As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is a very busy week for notable indie films coming to DVD for the first time. For fans of documentaries, at least three titles deserve mention.

Kudos to distributor Halo-8 Entertainment for unleashing Frank Pavich's N.Y.H.C. The title refers to the mid-90s New York hardcore music scene; the film itself was originally released on an underground VHS tape in 1999. Digitally remastered, the doc looks smashing, and, even if you're not a fan of the music, it's a terrific, well-told, engaging story. Musicians and fans open up about mothers, drugs, death, lyrics (one fan says, "You can't understand what they're saying, but if [the singer is] saying what he's saying he's saying, it's pretty cool"), day jobs, piercing, tattoos, violence, and above all, a love of music.

The two-disk edition features plenty of supplemental material, including deleted scenes, bonus segments, director's commentary, complete live performances of songs by the seven bands highlighted in the film, and more than three hours of updated interviews, in which those involved with the scene talk about what's happened to them. The DVD is available directly from Halo-8.

Those of us too young to remember Jimmy Carter the President will soon get to see Jimmy Carter the movie star. Of course, he's appeared in plenty of documentaries in the past, but the 39th President of the United States should receive his greatest cinematic distribution with Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man of Plains. The doc, which we first heard about last December, has just been picked up by Sony Classics and is about to figure heavily in the festival season. It will definitely be shown at the Venice Film Festival, and then it will also be screened in Toronto, where Carter is expected to appear. Demme's last documentary, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, also received good distribution -- from Paramount Classics -- and went on to a domestic gross of about $2 million. Demme, who is best known as the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has better luck with music documentaries than political (The Agronomist only broke a quarter-million). However, Man of Plains was produced by Participant Pictures, who gave us An Inconvenient Truth and Murderball, so hopefully it can follow up those hits with another.

Man of Plains is a book-tour road-trip doc (think Michael Moore's The Big One), which follows Carter as he promotes his 2006 best seller Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Via three months worth of radio, news and university appearances (though not Brandeis, which refused Demme's camera), the film features the former President speaking out about his quest for international peace and encouraging debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like the book it showcases, the film should garner some controversy -- possibly even from former President Bill Clinton, who is one of the stronger critics of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (hopefully Demme got that important interview). Man of Plains features cinematography by Declan Quinn (Leaving Las Vegas) and editing by Kate Amend, who cut the Oscar-winning doc Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. With this acquisition, Sony Pictures now has nine films playing at Toronto, including The Jane Austen Book Club and Persepolis.

Whatever you may have thought of him as president of the United States, in the years since he was in office, President Jimmy Carter has certainly become one of this country's most vocal, influential and distinguished elder-statesman. His tireless pursuits of truth, justice and, yes, the American way are an example to us all -- Democrat or Republican. Obviously, Oscar-winning director Johnathan Demme thinks Carter is pretty great too because, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he's in the midst of helming a documentary about the Georgia-born ex-President.

The documentary, produced by Participant Productions, the company responsible for the compelling An Inconvenient Truth, featuring former Vice President Al Gore, has been following Carter across the U.S. to bookstores, talk shows and Wal-Marts as Carter tours the country promoting his newest book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In addition, the documentary will feature Carter speaking on how to achieve peace in the Middle East and his philosophy of human compassion for all people. According the the article, Demme has been taking an "experimental" approach with the doc to enhance its appeal and emphasizing spontaneity over the more traditional "talking heads" method used in many documentaries. Plus, he's just a big fan of Carter's. "The picture is just an extraordinary honor for me. i loved Carter when he was President and I've loved him more and more since he left office. He makes me so proud to be an American, " said Demme in the article.

And Participant Productions Exec VP Diane Weyermann, who's overseeing the project for the company, was equally as flattering to the former President -- and her director: "Jimmy Carter embodies a determined sense of justice and a devout faith, grounded in tolerance and driven by a fierce desire for world peace," Weyermann said. "Jonathan Demme is a filmmaker of immense vision who will be able to marry the intimate portraiture of 'Heart of Gold' to the political savvy of 'The Agronomist' and advance his series of 'portrait docs' with a subject so worthy of further examination." If this doc turns out even half as interesting, informative and compelling as An Inconvenient Truth, Demme just might have to make some room on his bookshelf come Oscar time. I'll be seeing it, how about you?