Cinema Eye Protests Department of Homeland Security’s Ongoing Harassment of Award-Winning Filmmaker Laura Poitras

April 9, 2012 – New York, New York – Cinema Eye, the film organization that hosts the Cinema Eye Honors and advocates for artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking, is releasing a statement today to vigorously protest the Department of Homeland Security’s treatment of our valued colleague, Laura Poitras.

The letter is signed by the full Cinema Eye Executive Board as well as our Filmmaker Advisory Board, of which Poitras serves as Chair.  The letter is also signed by 25 Cinema Eye nominated filmmakers, including five Academy Award winners.

Update – Wednesday, April 11, 2012: More than 60 people from within the Cinema Eye community have added their names and their support to this letter.  This includes 41 additional nonfiction filmmakers, most of whom are previous Cinema Eye nominees, as well as members of our Advisory and Nominations Committees.  The list of filmmakers includes five more Academy Award winners, bringing the total number to 10.

Statement from Cinema Eye on Laura Poitras:

As members of the nonfiction filmmaking community, we want to express our outrage over the ongoing harassment of our colleague Laura Poitras by the US government and the Department of Homeland Security.  We call on the Obama administration to investigate this abuse of power and to bring an end to this persistent violation of America’s bedrock principle of a free press.

Laura Poitras is one of America’s most important nonfiction filmmakers, the recipient of the 2011 Cinema Eye Honor for Outstanding Achievement in Direction for her landmark film, The Oath, and the chair of our Filmmaker Advisory Board.  She was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar and twice has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her work.  Her long list of credits, awards and impeccable credentials would be easy for anyone to verify.

Over the course of the last several years, as Laura has been working to chronicle the post-9/11 world and the effect of American policies here and abroad, she has been repeatedly harassed, detained, interrogated and has had her cameras and computers seized by Homeland Security officials as she attempts to re-enter her home country.

Not once in more than three dozen detentions and interrogations has Homeland Security found anything to justify this chronic abuse of power.

Within the last week, as Laura was returning from a recent trip abroad, she was once again detained.  This time, however, she was also threatened with being handcuffed for attempting to take notes during her interrogation.

Nonfiction filmmakers perform a vital role in a democratic society, serving as observers and investigators of the world around us.  It is unacceptable for any American nonfiction filmmaker or journalist to be treated in this manner.  They must be able to return to their own country without fear of arrest or fear that their work product will be seized, solely because they are investigating or chronicling subject matter that may be sensitive or controversial.

We ask other members of the nonfiction film and journalism communities to protest this affront to a free press and we reiterate our call on the Obama administration to end these draconian and un-American policies once and for all.

Sincerely,

Sean Farnel
Andrea Meditch
Esther Robinson
AJ Schnack
Nathan Truesdell
Cinema Eye Honors Executive Board

Mila Aung-Thwin
R.J. Cutler
Sam Green
Steve James
Ellen Kuras
Audrey Marrs
James Marsh
Morgan Spurlock
Jennifer Venditti
Cinema Eye Honors Filmmaker Advisory Board

Heather Croall
Matt Dentler
Ben Fowlie
Brian Geldin
Ryan Harringrton
Thom Powers
Debra Zimmerman
Cinema Eye Honors Advisory Board

Clio Barnard
Joe Berlinger
Margaret Brown
Michael Collins
Carl Deal
Alex Gibney
Davis Guggenheim
Lixin Fan
Alma Har’el
Asif Kapadia
Lise Lense-Møller
Tia Lessin
Kim Longinotto
Jeff Malmberg
Darius Marder
Albert Maysles
Donal Mosher
Michael Palmieri
Richard Press
Louie Psihoyos
Bill Ross
Turner Ross
Chris Shellen
Bruce Sinofsky
Geoffrey Smith
Ricki Stern
Paul Taylor
Marina Zenovich

Grover Babcock
Joslyn Barnes
Alan Berliner
Doug Block
Steven Bognar
Simon Chinn
John Christou
Patrick Creadon
Marshall Curry
Peter Davis
Josh Fox
Tom Fulford
Amy Grappell
Robert Greene
Andy Grieve
Todd Griffin
Chris Hegedus
Holly Herrick
Kirsten Johnson
Ross Kauffman
Sloane Klevin
Barbara Kopple
John Kusiak
Teddy Leifer
Mike Lerner
Eric Liebman
John Maringouin
Havana Marking
Michael Moore
Mike Nicholson
Jehane Noujaim
Christine O’Malley
Thomas Papapetros
Davina Pardo
D A Pennebaker
Matthew Porterfield
Julia Reichert
Jerry Rothwell
Gregers Sall
Jess Search
Lucia Small
David Smith
Annie Sundberg
Michael Taylor
Paul Thomas
Jean Tsien
Michael Tully
Kevin Walsh

