DURHAM -- The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has announced its tribute and thematic programs. The festival’s tribute will be presented to filmmaker Stanley Nelson. The 2012 Thematic Program will focus on family, with a series of films curated by filmmaker Ross McElwee. McElwee will also present his most recent film “Photographic Memory” at the April event.
The annual festival, to be held April 12-15, announced the programming Tuesday.
McElwee grew up in North Carolina. He has made nine feature-length documentaries as well as several shorter films, many of which were shot in his homeland of the American South. His films include “Sherman's March,” “Time Indefinite,” “Six O'Clock News,” and “Bright Leaves.” He has screened numerous films at Full Frame, and received the Festival’s Career Award in 2007. McElwee has been teaching filmmaking at Harvard University since 1986, where he is a professor in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.
“Documentary cameras have long courted danger,” said McElwee. “Recently, they’ve been hauled onto the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, slipped behind the fences of polluting oil industries, and onto the streets during crackdowns by military dictatorships. But perhaps the most challenging place to try to film is within the realm of your own family. The risk in doing so is, of course, not physical, but rather emotional.
“In this selection of American documentaries, the filmmakers explore the delicate terrain along the fault line of family,” McElwee said in a written statement.
McElwee’s latest film “Photographic Memory” contemplates the filmmaker’s relationship with his young adult son, Adrian. In exploring their strained bond, McElwee travels back to St. Quay-Portrieux in Brittany, where he spent time as a young man himself, and seeks out those he was close to there at a similar time of his own life.
Adrian McElwee and the film’s producer Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness will also be present for the screening in Durham.
The festival has received a $20,000 grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to support the 2012 Thematic Program.
“Exploring one’s family seems deeply entwined with the desire to document and record one’s surrounding world,” said Sadie Tillery, the festival’s director of programming. “For many, I’d imagine the first form of documentary encountered was family pictures, videos, albums. We consider many personal stories each year, and we wanted to bring a selection of that work to the forefront and view it as a collective.”
The festival will also honor filmmaker Nelson with the annual Full Frame Tribute. Nelson’s body of work includes the films “A Place of Our Own,” “Freedom Riders,” “Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple,” “Wounded Knee,” “Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice,” “The Murder of Emmett Till,” among numerous other titles. An Emmy-winning MacArthur “genius” Fellow, Nelson is co-founder and executive director of Firelight Media, which provides technical education and professional support to emerging documentarians, and co-founder of the documentary production company Firelight Films.
“Stanley Nelson is an incredible filmmaker, and it’s been a privilege to showcase his films over the years,” said Tillery. “We not only look forward to screening a selection of his work during the Festival, but also spotlighting the significant ways in which he supports and encourages up and coming filmmakers through Firelight Media. We’re excited he will be joining us in Durham.”
Specific titles for the Tribute and Thematic Program, along with attending guests, will be announced in March.
Festival passes can be purchased online at www.fullframefest.org.
