Patricia Aufderheide's Posts

Hundreds of documentary filmmakers have signed on to the open letter to PBS that Kartemquin Films posted only a week ago.  Among the signatories: Barbara Kopple, Bill Moyers, Alex Gibney, Michael Moore, Joan Churchill, Jennifer Fox, Chuck Workman and other major award-winners. (Signatures still are being accepted.) Filmmakers are, in the technical language that IndieWIRE employed, pissed. Read more...

Copyright and creativity, as usual, were deeply intertwined at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year. I missed some cool panels that friends were giving, because logistics overcame me. Read more...

At panel after panel at South by Southwest (SXSW), we saw the playing out of multiplatform and transmedia experiments, both by big and little guys. It turns out that story is key (probably not a surprise for filmmakers).

I participated in one of two panels on using html5 for film. (That “html5” stuff is actually shorthand for open, web-native video. Our panel, HTML5 for Film: Leading Edge or Bleeding Edge?, featured Mozilla’s Ben Moskowitz, Xavier Facon of the advertising firm Crisp Media, James Burns of Zeega, and filmmaker Luisa Dantas. Read more...

PBS, the biggest of the programming services for public TV, has rescheduled two programs that showcase independent producers’ work from across the nation: Independent Lens and POV. The results could put the future of those programs at risk, because of declining viewership. Read more...

Several docs at SXSW 2012 charmed me for their portrayal of artistic processes. "Wonder Women," at a crisp 62 minutes, was a delicious journey through decades of popular culture. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan interweaves the evolution of women superheroes, from the original Wonder Woman comic through Charlie’s Angels, Buffy, Riot Grrrls and beyond, and the history of modern feminism. Read more...