boys of baraka Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In case you aren't aware, Michael Moore has his own film festival up in Michigan, where he showcases hand-picked films that he loves, as an alternative to the "assembly line" movies made in Hollywood. This year's festival begins next week, but without one of the films that Moore had planned on screening. Magnolia Pictures has pulled Jesus Camp so that the documentary will not be tainted by being associated with Moore. See, the distributor is hoping to market the film, which was directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, to Evangelical Pentecostals as well as to liberal documentary fans. And obviously those Pentecostals aren't going to see a movie they know has Moore's seal of approval stamped on it, right?

"I have no problem with Michael Moore," Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles told indieWIRE, "its[sic] just that (he) is such a polarizing figure and I don't want to turn off a certain segment of the audience that is going to like the film and find it interesting." Supposedly the documentary is completely unbiased in its approach to its subject of an evangelical summer camp, and it would make no sense to have people thinking Ewing and Grady are anything like the partisan director of Fahrenheit 9/11. Bowles also mentioned that his decision was made so people can "make up their own minds." Why he can't trust the Pentecostals to do so if the film shows at Moore's Traverse City Film Festival is beyond me. But I hope for Bowles sake that none of them read indieWIRE. ...

[via Hollywood Wiretap]

I like to think that my beautiful city of Seattle is home to so much wonderful film because there are so many brainy, intellectual film geeks here. In reality, it's probably as much because of the rainy weather here as anything else. Sure, we have an abundance of mainstream theaters like every other big city, but we also have lots of film that will feed your soul through the rest of your mundane week. Why settle for what's playing at the multiplex, when you can open the windows of your world through such a wide range of glorious world cinema, right here in your own backyard? We have lots of film here for the cinephile, and my fellow Emerald City residents will be able to come here to find out what's going on in film in Seattle,  every week, from now until the end of time. Well, maybe not until the end of time; life is impermanent. But film? Film is forever.

What would happen if you took a group of middle-school boys from a tough, inner-city school district in Baltimore, and transplanted them to a boarding school in Kenya, in the middle of nowhere? That’s the question the Baraka program asked, and for seven years the program, funded by a private foundation, picked a group of boys from Baltimore public schools each year to enroll in the Baraka school. The boys accepted would get two years of free tuition, room and board in Kenya, in an environment where they had one-on-one attention from teachers for the first time in their young lives.

Filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing spent over three years chronicling the experience of four such boys: Devon, Montrey, and brothers Richard and Romesh - boys they came to think of as The Boys of Baraka. When I spoke with Rachel Grady on the phone for this interview, the thing that struck me most was the passion with which she spoke of these boys she set out to film, and ultimately befriended. The insight Grady has gained from working with the boys and their families, she says, has forever changed her perspective on life in our society, especially for poor kids growing up in the inner city.

(interview below the fold)

Today Show critic Gene Shalit may not love those gay cowboys (yes, we know, they're sheepherders, but "cowboys" sounds so much more rugged and manly), but the rest of the film critics sure do. Brokeback Mountain stomped all over the competition at the Broadcast Film Critics Association's Critics' Choice Awards, snagging wins in three cats, including Best Picture. The film also won honors for Michelle Williams for Best Supporting Actress, in an award shared with Amy Adams for Junebug, and for Ang Lee as Best Director. The BFCA wins bode well for the films shot at Oscar gold next month - five of the six past years winners of Best Picture at the Critics' Choice.

Brokeback's Heath Ledger lost out to Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, and Reese Witherspoon declared, "I love critics! This year, anyway," as she took the Best Actress prize for her portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line. Paul Giamatti snuck in a surprise victory over George Clooney for Best Supporting Actor, while Crash won the screenplay and ensemble awards.  March of the Penguins continued to dominate the documentary scene, beating out Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Murderball, Mad Hot Ballroom and Grizzly Man, in a race that could end up closely mirroring the Oscars. However, two documentaries that I think should get noms - Favela Rising and Boys of Baraka - were ignored in the Critics' noms in spite of Favela Rising winning the International Documentary Association's top award for feature lenth documentaries in November (actually Favela shared the award with another film, Our Brand is Crisis, but still, other documentary filmmakers thought it rocked). Look for interviews with directors of several documentaries on the Oscar shortlist within the next month here on Cinematical, because we love you, and we know you need your serious film talk to wash the taste of Bloodrayne out of your mouths. 

Complete list of 2005 Critics Award winners and nominees is here.