A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy Archive

2019 Conversations

Southern Sustainability
Friday, April 5 – 9:15 am

As the Triangle region becomes a hub for nonfiction film, many documentary makers—both those originally from the South and elsewhere—wonder how they can maintain a livelihood while pursuing their profession. This discussion with local funders and employers explores the many ways that filmmakers can monetize their skillsets while working on their own documentaries. The International Documentary Association has hosted sessions about sustainability in documentary filmmaking across the nation, and IDA’s Dana Merwin moderates this session.

Moderator: Dana Merwin, International Documentary Association
Eric Johnson, Trailblazer Studios
Rachel Raney, UNC-TV
Susan Ellis, Footpath Pictures
Naomi Walker, Southern Documentary Fund

Some Other Lives of Time
Friday, April 5 – 12:15 pm

The seven films in the 2019 Thematic Program “Some Other Lives of Time” highlight how passing minutes, hours, and days resonate with deeper significance in cinema. This conversation with guest curator RaMell Ross explores the way that time manifests on screen in his selections, and in his own films Hale County This Morning, This Evening and Easter Snap.

Eric Hynes, Museum of the Moving Image, Moderator
RaMell Ross, Easter Snap

#DocsSoWhite: The Path Forward
Friday, April 5 – 3:15 pm

In this fourth annual #DocsSoWhite discussion about equity and inclusion in the documentary industry, filmmakers and curators reveal their challenges, obstacles, and successes as leaders in the field. In this conversation, they identify pathways forward and examine what work needs to be done, and by whom.

Moderator: Seena Hodges, The Woke Coach
Gina Duncan, Cinema at Brooklyn Academy of Music
Maori Karmael Holmes, Blackstar Film Festival
Edwin Martinez, Decade of Fire
Bernardo Ruiz, Harvest Season

#DocsStillSoWhite: “Moving From Ally to Accomplice”
Saturday, April 6 – 9:15 am

This session examines how filmmakers of privilege can successfully move from being “allies to accomplices.” The teams from two 2019 films, Where the Pavement Ends and Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, discuss their experiences documenting stories in which the films’ directors are from different backgrounds than the characters in their films. How can filmmakers go beyond saying that they want to be helpful to colleagues of color and actually make change?

Moderator: Seena Hodges, The Woke Coach
Jane Gillooly, Where the Pavement Ends
Alexander Glustrom, Mossville: When Great Trees Fall
Khary Saeed Jones, Where the Pavement Ends
Michelle Lanier, Mossville: When Great Trees Fall

The Pathway to Producing
Saturday, April 6 – 12:15 pm

Experienced documentary producers discuss a filmmaking role that defies easy definition, including how they came to their careers, the collaborative process of working with directors, and their essential involvement even after films are finished.

Moderator: Ian Kibbe, The Documentary Producers Alliance
Jameka Autry, Ernie & Joe
Jessica Hargrave, Ask Dr. Ruth
Carolyn Hepburn, One Child Nation
Esther Robinson, Memories of A Penitent Heart

Framing the Conversation: Stanley Nelson
Saturday, April 6 – 3:15 pm

Our continued series of discussions with documentary trailblazers welcomes Full Frame founder and award-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski back to the moderator’s chair. Our 2019 interview is with celebrated filmmaker Stanley Nelson. A winner of multiple Emmys and a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” as well as the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama, Nelson is one of the most significant documentarians of the African American experience. Nelson also founded Firelight Media, inspiring generations of new voices in documentary film.

Moderator: Nancy Buirski
Stanley Nelson, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

2018 Speakeasy Conversations

Watch the 2018 A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy Conversations on vimeo

Running with Scissors
Friday, April 6 – 9:15 am

Moderated by Toby Shimin, This Is Home
Penelope Falk, STEP
Carla Gutierrez, RBG
George O’Donnell, Jackie Robinson

Esteemed documentary film editors come together to discuss their essential role in the storytelling process. How do editors choose projects? When should an editor come on board? How do editors communicate with directors about where their own ethics lie? This conversation examines the multi-layered issues that editors confront.

