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The recent devastation casued by the Haitian earthquake has brought us more heartbreaking viewing, and the medium of film has been at its most crucial. Amidst the cataclysm, a group of young Haitians have taken it upon themselves to act as the local voice. At Haiti’s only film school, Ciné Institute which resides in the small seaside town of Jacmel, students went to work instantly with hand-held cameras to capture the devastation. Their powerful testimonals to the wrecked city have been brought by CNN, who broadcast them around the globe, bringing to the world personal and unique perspectives of the earthquake and its devastating effects. These short docs make up a rich document of the disaster with footage of the aftermath and the recent erratic aid efforts.

The Ciné Institute at work

The voice, eyes and camera of disaster survivors were powerfully displayed in the Oscar-nominated Trouble the Water. The doc that included footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, who, with her husband Scott, was trapped in her home in New Orleans by the deadly floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Like the work of the Ciné Institute, this is not a story shot by the news teams, only taking with them a glimpse of the reality on the ground. A glimpse that that the mainstream media will continue to cut and paste, further obscuring the truth. Instead, these mini-docs are made by the very eye witnesses, who have lost family and homes in disaster. Coverage by the Ciné Institute and Trouble the Water team has been a lesson in the ways grassroots journalism succeeds where the mainstream fails.

As Avatar’s synthetic world reigns supreme in the western multiplexes, the Ciné Institute have reaffirmed the importance of human storytelling: ordinary people taking up cameras in times of crisis. Take a look at their videos here.

The nominations for the 2010 Academy Awards have been announced. Not surprisingly the documentary category was left out of the fancy televised nominees show, deemed by the academy not exciting or important enough to be included.

With some groundbreaking additions to factual programming this year it was a tough shortlist to choose from. While I was happy that eco-doc The Cove and also Which Way Home were announced in this category, I was left a little surprised that they missed out on three exceptional titles from last year: Mugabe and the White African, Sergio and Garbage Dreams.

The Oscars have always been great at sticking to traditions; despite a growing number of humourous documentaries, it seems that they have remained constant to the idea that documentaries should be serious and not funny. It was therefore no surprise that Anvil! The Story of Anvil was neglected from this year’s category. Heartwarming, inspiring and achingly hilarious, this account of an aging metal band chasing its dreams was a brilliant example of how it is possible for a doc to make you laugh and enlighten you at the same time.

With last year’s win of James Marsh’s Man on Wire I was hopeful that the academy were moving towards titles not only of socio, environmental and political content. Here is the full factual category for 2010, Who wins? The Academy decides! Watch it live or catch it here from March 7th.

Documentary Feature:

Burma VJ
Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller

The Cove
Nominees to be determined

Food, Inc.
Robert Kenner and Elise PeaRlstein

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Judith Elrlich and Rick Goldsmith

Which Way Home
Rebecca Cammisa

Documentary Short:

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert

Music by Prudence
Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Rabbit à la Berlin
Bartosz Konopka and Anna Wydra

And so the festival season kicks off.. Berlin’s Berlinale Film Festival is one of the largest events in the film industry’s calendar. More than 19,000 industry people (including the joiningthedocs.tv team) from around 136 different countries are accredited to the event each year. This year Berlinale will celebrate its 60th anniversary, the curtain opening early next month with the screening of director Wang Quan’an’s Apart Together (Tuan Yuan), a period drama set in the grasslands of Mongolia.

Yoji Yamada seems happy about closing this year's Berlinale festival

2010’s programme is stuffed with over 400 titles. In recent years documentary has been putting in a strong appearance, making up around one third of the festival. In addition to screenings, there will be an array of panellist discussions, workshops, exhibitions and events. Since 2003 the festival has partnered with Talent Campus to host a winter school for emerging filmmakers. Past workshops have been hosted by the likes of the late Anthony Mingella and South Korean director Chan-wook Park.

The closing film of this year’s festival is About her Brother (Otouto) by Japanese director Yoji Yamada.  Martin Scorsese’s eagerly anticipated Shutter Island along with  Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer, which will also premier at this year’s festival. The full festival programme will be announced at the end of January.

I recently caught the first instalment of UK soap star and author Ross Kemp’s new Middle East series. Ross Kemp in Gaza was an insightful look into life in one of the most politically fraught areas of the world, a conflict that has spanned almost half a century, and although frequently covered in the news, has become “white noise” to many of us.

