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Patricia Aufderheide reports that the Chubb group of insurance companies, “has now joined the group of insurers that recognize fair use claims for documentary filmmakers.” Chubb’s key requirement, as with the other insurers, is that a lawyer verifies that the filmmaker follows the Best Practices in Fair Use document distributed by the Center for Social […]

The Oxford American just released their 2007 Southern Movie Issue. One article lists 13 more essential Southern docs. More? An article from a previous movie issue, in 2002, listed 13 essential doc about the US South.
In that 2002 issue, an editors’ note introduced the list:

Our contention is that documentaries—not the Hollywood-Comes-to-the-South extravaganzas—may be the true […]

A bit more news on yesterday’s story about the PBS promise to amend the upcoming Ken Burns World War II doc to include stories about US Latino veterans.
The Associated Press has a longer story.
The Defend the Honor Campaign issued a victorious press release. And their website has a whole bunch of background material and links.
And […]

Well I don’t know why. The documentary by Martyn Burke and ABG Films Inc. was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be part of the first batch of films in their America At A Crossroads project. But now it isn’t. Islam vs. Islamists apparently focuses on struggles between moderate and less-moderate Islamic groups. […]

This just in from the Associated Press:
PBS promised Wednesday to amend Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary series on World War II to include stories about Latino veterans after activists complained he ignored their contributions to the American effort.
Burns has also agreed to hire a Latino producer to help create the additional content, PBS said.
The Burns doc, […]

Last Friday saw the debut of The Hoax, a film about the notorious “Authorized Autobiography of Howard Hughes” that Clifford Irving wrote without any authorization or any input from Hughes. You can watch the trailer for The Hoax, but that’s not a documentary.
Instead, you could watch a teaser on YouTube for the 1974 Orson Welles […]

According to this story at sfgate.com, the website for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Josh Wolf, a blogger and freelance journalist who has spent 7 1/2 months in federal prison for defying a grand jury subpoena related to his coverage of an anarchist protest, turned over video footage to prosecutors today and will be released shortly, lawyers […]

For those who feel their doc career isn’t moving as fast as they’d like, draw inspiration from Ruth Yorkin Dazen.
Ruth Yorkin Drazen was 69 when her husband Jerome died of prostate cancer. She thought she’d be terrified when he died, only to experience an entirely different emotion.
“It was his having a way out to peace,” […]