 

A Discussion with Jehane Noujaim
Friday, April 6 – 12:15 pm

Moderated by Deirdre Haj, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

Full Frame Tribute recipient Jehane Noujaim will join festival director Deirdre Haj to reflect on her body of work—her experiences balancing intimacy and urgency as she navigates unfolding stories—and examine the ways her films bring new perspectives to international events and continue to resonate today. Noujaim’s acclaimed films include The Square, Control Room, Rafea: Solar Mama, and Startup.com.

 

Documentary in the Time of Fake News
Friday, April 6 – 3:15 pm

Moderated by Christopher Clements, The Cleaners, Inventing Tomorrow
Stephen Maing, Crime + Punishment
Laura Nix, Inventing Tomorrow
Maxim Pozdorovkin, Our New President

Documentary film thrives in the space between impartial journalism and biased propaganda. But today there is increasing hostility towards media, and what passes for truth-based storytelling changes almost daily. How can documentaries retain their reputation for authenticity amidst a climate where public figures and advocacy groups are quick to discredit content that does not support the loudest tweet?

 

Crime and Punishment with Joe Berlinger
Saturday, April 7 – 9:15 am

Moderated by Sadie Tillery, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

This conversation with Thematic Program guest curator Joe Berlinger will explore the ways in which he’s approached crime and punishment in his own work. A leading voice in nonfiction film for the past two decades, Berlinger has made such landmark documentaries as Brother’s Keeper, the Paradise Lost Trilogy, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, WHITEY: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Crude, and Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru, among others. In addition to his feature documentary work, Berlinger has created many hours of crime-related unscripted series for television, including Gone: The Forgotten Women of Ohio, Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders, and Killing Richard Glossip.

 

#DocsSoWhite: The Gatekeepers
Co-presented with the Southern Documentary Fund
Saturday, April 7 – 12:15 pm

Moderated by Naomi Walker, Southern Documentary Fund
Carrie Lozano, International Documentary Association
Lauren Pabst, MacArthur Foundation
Sam Pollard, MAYNARD
Anu Rana, Diverse Voices in Docs, Kartemquin Films

Full Frame’s third iteration of our discussions on the lack of diversity in the documentary filmmaking field focuses on funding and programming. How do gatekeepers influence the ways documentaries are reviewed and adjudicated? Do diverse selection committees foster enough inclusion of equally diverse content? How can we create an inclusive field when the criteria we use to judge film may be embedded in an all-white Western European model? From foundations to film schools to festivals, does the definition of what is a “good” documentary need to change?

 

Framing the Conversation
Saturday, April 7 – 3:15 pm

Moderated by Nancy Buirski, The Rape of Recy Taylor

Our continued series of discussions with documentary trailblazers welcomes Full Frame founder and award-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski back to the moderator’s chair.  Two-time Academy Award winner, special guest, and advisory board member Barbara Kopple sits down with Buirski to speak about her immense body of work, including her most recent project, A Murder in Mansfield, the relationships she builds with her subjects, and plans for her next steps in an already illustrious career.

 

2017 Speakeasy Conversations

Watch the 2017 A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy Conversations on vimeo

Framing the Conversation
Friday, April 7 — 9:15 am

Moderated by Nancy Buirski, By Sidney Lumet, The Loving Story, Full Frame Founder
Chris Hegedus, Unlocking the Cage,The War Room
D A Pennebaker, Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop

As part of our 20th anniversary celebration, Full Frame is pleased to launch “Framing the Conversation”, a new series of discussions in the A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy in which individual filmmakers reflect on their work. In this inaugural year, two of the field’s most renowned filmmakers—Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker—discuss their careers and the documentary filmmaking profession.

Out of the Echo Chamber
Friday, April 7 — 12:15 pm

Moderated by Deirdre Haj, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Katy Chevigny, E-Team, Deadline
Marshall Curry, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Street Fight
Cynthia Hill, Private Violence, The Guestworker
Farihah Zaman, Field of Vision

Since Donald Trump’s stunning win in the 2016 presidential election, many in the documentary field are asking the same question: Are nonfiction filmmakers, and the profession in general, out of touch with a huge swath of fellow Americans, and if so, where do we go from here?

