They don’t do the big box office of summer blockbusters.
But the best documentaries stick with you long after the latest superhero caper fades to black.
Searching for Sugar Man. The Cove. Super Size Me. Grizzly Man.
“Fact is often more moving than fiction, as it connects with audiences on a deeper level. It is a powerful way to expose and communicate inequities and injustice in the world with a call to action,” says Mark Ehrenkranz, whose New York Film Critics series has been introducing Greater Morristown audiences to great documentaries–and feature films–for years.
A lucky winner (as voted by the audience) at the Sixth Annual MorristownGreen.com Film Festival on Aug. 24, 2013, will go home with passes to Mark’s eight-week series, which runs from Oct. 9 to Dec. 4 at Bow Tie Cinemas in Parsippany.
The theme of this year’s MG Film Fest is Short Documentaries, and aspiring local filmmakers of all ages have submitted some provocative ones. The show starts at 6 PM on Aug. 24, in the Plaza Ballroom of the Hyatt Morristown. Admission is free, and includes music by the SteppingSTONE Band.
The Sixth Annual MorristownGreen.com Film Festival
Saturday, Aug. 24, 2013
Hyatt Morristown, 6 PM
Admission: Free. Live music: SteppingSTONE Band
Home-grown short documentaries; vote for your favorite!
Bring lawn chair / beach blanket for indoor beach party
Increasingly, the lines are blurring between the best documentaries and action thrillers.
Both “must be entertaining,” Mark says.
“As with any film, it starts with a great story which can generate excitement in a sentence or two. Some of today’s best documentaries, such as The Cove and Man On a Wire, are more like thrillers, whereby a true story maintains extreme emotional tension, keeping audiences in suspense
throughout the viewing process,” he says.
He referred to a pair of Oscar-winners. The makers of The Cove (2009) went into stealth mode to expose the Japanese dolphin hunting industry. Man On a Wire (2008) tiptoed behind the scenes of Philippe Petit’s audacious 1974 high-wire walk between New York’s late, great Twin Towers.
Sometimes, Mark says, documentaries are “organically born”; during the shooting process “the original story or vision is catapulted to another realm. Good examples of these are Unraveled and Moving Midway.”
Mark’s fall lineup includes Shepard & Dark, which tells the tangled true story of the family web of actor Sam Shepard and longtime pal Johnny Dark.
Documentaries are near and dear to other MG Film Fest prize sponsors, too. S. Dillard Kirby, who has donated prize money this year, was a primary backer of Morristown: Where America Survived in 2009.
Myles Sandrian, who has taken Sandrian Camera –opened by his family when South Street was populated with Model T’s–into the digital age, says he is drawn to documentaries “that challenge the way I think or feel about something. Sometimes they provide a different perspective that I wouldn’t have considered or really thought about. ”
A recent favorite is Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead by Joe Cross, who leaves Australia for America and a fresh juice diet.
“When the documentary starts, Joe has a disease, which, by changing his diet, he is able to eliminate by the end of the documentary, which covers about a-year-and-a-half span,” says Myles, who is donating two video cameras as prizes to the MG Film Fest.
“I’ve become more health conscious over the past year or so … I believe that people if people change their diet it will reduce their risk of all sorts of diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, renal failure. It’s important to take care of oneself and be conscious of how we are ‘powering’ our body,” he says.
George Zacieracha, who produces eye-catching t-shirts for the MG Film Festival at his EmbroidMe store, doesn’t have as much time for movies as he would like. He’s pretty busy embossing popular “distressed applique” designs on apparel of all sorts, with his new laser etching machine.
But he suspects that a pretty amusing documentary–or maybe a mockumentary–could be made about his “air dancer,” a familiar sight at many outdoor festivals around Greater Morristown.
Check out the air dancer at around the one minute mark of this piece, from the 2010 Morristown Festival on the Green:
We’re not sure about the favorite documentary of Chinie Rios of Rios’ Engraving. But we can definitively say that she and her husband Rolando are favorites of our filmmakers.
Rios’ Engraving has created the shimmering trophies coveted by our contestants ever since we started asking the audience to vote for their favorite entry.
The award presentation is a highlight of every MorristownGreen.com Film Festival, and we are thrilled that Chinie and Rolando’s trophy will once again be at the center of all the excitement.
MORE ABOUT THE 2013 MORRISTOWNGREEN.COM FILM FESTIVAL
