.

On opening night, Full Frame is proud to present the World Premiere of Bearing Witness, a film by Bob Eisenhardt, Barbara Kopple, and Marijana Wotton, an original documentary for A&E Indie Films. Bearing Witness intimately examines the personal and professional lives of five incredible women journalists reporting in war-torn areas as they grapple to cover the dangerous and tragic realities of war. Through their stories, the film gives us a unique perspective on the Iraqi conflict and other world hot-spots. Filmed over the course of a year and told from a first hand perspective, Bearing Witness reveals the price of these women's sacrifice and their commitment to get the story.

The special curated program for 2005, Why War?, examines, in a series of eight programs, the motivations and justifications for war. Curated by Cara Mertes, the Executive Director of P.O.V./American Documentary, Inc., Why War? will include the rarely-screened feature-length documentary, Winter Soldier, which captures the terrifying testimonies of more than 200 ex-GIs at the 1971 Detroit Winter Soldier Investigation concerning American atrocities in Vietnam. The film is both riveting and repulsive in its evocation of the pain and hypocrisy that that war has come to represent. The programs Mertes has created will include discussions led by author Walter Mosley (founder of the Seeds of War Prize for the festival) with playwright Ariel Dorfman, filmmakers Barbara Kopple, Eugene Jarecki and Peter Raymont.

Full Frame's curated program Southern Sidebar was instituted the first year of the festival. This year, the program, curated by Macky Alston and sponsored by Turner South, is entitled Going Home — Southern Families and the Longing to Belong. It includes a film on the descendents of slaves and slave owners (Family Name); a film on a middle-aged transgender person living in rural Georgia (Southern Comfort); and a film about a son returning to the South to face his father's death (Time Indefinite).

The festival's panel programming has always played a prominent role at the festival and this year takes on touchstone issues for filmmakers, programmers and audiences. Speak Out: Risky Business, a TimesTalks, The New York Times Speaker Series panel moderated by Michael Oreskes, Deputy Managing Editor of The New York Times, will explore the challenge of representing reality in a tense moral climate that demands "decency" in programming. The panel, which includes Shelia Nevins (President of HBO Documentary and Family), David Lang (Professor of Law at Duke University), comes at a critical moment for all — as PBS faces the loss of critical funding, and other venues face censorship issues. As networks and communities find themselves battling FCC fines and special interest watchdog organizations, filmmakers and programmers find themselves battling a new and chilling moral mandate.

Heyday: The Reality of Theatrical Success, moderated by Sheila Nevins, continues Full Frame's exploration of the state of the documentary. The panel, which will feature Lauren Lazin, director of the Academy Award® nominated Tupac: Resurrection, Eamonn Bowles (Magnolia Pictures), John Sloss (Cinetic Media) and others will discuss the reality of theatrical success and the continued importance of television and festivals. Artists in a World at War, moderated by Ariel Dorfman is an extension of the curated program Why War?, and will consider the documentary filmmaker's role as witness to global strife, conflict, and warfare. Moderated by film critic Godfrey Cheshire, Filmmakers Exchange will include a panel of visiting Turkish filmmakers who will be at Full Frame to inaugurate a new festival initiative: Kültür/Culture: The Turkish American Exchange Project.

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is produced by Doc Arts Inc. a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The presenting sponsors are The New York Times and Duke University.