Advanced Circuitry: 20 Years of Festivals
Friday, April 7 — 3:15 pm

Moderated by Julie Goldman, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Weiner
Amir Bar-Lev, Long Strange Trip, My Kid Could Paint That
Ryan Harrington, Discovery Communications
Matthew Heineman, City of Ghosts, Cartel Land
Gary Hustwit, Helvetica, Objectified

Full Frame is one of the oldest and largest documentary-only festivals in the United States. Back when we started, there were far fewer nonfiction films and distribution streams than there are now, when there are so many of both. Using the festival as a frame, these esteemed documentary professionals look back at the business of utilizing the festival circuit to promote a film, and how it might work best in the future

Sustainability Now
Saturday, April 8 — 9:15 am

Moderated by Claire Aguilar, International Documentary Association
Justine Nagan, POV
Gordon Quinn, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Michael Schoenfeld, Duke University
Marco Williams, Two Towns of Jasper

At their recent “Getting Real” conference, the International Documentary Association began a series of conversations on sustainability for the documentary film field. With the NEA, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS once again on the chopping block for federal funding, how do documentary filmmaking professionals respond?

#DocsSoWhite 2.0: Representation, Agency, and Authorship in Doc Film
Saturday, April 8 — 12:15 pm

Moderated by S. Leo Chiang, Out Run, Mr. Cao Goes to Washington
Patricia Benabe,They Took Them Alive, The Hand That Feeds
Whitney Dow, Two Towns of Jasper, Whiteness Project
Yance Ford, Strong Island

Who gets to tell whose story, and how do we diversify the world of documentary filmmaking? This panel, begun at last year’s festival, spawned several national op-eds and articles as filmmakers wrestled with the ethics of representation, as well as building support for colleagues who have less opportunity than those in the ethnic majority. Full Frame advisory board member Leo Chiang participated in last year’s discussion and moderates this year’s group, as panelists discuss an issue that is not evolving quickly.

The In-Between
Saturday, April 8 — 3:15 pm

Documentary filmmaking often creates a feast-or-famine cycle for makers who continue to produce work over the course of many years. After releasing a film, there’s a period of time in which the filmmakers are on the road across the country and the world to promote their work. The next creative phase involves digging into the often-lonely and highly unglamorous development process of bringing nascent ideas to life as new, full-fledged projects. Per filmmaker request, this open space for conversation is about giving “between-projects” creative life, professional support, and focused creative feedback.

2016 Speakeasy Conversations

Watch the 2016 A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy Conversations on vimeo

Beyond the Choir
Friday, April 8 – 9:15 am

Moderated by Molly Thompson, A&E IndieFilms
Margaret Brown, The Great Invisible
Maxim Pozdorovkin, Clínica de Migrantes
Amy Ziering, The Hunting Ground

How do docs with a message reach the unconverted? Filmmakers discuss targeting their work for audiences with a wide range of views.

The New Theatrical
Friday, April 8 – 12:15 pm

Moderated by Brian Newman, Sub-Genre
Jake Craven, Gathr Films
Danielle McCarthy-Boles, Magnolia Pictures
Merrill Sterritt, Cinereach

Distributors discuss methods, both new and traditional, to build audiences for documentary films.

The Glass Ceiling
Friday, April 8 – 3:15 pm

Moderated by Deirdre Haj, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Rachel Boynton, Our Brand Is Crisis
Katy Chevigny, Big Mouth Productions
Carrie Lozano, The Ballad of Fred Hersch

Filmmakers weigh in on the challenges women face in the documentary industry, from gender bias to funding access.

#DocsSoWhite?
Saturday, April 9 – 9:15 am

Moderated by Ian Robertson Kibbe, Raising Bertie
S. Leo Chiang, Out Run
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
Sam Pollard, Two Trains Runnin’
Roger Ross Williams, Life, Animated

Is the documentary field more diverse than Hollywood? Directors address questions of representation and opportunity.

Perfect and Otherwise
Saturday, April 9 – 12:15 pm

Moderated by AJ Schnack, Caucus
Chris Hegedus, The War Room
Shola Lynch, Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed
D A Pennebaker, The War Room
David Van Taylor, A Perfect Candidate

In this conversation around the 2016 Thematic Program, filmmakers reflect on the inherent drama of documenting the electoral process. 

Slippery Truths
Saturday, April 9 – 3:15 pm

Directors who blur the lines between art and artifice open up about their approaches and the constructions inherent in documentary work.