Author Archives: Jill

“The Children Were Watching” Joins The Criterion Channel

The latest Drew Associates classic film to join the lineup at The Criterion Channel is The Children Were Watching. This 26-minute documentary, filmed by Richard Leacock, lets you feel what it was like to be there in 1960 when Ruby Bridges, Tessie Prevost, and other young African-American children bravely integrated the William Frantz Elementary School and other public schools in New Orleans. Raw and emotional, the film focuses on the eyes of children as they witness their parents menacing the young Black students who are escorted to school by federal marshals. The hate-filled crowds also taunt the few White families who continue to send their children to the integrated school, forming a raucous gauntlet along the sidewalks that the parents and their children must travel to get in and out of school.

Although most Drew Associates’ films use only spare narration, relying instead on their cinema verite style to convey the story, this film employs a narrator more extensively as one of the counterpoints to the offensive racist language and actions of the segregationists. The narrator’s message at the end of the film tragically resonates today: “As for the children watching, perhaps you have discovered in them another, deeper story: of their legacy of conflict, handed down as it has been for generations. But now with some changes. Now, for the first time, there are the Tessie Prevosts and children following in the footsteps of Yolanda Gabrielle watching, too. Watching their parents, supported by the law of the land, in calm and determined opposition to the fury spent against them. What all the children are learning as they now watch will only be discovered when they become parents and their children are watching them.”

Click here to watch the film. (Note: There is currently a glitch in streaming the film in the Google Chrome browser. The problem should be fixed shortly. If you experience issues watching the film, we recommend using the Firefox browser.)

2019 Drew Award Winners Announced

Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, the dynamic filmmaking team behind this year’s American Factory, shared the 2019 Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence. American Factory went on to win the Oscar for Feature Documentary, the third time the filmmakers who won this award went on to capture the year’s Academy Award.

The Robert and Anne Drew Award honors a mid-career filmmaker or partnership that excels in observational filmmaking, carrying on the tradition of cinema verite that was at the heart of Drew’s original films. The award was presented at the Visionaries Tribute Award Luncheon at the DOC NYC Festival on November 12, 2019. Reichert and Bognar shared the $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Drew Associates.

The award’s name celebrates Drew Associates’ Founder Robert Drew and his wife Anne, who was his filmmaking partner for more than four decades.

Reichert and Bognar’s work is marked by a deep respect for working-class subjects. Previous films include the Oscar-nominated short The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant; and the feature A Lion in the House. Reichert was Oscar-nominated for her documentary feature films Union Maids and Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists. Her first film was Growing Up Female, which is on the National Film Registry. Bognar’s solo films are Personal BelongingsPicture Day and Gravel.

Past recipients of the Robert and Anne Drew Award are Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Dawn Porter, Kim Longinotto and Laura Poitras.

In Memoriam: D.A. Pennebaker

Our hearts are heavy with the news that D.A. Pennebaker, our friend and master filmmaker, has died. His passion to capture life on film, without artifice or interference, led him early in his career to three others who had similar visions: Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, and Albert Maysles. That team invented a new form of storytelling that lives on as a staple of today’s documentary form, called American cinema verité.

These pioneers had to literally invent the equipment that could allow stories to be told the way they envisioned. And the on-the-ground problem-solving required both genius and grunt work. For example, for the groundbreaking film “Primary,” about the 1960 Kennedy-Humphrey primary election in Wisconsin, Pennebaker used his engineering training to set up special equipment for the team to collaborate in editing the unique footage. The team was trying out a custom-built, cut-down camera linked to a portable tape recorder so they could record visuals and synchronized audio while moving with the characters they were filming – which had never been done before. But they discovered that nothing was in sync. The magic cable apparently had broken. The filmmakers had to spend weeks working around the clock with a “resolver” – with Penny turning a crank that could either speed up or slow down the film to match up with the audio.

This new form of cinema required both vision and practical skills. It took people like Penny who knew how stuff worked, who could help fashion new equipment and fix it when it broke, to capture and deliver on the dream. Of course, Pennebaker’s talents as a young filmmaker went far beyond the technical. In films like “David” and “Jane,”  his long camera holds and penetrating closeups made for deep viewer bonding with the films’ characters. That distinctive style is part of the art in “Crisis: Behind A Presidential Commitment.” Pennebaker and Greg Shuker, one of the film’s co-producers who also took sound, are the only two independent filmmakers to ever candidly film a president inside the Oval Office making real decisions.

Pennebaker’s legendary films – Dont Look Back, Monterey Pop, The War Room (which he made with his wife and filmmaking partner extraordinaire Chris Hegedus), and so many others—are treasures of the form. He was a giant of filmmaking and he will be sorely missed.

Go here for a filmography and description of Penny’s work at Drew Associates. For the full arc of Pennebaker’s career, go to Pennebaker Hegedus Films.

To watch “Primary,” go here

To watch “Crisis: Behind A Presidential Commitment,” go here

2018 Drew Award Winners Announced

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the filmmaking team behind Meru and this year’s Free Solo, are the winners of the 2018 Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence, which recognizes a mid-career filmmaker distinguished for observational cinema. They will share a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Drew Associates. The award will be presented at the Visionaries Tribute Award Luncheon at the DOC NYC Festival on November 8, 2018.

The award’s name celebrates Drew Associates’ Founder Robert Drew and his wife Anne, who was his filmmaking partner for more than four decades. The previous recipients were filmmaking partners Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Dawn Porter, Kim Longinotto and Laura Poitras.

