The BRITDOC festival day passes are now on sale

THE ART AND BUSINESS OF CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY
Keble College, Oxford July 26-28th

The BRITDOC festival day passes are now on sale!
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The day pass gets you into all films, masterclasses and special events on a first come, first served basis.
Daily highlights are below, the full schedule is on the site now.
www.britdoc.org/festival

DAY PASSES ARE LIMITED TO 50 PER DAY SO BOOK NOW TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!

WEDNESDAY highlights

*Fiction Financing for Feature Docs*
Unravel the mysteries of tax breaks, sales and leaseback with film legal experts Bird & Bird and British film financiers. Sponsored by Bird & Bird

*Successful Co-production Panel*
Peter Symes from Discovery Masterschool guides us through the business of international co-pro where filmmakers and commissioning editors give both sides of the story. Sponsored by Discovery

*Would Like to Meet*
Your chance to speed date 20 of the UK’s top scientists – get together and conceive new documentary ideas.

THURSDAY highlights

*The UK Pitching Forum*
The Day Pass will also give you access to the Sheldonian Theatre where over a dozen top international commissioning editors (including those from HBO, ARTE, IFC, A&E, Court TV, YLE, SBS and Al Jazeera) and other funders (the Ford Foundation and The Sundance Fund) will be hearing and reacting to pitches from 12 British filmmakers with big stories that need funding. We are still accepting pitches to the forum – apply now!

*How to Work the International Festival Circuit*
It’s where you make your name and sell your films. Get the inside track from Colin Brown of Screen International, John Cooper from Sundance, Sandra Hebron from London Film Festival and Matt Dentler from SXSW. Sponsored by Screen International

FRIDAY highlights

*Fact vs. Fiction Debate*
Featuring the UK’s finest Directors who’ve crossed the line from documentary to fiction including Mike Figgis, Nick Broomfield, Penny Woolcock and Kevin MacDonald. Sponsored by the UK Film Council. Followed by Prize giving for the films in competition

*Bussmann’s Holiday*
Special Preview performance of comedy writer Jane Bussman’s new Edinburgh Fringe show.

The full schedule is on the site now.
The day passes are limited to 50 per day so please book now to avoid disappointment!
http://www.britdoc.org

Under the mike

As a documentary film-maker, Nick Broomfield has made his name dissecting the lives of the world's most notorious characters - from Kurt and Courtney to serial killer Aileen Wuornos - and his cinema verit?tyle has inspired a host of imitators. But how much scrutiny can he stand himself, asks Carole Cadwalladr.

The radical who fled the revolution

The radical who fled the revolution

The BBC's former head of documentaries tells James Silver of his frustration at trying to run a department that was 'emasculated' by cuts - and why divisions and factions within the corporation made him quit

Monday June 12, 2006
The Guardian

There cannot be too many leading TV executives who know how to build and dismantle a truck, but Alan Hayling, the BBC's head of documentaries until two weeks ago, is one of them. In 1976, Hayling, then a straggle-haired socialist trouble-maker with a double first from Cambridge, was attempting to film a documentary for the Newsreel Collective about what it was like to work in the car industry on the factory-floor. He landed an assembly-line job at the Ford plant in Slough, planning to smuggle in a camera so that he could film undercover. However, that quickly proved impossible thanks to the introduction of stringent bag-searches to combat the widespread theft of spare parts. When, simultaneously, his funding dried up, Hayling faced a dilemma. Should he quit and set up in TV on his own or stay on at Ford? In those days film stock was eye-wateringly expensive and he was broke. So he kept the job and ended up staying for eight years.

Three decades later, Hayling, 58, is poised to launch a Soho-based independent TV production company with his partner, film-maker Alex Cook. Largely "factually-driven", Renegade Pictures will make a wide-range of documentaries, science, history and current affairs programmes, as well as developing documentary and factual entertainment "formats". It is also planning to snap up other independents. Indeed, negotiations to buy one well-known - though as yet unnamed - company are continuing.

He leaves the BBC after just two years in his post - a period he describes as "very frustrating", during which his department was "emasculated" by internal reforms, as part of director general Mark Thompson's swingeing cost-cutting drive.

Read it all here. (Subscription)

The Age of Aids

An epidemic's lessons

LIKE ANY epidemic, AIDS has been sweeping in its lethal reach. Its victims have included gay males, hemophiliacs, injection-drug abusers, heterosexual men, heterosexual women, and the babies of infected women. A two-part TV documentary by ``Frontline," scheduled to air on WGBH Tuesday and Wednesday this week, chronicles its toll and leaves viewers with no doubt that, with a vaccine still years or decades in the future, better prevention will be the key to keeping AIDS from devastating other regions as relentlessly as it has southern Africa.

Directed by Renata Simone for the Public Broadcasting Service, ``The Age of AIDS" marks the 25 years since five gay males in Los Angeles went to doctors with symptoms of immune-system collapse that set off alarms at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fair and comprehensive in its examination of AIDS's past, the film implies a lesson for its future: With forthright leadership, the disease can be kept within bounds. But if populous countries with emerging epidemics like Russia, India, and China do not muster such leadership the prognosis is grim.

At a time when President Bush is facing low approval levels, ``The Age of AIDS" is a reminder of what might turn out to be his presidency's finest moment: His commitment in his 2003 State of the Union of $15 billion over five years to help Africa and the Caribbean cope with AIDS. President Clinton also comes off well, both for making it a priority in office and for his efforts since. The contrast with the indifference of President Reagan is striking.

In Africa, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni saw the peril of AIDS early on and led his country in the ABC prevention campaign of abstinence, being faithful to one partner, and condom use. In South Africa, President Nelson Mandela did not provide leadership, and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, for a long time denied that a virus caused AIDS and resisted efforts to make AIDS drugs widely available.

Read more here.

Nick Broomfield on his career

A Radio 4 interview with Nick Broomfield about his career on the release of a DVD of his early work. (Nick Broomfield: The Early works).

Listen to it here.

Nice South Africans

"I have never met a nice South African, and that's not bloody surprising man..." rings the cheery 80's UK hit song.

This documentary by the same name, is a tongue in cheek exploration of the 1 million South African ex pats in the UK. Observational in style, it follows the organisers of two South African events as they prepare for their events. The one is the very Afrikaans UKkasie cultural festival and the other the glamorous Home away from Home dance parties.

Funny and at times poignant, it portrays the identity crises and struggles of being South African in the UK.

The Monster (Provisional title)

The story of one of South Africa's most deadly gangsters set in the early 90's Township War.

This documentary is about how an ordinary gangster - Victor - got caught up in violent politics.

Victor and a friend, a township politician, were in love with the same girl. This love triangle sets in motion a tragic series of events. These events culminate in Victors involvement is a series of massacres and his mysterious death at the hands of police.