Three Great Docs

At Silverdocs:

Sacred Places - is about a local cinema club in a ghetto in Africa that surprisingly has a lot to say about the state of movie distribution, theaters, African cinema, and the film loving public. Brief info.

Blood Trail - a great piece on a naive and idealistic photojournalist who travels to Sarajevo, Chechnya, Iraq, and other war torn places, and his self reflective journey as he comes to deal with the images he's captured. Some extremely disturbing photos and Robert King's completely honest assessment of himself really elevates this film.

Winnebago Man - a viral video compiled of outtakes of a spokesperson for the Winnebago company during an industrial shoot becomes known as The Angriest Man In The World and hits epic proportions on YouTube. One documentarian decides to track the man down to see what the story is. Surprisingly, Jack Rebney who comes across as an extreme misanthrope in the viral video and upon first meeting, turns out to be an extremely thoughtful, if still angry, 76 year old man. The best part was the Q&A afterwards when the director phones Jack on his iPhone and puts the phone up to the microphone for Jack to hear the applause of the audience and to spout forth.

Surprisingly, these three films all have a common theme of the power of images and how they transform people's daily lives, some for the better, some for the worse.

Silverdocs winners announced and I did not even have time to watch any of these. Will have to add to the queue.