Some other videos covering the Israel–Palestine conflict worth watching are by Swiss journalist Jürg Da Vaz in the Gaza Strip. Like video diaries with only a few interviews involved, Da Vaz captures the lives and mundainities of average Palestinians, going about their business in the Gaza Strip. Newspapers and press aside, what captured me the most was the environment of the young Gaza children, growing up in bullet–ridden streets with punitive restrictions.

Friends in conflict in ' Welcome to Hebron'

Welcome to Hebron is a shocking and honest look at the hidden world of those living their every day lives under occupation. Multi award–winning and filmed over three years, the film follows Leila, a smart and opinionated Palestinian schoolgirl who refuses to be a victim. To Israeli settlers and soldiers Leila is nothing more than a target, but like many she dreams of change, and some day bringing peace to Hebron. The film is made up of interviews with those on both sides of the conflict: through this director Terj Carlsson is determined to bring us intimacy, capturing the kind of confrontations that are often censored or hidden from the world’s press.

Plugging the gap between awareness and development in "Christmas in Darfur"

The Darfur region in Sudan, has a long and complex past, several call to action’s from Amnesty and some Jolie / Clooney documentary aid campaigns later  - it seems little has changed, the atrocities continue, and the war worsens.

I caught the major low-budget documentary Christmas in Darfur the other day, which follows the trials of amateur filmmakers  Jim Milak (an IT guy), Jason Mojica (a waiter), and Ryan Faith (a policy worker) as they attempt to document aid workers’ experiences during the Christmas holidays  in the war-torn western African desert. The gap between the global attention on the area and the amount of help being actually received is central to the film’s theme.

With zero experience in filmmaking, and no connections or experience of the African sub-continent, the filmmakers adopt a guileless approach that takes us deep into the refugee camps of Chad and Sudan and eventually to a dialogue with rebel fighters.

Watch the documentary online here, where you can also donate to the filmmakers who are still trying to recoup the costs of making this self-funded project.

It’s nearly Christmas… which can only mean good news for Dan Brown, who’ll surely add a few more million to his bank account with his latest dose of conspiracy fiction -The Lost Symbol. Five years on from his best-selling The Da Vinci Code and couple of  hate campaigns from the Opus Dei later, things are certainly going well for Mr. Brown.

Brown’s book (now a “major motion picture”) exploded with phenomenal and controversial success on its publication. Eventually  translated into over 4o languages, the novel sold over 5.5million copies  hardback alone. His “alternative Christmas story” - a fictional account of a vast conspiracy by the Catholic church to cover up the secret knowledge  that Jesus escaped the cross, married Mary Magdalene, and had children with her - rather ironically ended up becoming a main fixture underneath Christmas trees worldwide.

'Cracking the Da Vinci Code'...the real Christmas Story?

joiningthedocs.tv title Cracking the Da Vinci Code by host and author Simon Cox takes you on an in-depth journey through the heart of the mysteries behind Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. Moreover, it attempts to look beyond theories set out by Brown, some ideas that have only ever been discussed on the web. Cracking the Da Vinci Code is a comprehensive documentary that cuts right through the confusion, and reveals the remarkable truth behind the legend of the Holy Grail. The film includes new revelations by a series of experts, which ultimately, confide that Brown did not access all of their research and explain previously untold secrets. See More Here.

This week Uberto Pasolini will release his new title Machan. The Full Monty producer’s newest film is a fictionalised account of a true story, portraying street life in the slums of Sri Lanka’s Colombo.

So far the film has had an unprecedented response and dubbed one of the most important titles dealing with immigration in recent years. Machan follows a group of men, most of them are unemployed,  all of  desperate to escape their country’s economic and social reality. In a bid to escape, this these men form a phoney national handball team that miraculously manages to blag its way into a tournament played out in Germany. As expected, the team experiences little success in the competition and, after losing all of their matches, vanish into obscurity. What transpires is not only an amusing scam but one of the largest illegal immigration hoaxes of all time.

Urban sprawl in "Waiting for Europe"

Immigration has always been multi-faceted issue, though it has become an increasingly complex one. The need to understand large-scale immigration has been expressed with both fictional and non-fictional filmmaking. Recent years have seen accounts such as the fictional Import/Export by Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl that follows the travels of two people crossing borders, struggling to survive, both finding life abroad better than back home in their Ukrainian town. One my favourite non-fictional accounts dealing with the emigration process was director Michael Winterbottom’s docudrama In This World; that chronicled the life-threatening journey of Afghan immigrants to London.

joiningthedocs.tv title Waiting for Europe takes the mass issue of immigration and depicts it from a female point of view. The film follows Vania, a Bulgarian ex – beauty queen who emigrates from her home country to Portugal and then to Spain.This film touches on experiences of isolation and illegality caught up with life’s major decisions: career, love and children. Waiting for Europe displays a totally unique view point of immigration – a women trying to find her identity amidst a changing Europe watch it here.