Meira Blaustein
David Courier
Joanne Feinberg
Tine Fischer
Elena Fortes
Tom Hall
Doug Jones
Caroline Libresco
Artur Liebhart
David Nugent
Veton Nurkollari
Janet Pierson
Rachel Rosen
Charlotte Selb
Sky Sitney
David Wilson
Brit Withey
Cinema Eye Honors Nominations Committee

For more information on Laura Poitras:

http://www.praxisfilms.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/movies/09oath.html?_r=2
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/singleton/

James took the prize for Outstanding Achievement in Direction just before the film was named as this year’s winner for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking.  It is the first time that a film has received both the Feature Film and the Directing award in the history of Cinema Eye.  “I don’t care so much about the Oscars now!” James said.

Academy Award-winner Michael Moore presented James and producer Alex Kotlowitz (—and the Interrupters—) with the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. Moore also roused the audience with talk of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences’ new Best Documentary Oscar nominating rules.

Moore, elected to the Board of Governors of the Oscars last year, said he wanted to introduce a Democracy movement to this branch. “This is a much more open, transparent process, and the old days of secret committees are gone,” Moore said.

Cinema Eye presented honors in six craft categories in addition to awards for Outstanding Feature, Debut Film, International Film, Legacy Award and Audience Choice. For the second time, Cinema Eye presented an award for Nonfiction Short Filmmaking, going to the late Tim Hetherington’s Diary (accepted by his parents),  as well as the Heterodox Award for Narrative Filmmaking, going to Mike Mills’ Beginners, that recognizes a narrative film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production.  And for the first time, Cinema Eye presented its Hell Yeah Prize to Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost trilogy.

Documentaries vying for the top Nonfiction Feature prize included Clio Barnard’s The Arbor, Steve James’ The Interrupters, Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light, Leonard Retel Helmrich’ Position Among the Stars, James Marsh’s Project Nim and Asif Kapadia’s Senna. The award went to The Interrupters.

This year’s Legacy Award was presented to the landmark 1967 documentary, Titicut Follies, a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  The Legacy Award is intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers and embody the Cinema Eye mission: excellence in creative and artistic achievements in nonfiction films.  The Legacy Award celebrates the entire creative team behind the chosen film.  Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman accepted the award on behalf of the film.

“Making these movies is a great adventure,” Wiseman said. “I’m extremely pleased and proud to have this award for this first film I did.”

Cinema Eye also awarded its first-ever Hell Yeah Prize, given to filmmakers who have created works of incredible craft and artistry that also have significant, real-world impact, to Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky for their HBO Documentary Films trilogy Paradise Lost, which played a critical role in securing the release from prison of the wrongly prosecuted and convicted West Memphis Three. Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky and Jason Baldwin, one of the West Memphis Three, accepted the award.

“The Hell Yeah Award, right! It’s always been no, no, no,” said Baldwin. “Since August, my life has begun.”

“It’s been a dream come true for us,” said Berlinger. “You can make a difference when you make these films. We’ve had this amazing journey the past 20 years. We’re really appreciative of HBO.”

The following is a complete list of Cinema Eye Honors winners for 2012:

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking

The Interrupters
Directed by Steve James
Produced by Alex Kotlowitz and Steve James
Presented by Michael Moore

Outstanding Achievement in Direction

Steve James
The Interrupters
Presented by Alex Gibney

Audience Choice Prize

Buck
Directed by Cindy Meehl
Presented by Robert Krulwich

Outstanding Achievement in Production

Gian-Piero Ringel and Wim Wenders
Pina
Presented by Peter Davis and Andrea Meditch

Outstanding Achievement in Editing

Gregers Sall and Chris King
Senna
Presented by Peter Davis and Andrea Meditch

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography

Danfung Dennis
Hell and Back Again
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder

Spotlight Award

The Tiniest Place
Directed by Tatiana Huezo Sánchez
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder

Heterodox Award

Beginners
Directed by Mike Mills
Presented by Kimberly Reed and Alrick Brown

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking

Diary
Directed by Tim Hetherington
Presented by Nanette Burstein and Josh Fox

Outstanding Achievement in an Original Music Score

John Kusiak
Tabloid
Presented by Nanette Burstein and Josh Fox

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation

Rob Feng and Jeremy Landman
Tabloid
Presented by Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen

Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film

Clio Barnard
The Arbor
Presented by Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen

Hell Yeah Prize

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
The Paradise Lost Trilogy
Presented by Jason Baldwin

Legacy Award

Titicut Follies
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
Presented by Steve James

About the Cinema Eye Honors and the 2012 Awards
The Cinema Eye Honors were founded in 2007 to recognize excellence in artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking.  It remains the only international nonfiction award to recognize the whole creative team, presenting annual craft awards in directing, producing, cinematography, editing, composing and graphic design/animation.  The 5th edition of the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking will be held January 11, 2012 at New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.  Nominees for the 2012 awards were announced on October 26, 2011.  A full list of nominees can be found at www.cinemaeyehonors.com.

