January 13, 2004
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival and UCSB Arts & Lectures present The Truth of Nonfiction: A Panel Discussion on the State of Documentary Filmmaking
Summary Facts:
- The Truth of Nonfiction: A Panel Discussion on the State of Documentary Filmmaking
- Panelists include Les Blank, George Hickenlooper, Steve James, Rick McKay and Barbara Trent
- Panel moderated by noted Native American documentarian Phil Lucas
- Co-presented by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and UCSB Arts & Lectures
- Thursday, February 5
- 7 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $15 / UCSB students: $10
- Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535
It’s a boom time for documentary film, as filmmakers find new idioms and new vocabularies. The Truth of Nonfiction: A Panel Discussion on the State of Documentary Filmmaking will be an engaging look at nonfiction films by six talented documentary filmmakers. This informative, entertaining event, presented by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and UCSB Arts & Lectures, is on Thursday, February 5 at 7 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall.
Moderating the panel will be Phil Lucas, a pioneering indigenous filmmaker who has produced and directed more than 100 projects in a four decade career highlighted by the 1980 PBS series Images of Indians and the 1994 TBS series The Native Americans.
The panel will feature the following filmmakers:
Les Blank has worked on documentary films since 1960, generally providing intimate glimpses into the lives and music of passionate people who live on the periphery of society. His many films include The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1970), Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980), Gap-Toothed Women (1987), Maestro: The King of the Cowboy Artists (1995). He is probably best-known for Burden of Dreams (1982), his fascinating portrait of obsessive German director Werner Herzog during the arduous shoot for Fitzcarraldo.
George Hickenlooper has directed both fiction (The Man from Elysian Fields, The Big Brass Ring) and documentary films. His nonfiction work concentrates in revealing portraits of filmmakers such as his award-winning Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) about Francis Ford Coppola. His latest release The Mayor of the Sunset Strip profiles the charismatic Rodney Bingenheimer, who as DJ Rodney on the ROQs at Los Angeles radio station KROQ has shaped the music industry by championing bands from X and Blondie to No Doubt and Coldplay.
Steve James directed Hoop Dreams, a powerful look at two inner-city Chicago high school basketball stars, and one of a handful of documentary box office success in the 1990s. In 1997 he directed his first dramatic feature Prefontaine. He visited the 2003 Santa Barbara International Film Festival with Stevie, a documentary about a poor young man from rural southern Illinois for whom James had been a Big Brother ten years prior; the film offers a fascinating commentary on what a nonfiction filmmaker’s responsibility is to his subjects. His most recent project is The New Americans, a seven-hour mini-series about immigrants to the U.S.
Rick McKay is an award-winning producer/director/writer. For five seasons he was a segment producer on WNET 13’s City Arts, the most honored, locally produced show in television history, which won over 30 Emmys. In addition to Birds of a Feather, a documentary of his adventures searching for drag queens to help the legendary director Mike Nichols make The Birdcage, McKay has completed Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There. Featuring over 100 Broadway stars, including Carol Burnett, Steven Sondheim, Jeremy Irons and Angela Lansbury, the film captures the magic of the Great White Way.
Barbara Trent is an Oscar-winning filmmaker (for 1993’s The Panama Deception), seasoned activist and trailblazer for change. She is co-founder and co-director of The Empowerment Project, which provides facilities, training and other support for independent producers, artists, activists and organizations working in video and other electronic media. Its purpose is to work towards democratizing access to the media.
Also invited to the panel is controversial filmmaker Nick Broomfield, whose critically acclaimed Biggie & Tupac screened to a sold-out UCSB Campbell Hall in winter 2003. His current film Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer charts the final days of Aileen Wuornos.
Following the panel, the Film Festival and Arts & Lectures will present a screening of The Story of the Weeping Camel, a film Variety called “remarkable and beguiling,” at 9 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. The first-ever Mongolian entry for the foreign-language Oscar, this emotional powerhouse follows Gobi Desert camel herders who face a crisis when a mother camel rejects her newborn, a rare pure white calf. A separate $8.50 admission is required to see the film.
Tickets are $15 for the general public and $10 for UCSB students and available in advance, and at the door, starting at 6 pm, if still available.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.