It was reported last week by the Joint United Nations Programme on Aids (UNAids)  that the HIV pandemic which started 28 years ago is officially in decline. According to the annual update the number of new HIV infections peaked in the mid-1990s and has declined by almost a third.

Recent news will mean further emphasis upon tomorrow’s World AIDS Day, a day that is dedicated to raising awarness of the AIDS pandemic. Acting in global coalition - around the world forums and conferences will work in alliance with global constituency-based networks such as Human Rights Watch.

As part of World AIDS Day The Sundance Channel have scheduled the U.S. television premiere of  Where the Water Meets the Sky. The film is directed by David Eberts, written by Jordan Roberts: scribe for The March of the Penguins, and narrated by Morgan Freeman. Where the Water Meets the Sky follows a group of Northern Zambian women who learn how to use filmmaking as a way to speak out about their lives and the staggering number of young women orphaned by AIDS in their country. More celebrities have contributed by film to mark World AIDS Day 2009, I Am Because We Are : is a call to action on behalf of the orphans of Malawi, from writer-producer Madonna and director Nathan Risswma. All these films will  be part of Sundance’s strand dedicated to World AIDS Day 2009.

We also recomend watching joiningthedocs.tv title Big Brother Aids. Big Brother has been a cultural phenomenon causing controversy in many countries across the world, but many were outraged when the show broadcast live love stories and relationships, in a continent where an entire generation had been crippled by this deadly virus. Big Brother Aids explores how it is the attitudes of everyday people towards the virus that can be one of the most detrimental factors in the war against AIDS.

Lost in film in 'where the Water Meets the Sky'.

The film follows Henry Hudson Luyomba, an exuburant 23 year- old who has learnt to accept his HIV status, for him part of beating the epidemic is talking about it openly.  We watch as Henry appears on a national radio station to openly talk of his illness. This film has sparked passionate debates both in Africa and overseas about the role of the media in fight against aids. Whatever this debate, the film is undeniably an honest and frank portrayal of an HIV positive person living in Africa today watch here.

It’s been a little over a week since the closure of another eventful Sheffield Doc/Fest In offical partnership with joiningthedocs.tv this year’s festival played host to a collection of new trophies. Perhaps one of the most useful new categories was the festival’s green award. The award is for achievement in environmentalism and climate change challeges and went to The Blood of the Rose. A title by director Harry Singer that retells the life and death of filmmaker and conversationalist Joan Root.

Steel and cinema : Sheffield produces great things.

The Sheffield innovation award was presented to the widely mentioned LoopLoop. Director and producer Patrick Bergeron’s film was shot on a series of train journeys around Vietnam. Colourful and exciting this mixed-media feature was praised for applying fresh and innovative techniques to feature -length documentary.

One of the most publicised awards at the festival is the special jury award, noted for excellence in style, substance and approach. This was awarded to the title Videocracy a startling expose of Berlusconi and his tight grip over the Italian media. Moreover, the film looks at a country’s obsession with fame, sexuality and greed, my bet is that it won’t be broadcast in Italy any time soon.

The 14th edition of Sheffield Doc/Fest was a highly impressive one and It seems the festival is getting greater recognition each year.  Doc/Fest ticket sales went up a total of 30% on last year. Additionally, over 250 producers and buyers turned up to discuss opportunities in over a thousand meetings and conferences. All at joiningthedocs.tv are proud to partner with Sheffield Doc/Fest and are looking forward to next year already.

It was announced yesterday that the UK Film Council is to make cuts by a whopping £25million  over the next three years; with government plans to redirect this bulk to the Olympics 2012.

At present, the council has three pots of money for film-makers to use, which comprises of; a development fund; a new cinema fund; and a premiere fund. In total these funds each hold £17million. New plans mean that these three funds will be consolidated into one fund consisting of £15million to support developments in UK filmmaking.

Current events are symptomatic of the real problems in the filmmaking industry. A hefty economic downturn, coupled with the digital revolution, many citing DVD sales being the vessel of film production for the past 20 years.

It’s not all been bad news for the UK film industry over the past few months, and £45million has recently been confirmed for a new film centre on London’s Southbank. Additionally, the council have gained an extra three million to find and fund films for the upcoming Olympics 2012.

These recent events have stressed the changing times for the British filmmaking industry, and even more so with a prospective merger of culture, sport and film councils. Charles Dickens aptly said “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, and this is exactly true of the current UK film industry.