Cinema Eye is headed by a core team that includes Co-Chairs Esther Robinson (director, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory; Cinema Eye nominee for Outstanding Debut, 2008) and AJ Schnack (director, Kurt Cobain About A Son and founder of Cinema Eye), Producer Nathan Truesdell (producer, Convention), Nominations Committee Chair Sean Farnel (Former Head of Programming, Hot Docs Film Festival), Advisory Board Chair Andrea Meditch (executive producer, Buck and Man on Wire) and Filmmaker Advisory Board Chair Laura Poitras (director, The Oath; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Direction, 2011).

The Cinema Eye Heterodox Award honors a narrative film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production. These films illuminate the formal possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking while raising provocative questions about on-going documentary orthodoxy and the perceived boundaries between narrative and nonfiction filmmaking. Last year’s inaugural Heterodox Award went to Matt Porterfield’s PUTTY HILL.

“As more and more nonfiction films integrate artistic fictional devices and narrative structures, and fiction films take on elements seen in documentary storytelling – the importance of artist-led conversation grows,” said Cinema Eye Honors Co-Chair Esther Robinson. “In its second year, the Heterodox Award continues to be an exciting and important home to this discussion, contributing to a rich and important cross-genre dialogue.”

The five films nominated for the second Heterodox Award are: Mike Mills’ BEGINNERS, Ivan Fund and Santiago Loza’s THE LIPS, Lech Majewski’s THE MILL AND THE CROSS, Sergei Loznitsa’s MY JOY, and Damon Russell’s SNOW ON THA BLUFF.

The Cinema Eye Honors nominations committee made its recommendations for nominations based on a list of eligible films that met the general criteria for the Cinema Eye Honors including two extra festivals that program narrative films. Finalists were then selected jointly by the committee and the writers and editors ofFilmmaker Magazine.

“In a year when the reality of our social, political and economic situation dawned on 99% percent of us, filmmakers made their own reckoning,” said Filmmaker Magazine Editor-in-Chief Scott Macaulay. “This year’s Heterodox honorees are bracing, lovely, radical and troubling – fiction features for which the purely invented is not enough.”

Inspired by their subjects  — which include people, countrysides, and even a painting — the filmmakers selected for this year’s Heterodox Award let these subjects’ realities bleed into their films, creating fascinating dramas in which the world outside is given a voice and documentary tactics are skillfully deployed in the pursuit of dramatic truth.

The jury selecting the winner of the 2012 Heterodox Award consists of: Natalia Almada (Director: EL VELADOR – 2011 Cannes Film Festival; EL GENERAL – 2009 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Directing Award), Sandi Dubowski (Director /Producer: TREMBLING BEFORE G-D – 2001 Teddy Award for Best Documentary at Berlin Film Festival; JIHAD FOR LOVE), Shannon Kennedy (Editor, THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT; A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY – 2007 Teddy Award for Best Documentary at Berlin Film Festival), Alrick Brown (Director/Writer: KINYARWANDA– 2011 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award Winner), and Kimberly Reed (Director: PRODIGAL SONS – Winner, FIPRESCI Prize at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival).

The Five Nominees:

Beginners: Drawing from autobiographical elements, including his relationship to his dying father, Mike Mills has made a sensitive, insightful, and whimsically funny ode to romance and reinvention. Starring Ewen McGregor, Melanie Laurent and Christopher Plummer, Beginners mixes drama with not only humor but also brief documentary essays that examine everything from art to the history of California gay culture.

The Lips: Ivan Fund and Santiago Loza’s Argentine picture, “The Lips” (“Los Labios”), a subtle and challenging mix of documentary and narrative filmmaking, follows three women who deeply inhabit their cinematic roles as social workers interacting with members of an impoverished rural Argentine community. Facing desperate poverty that threatens to overwhelm even the greatest reserves of calm, humor, and empathy, the trio moves into makeshift living quarters and records data on the needs of the community, while still taking time for an occasional night out.

