Obama takes Bollywood… chori chori. Maybe the 2008 elections will be this fantastic! We can only hope.

Persepolis, a Sony Pictures Classic, opens in NYC on Christmas Day.

The film is true to the books on many levels. The animation doesn’t stray from the comic book style of the graphic novels. Most of the key scenes from the two books are there, making it a longer length feature. And the stories are just as poignant, although the novels naturally leave more to the imagination.

To learn more and watch the trailer visit the film’s official website: www.sonypictures.com/classics/persepolis

Recently, the shortlist for Best Documentary Oscar nominations were announced and there were many people with some strong feelings about it.

AJ Schnack, whose film, Kurt Cobain About A Son qualified under the Academy’s rules but was not selected, wrote a lengthy article. This point was particularly interesting:

Tricia Regan, whose film, Autism: The Musical, was on the shortlist this year, had this to say:

Many other people are talking about this.

I looked at the shortlist and had not heard of many of these films. (And I am someone who sees a decent amount of docs.) I was disappointed that The King of Kong, my absolute favorite movie of this year, was not on this list. I have a hard time believing that all of these films are better. (Yes I know this list is subjective.) And I do believe that the storyline of the film — a battle to be the greatest Donkey Kong player in the world — stopped it from being selected. You can’t nominate a film like that for the Academy Award. Well, I think you can but the “powers that be” obviously disagree.

Thank goodness the qualification requirements have changed for next year. Eliminating the multiple-city rollout will create a bit more of a level playing field. I am not naive enough to believe that this process will magically become fair but it will be better. Too much of this has to do with the quality of your publicity or the size of your marketing budget. I wish more of it had to do with the quality of your film.

Last Thursday I flew down to Mexico City for the fourth annual Mujeres en el Cine y la Televisión (Women in Film and Television) Conference in Mexico. Throughout my time there, I noticed a general flourishing of new art and culture that emerged from traditional means. The terminal I arrived in at the airport, for example, was actually built fairly recently and as such was evident of modern trends in interior design. Another thing I noticed was the proliferation of graffiti as art. It seemed like every blank wall was an invitation for a Diego Rivera in the making to create an urban mural. Further adding to that notion of modern artists playing with traditional forms is the reason why I was invited to attend in the first place.

The conference, made up of both panels and film screenings, included a series of panel discussions entitled “Film and TV in the Age of Convergence: A Vision for the 21st Century.” I was invited to present at the panel called “Production, Distribution, and Exhibition: the Independent Experience.” As you can imagine, I was most interested in explaining to the audience how they can reach wider audiences and truly engage their audiences by using the internet and promoting their films in a slightly different way. To emphasize the power of this, I screened fourth annual Media That Matters Film Festival selection Novela, Novela. I chose this film because it discusses a group in Nicaragua that uses the traditional format of the Spanish language telenovela (soap opera) to openly discuss issues of domestic violence and abuse. In essence, they have taken an established form and by changing one element have made something new and interesting. When it comes to new means of distribution, I believe that just being open to trying something new is key. I often liken it to computer programming because it is definitely a lot of trial and error (though not nearly as complicated!) when it comes to figuring out how to best distribute your film on the web.

Directly following the panel I was on was one made up primarily of educators in film and media. Though the topic of the panel was new media literacy, many of the educators that worked in film schools in Mexico were very much against new media. One of the panel participants said something along the lines of “HD is very nice, but ultimately I want my film in 35mm.” This really surprised me! After the panel I spoke to several attendees who were not surprised and commented that those ideas are very common among the academic community there. María Novaro, filmmaker and fellow panelist, appealed for embracing digital media. Her rationale is based on cost — it is far more affordable to make a movie digitally than it is to make one on 35mm. I’m sure this debate will rage on, but it reminds me of a conversation I had with Shira regarding her recent digital camera purchase. We agreed that sometimes it isn’t the camera that makes a good image but the person behind the camera.

Wandering around in Coyoacán.

After my panel was over, I was able to soak up a little local culture. I visited La Casa Azul (The Blue House) which is now the Museo Frida Kahlo (Frida Kahlo Museum) in Coyoacán. It is the exact house where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera once lived. Lucky for me, there was a new exhibit of her sketches and doodles. I also got a chance to do some shopping at a local bazaar where I was able to find a few things to bring back to family and friends.

In the New York Times piece Is the Entree Heading for Extinction? celebrity chef Tom Colicchio says, “Eating an entree is too many bites of one thing, and it’s boring.”

The article continues, “That’s in part why he moved away from the classic appetizer-entree-dessert rhythm of Gramercy Tavern when he opened Craft in 2001, one of the first prominent restaurants in New York to deconstruct the menu into a long list of proteins, side dishes and sauces to be mixed and matched into a family-style meal.”

I wonder if this same idea, that “too many bites of one thing being boring,” is also influencing the current trend in documentary film?

Recent movies like Magnetic Baby, Four-Eyed Monster and the current release of Nimrod Nation eschew the singular storyline in favor of a more episodic or deconstructed narrative; one that presents a succession of related side stories and minor characters to collectively express the subject of the film.

Is this format gaining popularity with documentary films because it better corresponds to our shortening attention span or is it simply an expression of form adapting to technological changes analogous to how audio technology has revolutionized popular music.

As Shira Golding notes in her Upstream report, Magnetic Baby, the “Video Podcast Docu-Series” one of the advantages of producing an episodic or fragmented narrative is that short self-contained stories can be easily viewed, distributed and digested as a vodcast.

Although I enjoy watching new documentaries via video-sharing networks like YouTube and VodCasts and I appreciate the aesthetic of presenting a story in a variety of “bite size” bits I hope that this new trend is not portent to the end of the “main course” structured narratives.

I’ve always found that there is a unique pleasure in giving yourself to the richness of a hearty and complex creation; where one subject is allowed your undivided attention and given ample time to reveal itself and its many different and subtle flavors. Just as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is best enjoyed in full, the complete album being greater than its parts, there are documentaries, like Koyaanisqatsi, Portrait of Jason and Salesman that are best served in long-form and digested in as many bites as necessary.