AmDocs Honours Joe Berlinger and Creates NSDN
… which stands for North South Doc Network, more about that below. The festival that runs from April 30-March 4 opens with the premiere of director Joe Berlinger’s latest film ”Tony Robbins: I am not Your Guru” and includes three of the director’s previous works: ”Brother’s Keeper”, ”Under African Skies” and ”Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger”. Berlinger will receive the “Seeing the Bigger Picture” at this year’s edition of the Palm Springs-based American Documentary Film Festival.
And here follows the press release of the festival explaining the brilliant initiative behind the new festival alliance. Yes, festival should collaborate, not compete as it so often happens:
In a move that is sure to create new opportunities for documentary filmmakers all over the world, the American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs) has forged an alliance with three other International Documentary Film Festivals, designed to allow each of them to share content.
“From the very beginning, one of our primary goals for AmDocs was to provide independent documentary filmmakers with greater access to worldwide audiences,” says Ted Grouya (photo), Founder and Festival Director for the American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs).
“This new alliance, the North South Doc Network (NSDN) not only allows documentary filmmakers to reach as many people in the world as possible, it also helps bridge the gap between cultural understanding, societal nuances, politics and the lives of those in and around diverse locations throughout the world.”
Founding members of NSDN include DokuFest (Republic of Kosovo), DocsDF (Mexico), EDoc (Ecuador) and AmDocs (United States of America). “We certainly hope to grow the Film Alliance,” Grouya continues. “But these four festivals provide a great base from which to move forward because they represent very different geographical regions and very different cultures overall.”
Initially, NSDN partners will share films from each of their own festivals with the other partners. This will not only expose their home country and/or region’s culture and identity to NSDN partner festivals and their audiences, but also provide the films’ creators with an unprecedented opportunity to expand the audience for their films. The sharing of films will also allow each festival’s home audiences to see works they may never have been able to see, had NSDN not existed.
Additional opportunities provided by the NSDN alliance include an opportunity for each alliance partner to expand the potential scope of their sponsors’ market outreach. Partners will also provide complimentary advertising opportunities for each other in their event program materials, on their websites, and on other print collateral materials. They will promote jointly as possible, and work to create joint press opportunities, as well as work diligently to create a “brain trust” designed to explore additional avenues for shared growth, including, but not limited to educational outreach programs, filmmaker partnership productions, additional fund-raising opportunities, and ways to increase the overall visibility and ongoing viability of documentary film, as well as the independent documentary filmmakers around the world who bring knowledge and awareness to audiences through their stories about real people and issues.
If you want to know more, go to the FB page of the festival through the website:
