Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmakers join Consider This
"Cutie and the Boxer"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
"Cutie and the Boxer" is an Oscar-nominated documentary feature that looks at the art careers and marriage of Ushio and Noriko Shinohara.
Zachary Heinzerling, the film's director, appeared on the Feb. 14, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"It started out sort of more as a biography [of Ushio] … Noriko was more reserved. But really it was her fire and her energy in that tension between them that became so much more interesting and universal, really, for an audience, that could find themselves in Ushio and Noriko's relationship, whether you're an artist or any person that's doing anything that requires something creative, that you're passionate about. And especially for couples that are in long-term marriages, and certain couples that have similar jobs, careers as well."
— Zachary Heinzerling, director of "Cutie and the Boxer"
"When I turned the TV off for the first screening [of 'Cutie and the Boxer,' Ushio's] reaction was, 'So this is a love story?' And I said, 'Well, yes.' And he kind of grunted and clearly was disappointed the film wasn't more about him, wasn't more focused on his artwork. He had sort of been under the impression that it really was about him. And luckily enough, Noriko was there to kind of combat each of his criticisms with equal and greater response on my behalf."
— Zachary Heinzerling, director of "Cutie and the Boxer"
"20 Feet From Stardom"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
"20 Feet From Stardom" is an Oscar-nominated documentary feature that looks at the lives of backup singers and their roles in the music industry.
Morgan Neville, the film's director, appeared on the Feb. 13, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"It's one of those odd paradoxes about the backup [singers'] world, that as a backup singer you hear your voice on the radio all the time. And now that I've spent all this time with backup singers, in restaurants and elevators they always say, 'Oh, that’s me singing.' But just because people see you in proximity to rock stars or hear you on the radio, they assume you have a much more glamorous, much more lucrative life than you actually have."
— Morgan Neville, director of "20 Feet From Stardom"
"Darlene Love would tell me about going to sessions in the morning with Frank Sinatra, and in the evening with Frank Zappa, and in between she'd [sing with] Buck Owens. I mean, that takes incredible dexterity to be able to do that. But I think it's actually one of the difficult things about that transition from the backup role to the foreground, which is, if you're able to do everything [but] the industry only wants you to do one thing, and that's what they want to sell. And I think a lot of backup singers, because of their versatility, have a hard time figuring out what that singular thing is they want to do, because they can do it all."
— Morgan Neville, director of "20 Feet From Stardom"
"The Square"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
"The Square" is an Oscar-nominated documentary feature that covers the 2011 uprising in Egypt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
Jehane Noujaim, the film's director, and Karim Amer, the film's producer, appeared on the Feb. 11, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"What this film does is it represents the voices of people that are struggling for a better future for Egypt. Now the fact that it has had international recognition, the fact that it has been nominated for an Oscar, shows that this struggle is still continuing to touch the hearts and minds of people that are halfway across the world. And so if this is our small contribution to what is happening right now in Egypt and to a better future for Egypt, then we hope that it will be able to make a small difference."
— Jehane Noujaim, director of "The Square"
"What's happening in Egypt is also part of a global struggle. We just showed the film to the square in Kiev, [Ukraine,] the "Maidan," and it was unbelievable to see the reactions. And then it was dubbed in Ukrainian. It spread virally, it had incredible response. The government of Ukraine came out and said publicly that they're against this film and they know it's some kind of plot against the government. [They] tried to stop the film and all they did was just make people want to watch it more."
— Karim Amer, producer of "The Square"
"The Act of Killing"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
As part of the directorial process for Oscar-nominated documentary "The Act of Killing," Joshua Oppenheimer interviewed men who led Indonesian death squads during the 1960s, got them to reenact their killings, and then captured the process on film.
Joshua Oppenheimer, the film's director, appeared on the Feb. 10, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"These are men who, in 1965, helped [Indonesia's] military take power and have been in power ever since. And while to some extent the military dictatorship formally ended in 1998, these men still remain in control. So unlike perpetrators, aging Nazis who either deny what they’ve done or act ashamed for it, these men have never been removed from power. So they’ve been able to boast and in fact they've needed to boast so that they wouldn't have to admit what they all know to be true, being that what they did was wrong."
— Joshua Oppenheimer, director of "The Act of Killing"
"The film has radically transformed the way Indonesia's talking about its past. It's led ordinary Indonesians finally to talk about openly the genocide, to make links between the genocide and the present-day regime of fear and corruption. And it's led the media to start seriously investigating the genocide as a genocide, and the government finally to admit that what happened was wrong."
— Joshua Oppenheimer, director of "The Act of Killing"
"Karama Has No Walls”
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject.
The Oscar-nominated documentary "Karama Has No Walls" covers a turning point in Yemen's revolution. On March 18, 2011 in Sanaa, armed shooters fired on a peaceful demonstration against the government of then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The filmmakers say 53 people died that day and more than a thousand were injured.
Sara Ishaq, the film's director, appeared on the Feb. 6, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"[The Yemeni protesters] wanted to show that they were basically willing to ask Saleh to step down in 2011 without using the means and the methods that they're so used to using, which is use of weapons and warfare and violence."
— Sara Ishaq, director of "Karama Has No Walls"
"Suddenly people had a sense of responsibility towards their other fellow citizens and they realized just how far the government was willing to go in order to thwart them and in order to remain in power. So I guess that really was the wake-up call that Yemen needed."
