Director Tung-Yen Chou interviewed gay men from Taipei to London about looking for sex and/or love in the digital age Digital technology has impacted virtually every aspect of contemporary life -- and sex and romance are no exception. Online "dating" apps like Okay Cupid and Tinder are popular with straight folks, and for the LGBT crowd there's Grindr and Scruff, among others. These apps have transformed how millions of people satisfy their amorous needs, creating its own grammar of interaction and seduction. Taiwanese filmmaker Tung-Yen Chou, who has used apps like Grindr himself, explores the logistical and emotional aspects of dating app culture -- from hooking up to seeking something more -- in his impressive documentary Looking For? The film screened Friday night at Outfest in Los Angeles, its latest stop on a tour of film festivals worldwide. Nonfictionfilm.com editor Matt Carey spoke with the filmmaker on the Outfest opening night red carpet in downtown L.A. Outfest: 'Call Her Ganda' tells shocking story of trans Filipina woman killed by U.S. marine7/13/2018 PJ Raval's film investigates murder of Jennifer Laude in broader context of American imperialism The 2018 Outfest film festival is officially underway, with a strong lineup of documentaries set to engage audiences. Among them is Call Her Ganda, directed by PJ Raval, which explores the death of Jennifer Laude, a transgender Filipina woman who was killed by U.S. Marine stationed in the Philippines. The heinous nature of the crime -- Laude died of asphyxiation in a hotel room in Olongapo after her head was pushed into a toilet -- triggered outrage in the LGBT community and ignited further controversy over the U.S. military presence in the Southeast Asian country. But Laude's tragic story is not widely known in the U.S. Call Her Ganda will screen Saturday morning at the Harmony Gold Theatre in West Hollywood. Nonfictionfilm.com editor Matt Carey spoke with Raval Thursday night at the Outfest opening night event in downtown L.A. Jeff Kaufman film explores career of openly-gay Broadway great Playwright and librettist Terrence McNally may be the quintessential "man of the theater." He has won four Tony Awards -- two for his plays Master Class (1996) and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1995), and two for writing the books to the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993) and Ragtime (1998) -- over the course of a career that began in the 1960s. But outside the sphere of Broadway, his work is much better known than the man himself. The new documentary Every Act of Life corrects that, introducing McNally to people who may have seen Frankie and Johnny, for instance -- the 1991 movie that starred Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer -- but not realized McNally wrote the film's screenplay based on his play Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. Jeff Kaufman directed Every Act of Life, which is playing at the Outfest film festival in Los Angeles this Sunday (July 15) and the following Sunday, July 22. It explores not only McNally's theater work but his life as a gay man growing up in Texas in the 1950s and his relationship with fellow gay playwright Edward Albee and friendship with author John Steinbeck, among other luminaries. Nonfictionfilm.com editor Matt Carey spoke with Kaufman and producer Marcia Ross Thursday night on the Outfest opening night red carpet.
Brett Morgen's film on Jane Goodall was shut out of the Oscar nominations, but gets love from TV Academy
The announcement of the nominations for the 70th annual Primetime Emmy Awards Thursday brought welcome news to acclaimed documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen, months after his Oscar heartache. His film Jane, about pioneering primatologist Jane Goodall, earned seven nominations including one in the exclusive category of Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Nominees for that award are selected through a special juried process, making it arguably the most prestigious of the documentary categories. This is my favorite film I've worked on.
The cascade of nominations -- which also came for nonfiction directing, cinematography, picture editing, writing, sound editing and sound mixing -- offer vindication for the filmmaker after Jane was shockingly denied an Oscar nomination. Up to that point it had appeared a lock for a nomination and, according to many observers, the favorite to win.
Morgen tweeted his thanks to Emmy voters and distributor National Geographic, writing "This film is the culmination of 60 years of animal research and continuous filming and is a tribute to generations of researchers, Jane and Hugo." (The Hugo he refers to is Hugo van Lawick, the late cinematographer who filmed Goodall's early research in Tanzania).
Also nominated in the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking category are Matthew Heineman's City of Ghosts, which aired on A&E, Yance Ford's Strong Island (Netflix), and What Haunts Us (Starz). Read:
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AuthorMatthew Carey is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. His work has appeared on Deadline.com, CNN, CNN.com, TheWrap.com, NBCNews.com and in Documentary magazine. |