The Mill and the Cross: Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross is an epic restaging of and journey into Pieter Bruegel’s celebrated 1564 painting, “Way to Calvary.” Rutger Hauer stars as Bruegel, Michael York is his art collector friend, and Charlotte Rampling is the inspiration for his Virgin Mary. Majewski explores not only the rich iconography of this work but, using digital technology to make his picture a dialogue with not only the past but the nature of creativity itself.

My Joy: Ukranian documentary director Sergei Loznitsa made his debut drama with My Joy, a harshly riveting journey through the countryside of contemporary Russia. Following a truck driver as he makes his various deliveries, Loznitsa draws upon his own experience shooting and traveling through the Russian provinces in this bold and terrifying film.

Snow on tha Bluff: As authentic a document of the life of a young, black, crack-dealing single parent as you will ever see, Damon Russell’s “Snow on tha Bluff” audaciously mixes footage from the camcorder of the film’s real-life inspiration with dramatic scenes to create a sometimes indecipherable mixture of real life and fiction, documentary authenticity and cultural mythmaking.

About Filmmaker Magazine

Published by IFP, Filmmaker Magazine is a quarterly publication and daily-updated website covering the art, business and craft of independent filmmaking. VisitFilmmaker Magazine at http://filmmakermagazine.com/.

About the Cinema Eye Honors and the 2012 Awards

The Cinema Eye Honors were founded in 2007 to recognize excellence in artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking.  It remains the only international nonfiction award to recognize the whole creative team, presenting annual craft awards in directing, producing, cinematography, editing, composing and graphic design/animation.  The 5th edition of the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking will be held January 11, 2012 at New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.  Nominees for the 2012 awards were announced on October 26, 2011.  A full list of nominees can be found atwww.cinemaeyehonors.com.

Cinema Eye is headed by a core team that includes Co-Chairs Esther Robinson (director, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory; Cinema Eye nominee for Outstanding Debut, 2008) and AJ Schnack (director, Kurt Cobain About A Son and founder of Cinema Eye), Producer Nathan Truesdell (producer, Convention), Nominations Committee Chair Sean Farnel (Former Head of Programming, Hot Docs Film Festival), Advisory Board Chair Andrea Meditch (executive producer, Buck and Man on Wire) and Filmmaker Advisory Board Chair Laura Poitras (director, The Oath; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Direction, 2011).

Tickets for Cinema Eye Honors at the Museum of the Moving Image on January 11 are $75 for non-members and $50 for Museum Members. A limited number of tickets are available and include a post-ceremony reception. Call 718-777-6800 to reserve tickets or purchase online at: http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2012/01/11/detail/cinema-eye-honors-2012

For more information about Cinema Eye, visit the website at http://www.cinemaeyehonors.com and follow Cinema Eye on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cinemaeyehonors.

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For more press information, contact Brian Geldin at (917) 549-2953 or briangeldin@cinemaeyehonors.com.  Follow Cinema Eye on Twitter:twitter.com/cinemaeyehonors and on Facebook: facebook.com/CinemaEyeHonors

“It’s hard for me to believe that Titicut Follies was shot forty-six years ago,” said Wiseman.  “I’m thrilled to receive the Cinema Eye Legacy Award but it is tough for me to deal with the implications.”

The award will be presented on January 11, 2012 at the 5th Annual Cinema Eye Honors ceremony to be held at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.  A Stranger Than Fiction screening of Titicut Follies will be held the following week, on January 17, at the IFC Center, on the eve of the opening of Wiseman’s latest film, Crazy Horse, which debuts at New York’s Film Forum on January 18, before rolling out to theaters nationwide.

“Few filmmakers – in fiction or nonfiction – have created such an enduring body of work that is also, uniquely, their own as Frederick Wiseman,” said Cinema Eye’s Advisory Chair Andrea Meditch.  “The legacy of Titicut Follies stands as a beacon to all of today’s filmmakers for its unflinching honesty and the lingering power of John Marshall’s camera and Wiseman’s editing.”

“Titicut Follies is a remarkable film, both for its unwavering look at a failed institution and as the template for the decades of Wiseman films that would follow,” said Laura Poitras, the Chair of the Cinema Eye Filmmaker Advisory Board, which voted to give the Legacy Award to Titicut Follies. “As filmmakers, we look to Wiseman as an inspiration and we are honored to salute the debut film of this vital American auteur.”

This is the third year that Cinema Eye will present a Legacy Award, intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers and embody the Cinema Eye mission: excellence in creative and artistic achievements in nonfiction films.  The Legacy Award celebrates the entire creative team behind the chosen film.  This year marked the first time that Cinema Eye’s newly established Filmmaker Advisory Board voted on the recipient of the award.  Previous Legacy Awards went to Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March and the Maysles Brothers’ Grey Gardens.