— Sara Ishaq, director of "Karama Has No Walls"
"Facing Fear"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject.
"Facing Fear" chronicles the unlikely friendship between Matthew Bolger, a gay man, and Tim Zaal, a former neo-Nazi. When they were teenagers, Zaal took part in a near-fatal group attack on Bolger. Twenty-five years later, Bolger and Zaal met again through their work with the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and they eventually became friends. They now give talks on tolerance together.
Bolger, Zaal, and Jason Cohen, the director of "Facing Fear," appeared on the Feb. 5, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"Forgiveness is an ongoing journey. I mean, I have reached a point with Tim [Zaal] where that part of our journey is complete. It took a few years. It took a lot of… it started with wanting to know why they had chosen me, why those things happened. But part of the process was also Tim's willingness to be honest and open and share the details of that night, which helped me, actually, in some way, move forward and past it, to a point where I could forgive Tim completely. And doing the presentations that we do together also helped that process, because we worked together extensively. So I think unlike most people, I was in a unique situation where I could be around what once was my perpetrator and work through the issues that we worked through."
— Matthew Bolger
"Usually, when you think of consequences, you think of going to jail, or people not liking you, something like that. But yeah, I did deal with a lot of guilt, because Matthew [Bolger] was, basically, a representative of — at least the way I looked at it and the way I processed it — was that he was a symbol of, you know, all my past misdeeds and people that I hurt in my life. So it was very, very difficult."
— Tim Zaal
"The Lady in Number 6"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject.
"The Lady in Number 6" presents the story of 110-year-old former concert pianist Alice Herz-Sommer , who is the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. Herz-Sommer shares how music helped her endure the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II and other hardships in her life.
Malcolm Clarke, the film's director, and Nick Reed, the film's producer, appeared on the Feb. 4, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"[In] one of my favorite quotes in the film, one of the cellist ladies, Anita, says that her father said when the war broke out, 'Put as much [music] into your head as you possibly can, because no one can take that away from you.' And then Alice [Herz-Sommer] says in the film also that just thinking of music makes her happy. What they were able to do in terms of living inside their mind, in obviously horrible conditions, somehow set them apart. And this ability to live in your mind and feel things and see things is obviously incredible. And people talked about how when they went to a concert [in Theresienstadt], it allowed them to be somewhere else and kind of recharged their spirits."
— Nick Reed, producer of "The Lady in Number 6"
"I can only imagine, having spent time with [Alice Herz-Sommer], there's something with Mandela or the Dalai Lama or Gandhi, there something inside them that just enables them to process the world in a completely different way. I think if we could all figure that out, we would all live to 110 and we would all be laughing and smiling still."
— Nick Reed, producer of "The Lady in Number 6"
"CaveDigger"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject.
"CaveDigger" shares the story of Ra Paulette, who has carved out elaborate caves in northern New Mexico for more than a quarter century.
Jeffrey Karoff, director of the film, appeared on the Jan. 30, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"There's no place [Ra Paulette] would rather be than under the earth, digging and carving."
— Jeffrey Karoff, director of "CaveDigger"
"[Ra Paulette] really is a person who has never been driven by material things. He says he could live in a tent. And he really wants to just work all day long and every day, if he can."
— Jeffrey Karoff, director of "CaveDigger"
View the trailer of "CaveDigger."
View our photo gallery of Paulette's work.
"Dirty Wars"
Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
"Dirty Wars" discusses the covert work of U.S. special forces around the world.
Jeremy Scahill, the co-writer and co-producer of the film, appeared on the Jan. 29, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"What we're seeing now as the Obama administration comes to a close is that [Obama] wants to get the U.S. away from large-scale troop deployments. Most Americans don't want large-scale troop deployments. What we're going to see is reliance on technology, on NSA-style signals intelligence intercepts. We're getting away from human intelligence and relying on the technology of drones, monitoring cellphones, and then using small teams of special ops or CIA paramilitaries to literally go around the world hunting."
— Jeremy Scahill, co-writer and co-producer of "Dirty Wars"
"I think we are going to pay a price for this down the line. Remember early on in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, everyone was saying, 'Oh, look at the Iraqis pulling down the Saddam [Hussein] statue! They love us. They're welcoming us as liberators.' Fast forward to a year later and there was a massive insurgency from both the Shia and the Sunni communities. I think that we are going to get hit in some form or another in the coming years, because of what we're doing right now."
— Jeremy Scahill, co-writer and co-producer of "Dirty Wars"
View the trailer of "Dirty Wars."
"Prison Terminal" chronicles the final months of a terminally ill prison inmate who received hospice care from fellow prisoners at the Iowa State Penitentiary.
Edgar Barens, the director of the film, appeared on the Jan. 27, 2014 edition of Consider This.
"This particular program in Iowa trains the inmate to be a hospice volunteer and they can help their buddy go through the dying process — that is, the comfort care, palliative care, and simply sitting there, holding their hand as they die."
— Edgar Barens, director of "Prison Terminal"
"The truth is, the punishment that [the prisoners are] getting is their freedom is taken away from them. They should not be punished further. I know that's difficult to understand because they've done horrible things to other people. And I feel that we as a society have to be better than they were when they committed their crime."
— Edgar Barens, director of "Prison Terminal"
View the trailer of "Prison Terminal."
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