press release

March 16, 2006: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Announces Special Programming for 2006 Fest

(Durham, North Carolina) Full Frame Documentary Film Festival announces special programming and invited films for the 2006 festival taking place in Durham, North Carolina from April 6-9th this year.

Films will include Alan Berliner's brilliant Wide Awake, a moving exploration of insomnia, the science of sleep, and the challenges of balancing art and family; a sneak preview of Ken Burns' work-in-progress, WWII; Al Franken: God Spoke by Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob; Thomas Lennon's film on North Carolina politico Terry Sanford; The Drug Years; a three-hour opus by Dana Heinz Perry and Hart Perry; Original Cast Album: Company, D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock's doc on Sondheim production; and The Heart of the Game by Ward Serrill. This film about girls, basketball and the relationship between race and sports in America is being presented free to the public. Also debuting at the festival will be Time Piece, the World Premiere anthology of short films born from Kultur/Culture, the cross cultural exchange launched last year by Full Frame with filmmakers from the U.S. and Turkey.

Sydney Pollack's Sketches of Frank Gehry, also an invited film, will be the Opening Night film of the festival and will include a Q&A with the Academy Award® winning director. The screening is sponsored by the Capitol Broadcasting Company.

Al Franken will also be coming to the Triangle-based festival as part of the special screening of filmmakers Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob's hilarious portrait of the satirist, radio entrepreneur and host now turned political candidate. Their film on this new American icon and the extended Q&A with Franken will be sponsored by VH1 and will be in a new programming feature of the festival called Center Frame.

Center Frame events highlight films and extended conversations with special guests following the films. Another Center Frame event will be the special program, For New Orleans, an evening of film, music and talk. The evening will begin with a screening of New Orleans Brass, a cultural history of the city of New Orleans framed through the development of the brass marching band by director St.Clair Bourne. A discussion about the city will follow among the filmmaker, Branford Marsalis and his brother, Ellis Marsalis III. It will conclude with a performance by Branford Marsalis.

Directors D.A. Pennebaker and Ross McElwee will be on hand to help honor Richard Leacock as Full Frame presents him with the 2006 Career Award. As part of this tribute, a screening of Leacock's A Stravinsky Portrait, an intimate look at the composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky will be shown.

Thomas Lennon's Terry Sanford and the New South, also free to the public, is a look at the life of a former Governor and Senator of North Carolina, past-President of Duke University and most notably the man who seconded John F. Kennedy's nomination for the presidency, a very controversial decision in those days. Lennon looks at this beloved politician and his role in the Democratic Party, and how he has shaped the impression of the party in the state and came to embody the "New South." The screening will be sponsored by Thirteen/WNET New York, UNC-TV, Duke University and The Center for Documentary Studies, following the screening, the PBS affiliates will host a panel discussion moderated by PBS' Judy Woodruff.

The World Premiere of Time Piece heralds Full Frame’s first filmmaking venture inspired and supported by the Full Frame Institute. It is an omnibus film, exploring cultural ideas and personal stories told through shorts films associated with times of day. Twelve filmmakers—six from Turkey, six from the U.S.—participated in this documentary and many will be on hand to discuss what it was like to work on this groundbreaking concept. The directors include: Nurdan Arca, Ozgur Arik, Edet Belzberg, Linda Goode Bryant, Alex Gibney, Nathaniel Kahn, Albert Maysles, Ersan Ocak, Murad Ozdemir, Sam Pollard, Sehbal Senyrut, Mustafa Unlu.

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.

Contact:

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
919.687.4100
info@fullframefest.org