Filmmakers From Australia, Mexico, and U.S. Participated in Second Annual Documentary Edit and Storytelling Lab

From June 24-July 1, seven documentary film directors and editors representing four projects convened at Sundance Village for the second annual Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Storytelling Lab, a program of the Institute’s Documentary Film Program. The 2005 Documentary Edit and Storytelling Lab Fellows were Melissa K. Lee (director) and Andrew Arestides (editor) for YUKAI!; Anne Makepeace (director) and Mary Lampson (editor) for Refugee Dreams; Laura Poitras (director) for My Country, My Country; and Juan Carlos Rulfo (director) and Valentina Leduc Navarro (editor) for In the Pit.

“We’re especially proud of the global nature of the Lab this summer reflecting a broad range of social, political and human issues right here at home and around the world,” said Diane Weyermann, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program.

The seven Fellows are directors and editors of projects that have previously received funding from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. The filmmakers spent their time in Utah working with a group of Creative Advisors (established directors and editors who volunteer their time to work with the Fellows at the Lab) on the editing phase of their films, focusing on dramatic structure and story and character development in relation to their evolving rough cuts. The Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory was developed in 2004 to support documentary filmmakers at a critical point in their creative process.

“In documentaries, editing is where the story is found,” continued Weyermann. “It’s in that part of the process that the structure and the narrative emerge. We’ve identified editing as one of the areas in which feedback and professional guidance could be most beneficial to the filmmakers. Ultimately, we just want to help filmmakers make the best films that they can.”

Creative Advisors included editors Joe Bini (Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Grizzly Man), Jean-Philippe Boucicaut (Citizen King and Matters of Race), Victor Livingston (Shakespeare Behind Bars and Bukowski: Born Into This), Jonathan Oppenheim (Paris is Burning and Children Underground). They also worked with accomplished directors Jehane Noujaim (Control Room and Startup.com), and Ra’anan Alexandrowicz (The Inner Tour and James’ Journey to Jerusalem).

The participants for the 2005 Sundance Institute Documentary Editing and Story Lab were:
Laura Poitras, director
My Country, My Country (USA)
My Country, My Country tells the behind-the-scenes story of the January 2005 national elections in Iraq. Filmed over eight months, My Country, My Country is a cinema verité documentary told from the perspective of the people who planned, implemented, secured, participated in - and ultimately boycotted - the elections.

Poitras is the producer, do-director, and cinematographer of Flag Wars (2003, 87min), winner of a 2004 Peabody Award and nominated for both an Emmy and Independent Spirit Award. Flag Wars launched the P.O.V. season on PBS in June 2003, and has received numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the 2003 South by Southwest Film Festival, and the Filmmaker Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. She also recently completed Oh say can you see (2004), a short film about spectatorship and nationalism in the aftermath of 9/11. Her other works include Exact Fantasy: Bringing the Stars Down to Earth (1995, 16mm, 27 min).

Juan Carlos Rulfo, director, and Valentina Leduc Navarro, editor
In the Pit (Mexico)
A cinematic eye into the daily lives of construction workers building the Second Deck of Mexico City’s Periférico Freeway.

Rulfo’s first documentary feature film, Juan, I Forgot I Don’t Remember (1999) has received both international and national recognition and awards and has been broadcasted by Channel Plus Spain, BBC, YLE Finland and Cinemax USA. Rulfo is currently working on his second film, In the Pit (2004/05), with the support of the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), the Government of Mexico City and the Sundance Documentary Fund.

Since graduating from the CUEC, Navarro has directed the following short films: An Irruption of Ice (Un volcán con lava de hielo) which won the Ariel for Best Short granted by the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences in 1995 as well as a nomination for the Oscar Students Award 1995, and an award in the Mostra Internationale de Montecatini Terme, Italia in1996, Time for One Cigarette (le temps d'une cigarrette), Blind Spot (Punto Ciego), Mr. I and Mrs. O (La historia de I y O), which won First Place in the Short Expressions Festival in San Miguel Allende, Mexico, and won the Ariel for Best Short granted by the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences in 2000, Kiss (Un beso, beso - Diminutos del Calvario, Parte 1), and Mr. X (Sr. X). She is preparing her first feature film project, which was selected to participate in Sundance-Toscano Scriptwriting Lab, Mexico 2002. At the moment, she is editing Juan Carlos Rulfo’s documentary, In the Pit.

Melissa K. Lee, director, and Andrew Arestides, editor
Yukai! (Australia)
An extraordinary tale of political maneuverings and international espionage centered around the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s by North Korean spies and its affect on current Japan/North Korean relations.

Lee is the writer, director and producer of the award-winning documentaries, Soshin: In Your Dreams and A True Story About Love which has screened internationally and was the winner of the Ogawa Shinsuke Prize at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan in 2001. She is currently directing Yukai!, a one-hour international television documentary about the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean spies in the 1970s.

Arestides has worked as an editor in documentaries for over twenty years. His recent credits include Hurley - The Man Who Made History, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation/BBC co-production screening at this year’s Sydney international Film Festival, Secrets of the Jury Room for SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) which screened at the Sydney International Film Festival 2004, Hired Assassins - Political Cartooning in Australia, which aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation and also screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2003. He is now editing, Yukai!.

Anne Makepeace, director, and Mary Lampson, editor
Refugee Dreams (USA)
Chronicles a year in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave a legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in America.

Anne Makepeace has been making award-winning independent films for twenty years. Her documentary Robert Capa in Love and War had its Sundance premiere in January 2003 and was broadcast on PBS’ American Masters, the BBC, and many other foreign stations. The film won the Voice for Humanity Award at Telluride Mountain Film Festival, and a national prime time Emmy. Her personal documentary, Baby It’s You, premiered at Sundance 1998, was the lead show on POV’s 1998 season, was broadcast on Channel 4’s True Stories series, and screened at the Whitney Biennial 2000. She has also written, produced, and/or directed many dramatic films, including Moonchild, which won many awards and was broadcast on HBO, PBS, Bravo, ZDF, Channel 4, and many other foreign stations; Whistle in the Wind, broadcast on Thames Television, NHK, and the USA Network; Night Driving, broadcast on Showtime Networks, Inc., and Wildest Dreams, for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women. Presently, she is producing and directing, Refugee Dreams.

Lampson is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker and editor. Lampson co-edited Barbara Kopple’s academy-award wining documentary Harlan County, USA and worked as an editor on many other independently produced documentary features. She has worked with Emile de Antonio, Ricky Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and, most recently, with Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar and Anne Makepeace on Refugee Dreams.