A National Geographic Documentary Film, Free Solo is described as a stunning and unflinching portrait of free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock — the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — without a rope. Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death.

“The filmmakers reveal Alex Honnold’s complex internal landscape so skillfully that what their cameras capture as he climbs those sheer cliffs feels intimate, an authentic quest to fulfill who he is. The film is a marvel of storytelling as well as visual excellence,” said Jill Drew, general manager of Drew Associates.

Vasarhelyi has additional solo directing credits on other films including Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love, Touba, A Normal Life and the award-winning Incorruptible. Chin is also a professional climber and has an accomplished career as a photographer for National Geographic and other outlets.

2017 Drew Award Winners Announced

Filmmaking partners Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady are the winners of the 2017 Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence, which recognizes a mid-career filmmaker distinguished for observational cinema. They will share a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Drew Associates. The award will be presented at the Visionaries Tribute Award Luncheon at the DOC NYC Festival on November 9, 2017.

Ewing and Grady’s latest film One of Us, about three Hasidic Jews who are seeking to move out of their insular community, screens at DOC NYC as part of this year’s Short List. Their previous films include Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Detropia, 12th & Delaware, Jesus Camp, and The Boys of Baraka.

The award’s name celebrates Drew Associates’ Founder Robert Drew and his wife Anne, who was his filmmaking partner for more than four decades. The three previous recipients were Dawn Porter, Kim Longinotto and Laura Poitras.

“Every time I see a Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady documentary I learn something profound about the human experience,” saidJill Drew, the general manager of Drew Associates, who helped select the recipients. “Their ability to go deep into cultures that are oftentimes portrayed as caricatures goes to the heart of why observational documentary is so powerful and important, especially now. They don’t tell us what to think; they show us what it’s like.”

2016 Drew Award Winner Announced

Dawn Porter, director of “Trapped,” is the winner of the 2016 Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence, which recognizes a mid-career filmmaker distinguished for observational cinema. She will receive a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Drew Associates. The award will be presented at the Visionaries Tribute Award Luncheon at the DOC NYC Festival on November 10, 2016.

The award’s name celebrates Drew Associates’ Founder Robert Drew and his wife Anne, who was his filmmaking partner for more than four decades. Previous winners of the award, now in its third year, were Kim Longinotto and Laura Poitras.

Trapped looks at abortion providers struggling to stay open in the U.S. South. It premiered at Sundance where it picked up a Special Jury prize for social impact filmmaking.

“My late father-in-law felt the best documentary stories were told up-close with people under pressure making difficult choices of real consequence,” said Jill Drew, general manager of Drew Associates. “Dawn’s work does just that. It doesn’t matter which side of an issue you’re on. Her subjects are true-to-life riveting.”

Porter’s previous feature, “Gideon’s Army,” which follows the struggles of three dedicated, overworked public defenders, won the Sundance Film Festival Editing Award in 2013.

Disc Review: Boston Globe on Drew’s Kennedy Films

Watching the inter-cut scenes of Hubert Humphrey shaking hands with farmers, then John F. Kennedy stirring young women into a “pre-Beatlemania frenzy,” Boston Globe reviewer Peter Keough had this to say about the films in The Criterion Collection’s re-mastered disc release of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates: “…the point is clear: The earnest old Liberal warhorse was destined to lose to the flashy upstart. As was the dynamic new cinema verite destined to eclipse the dull dinosaur that the documentary genre had become.”

Read the full review here.

 

JFK’s Wisconsin Primary

Since 1960 every Democratic Presidential nominee has won the Wisconsin primary. Learn more about the 1960 Wisconsin primary where JFK solidified his position as one of the most important figures in American Politics at The Criterion Collection. Criterion provides insight about this historic election with clips from Primary, the revolutionary documentary providing never before seen insight into the political process.

For your chance to see Primary and other Drew Associates films about John F. Kennedy in theaters check out: The Collection Criterion Live! The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates and the 19th Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

 

 

Full Frame to Screen Two Drew Kennedy Films

The 19th Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will feature two Drew Associates films as part of this year’s thematic program, “Perfect and Otherwise: Documenting American Politics.” Curated by filmmaker R.J. Cutler, the films will focus on the inherent drama of the American electoral system.

The two films, “Primary” and “Crisis: Behind A Presidential Commitment,” will screen on both April 8 and 9. The festival will be screening the new, fully remastered 2K digital restorations courtesy of Janus Films, which owns The Criterion Collection. Criterion is releasing the remastered versions of those films, plus two other Drew Kennedy films, on disc on April 26.

“Primary” is a natural for the program because it is widely seen as setting the standard for all campaign films that followed. It tells the story of then-Sen. John F. Kennedy as he battles with Sen. Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Wisconsin Presidential primary.

“Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment,” goes inside Kennedy’s Oval Office during the President’s confrontation with Gov. George Wallace, who defied a federal court order and stood in the schoolhouse door to prevent two African-American students from enrolling at the all-white University of Alabama in 1963.

The festival runs from April 7-10, 2016, in Durham, N.C. Tickets are available at the Full Frame website.

Criterion Live! to Feature Drew Kennedy Films

On April 6, The Criterion Collection will host its first-ever “Criterion Collection Live!” event at The Metrograph in Manhattan. Designed to give ticketholders a peek into Criterion’s discriminating process for picking films to add to its collection, and its process of remastering them for optimal visual and audio quality, the night will also feature discussions with key players involved in the release of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates.

Criterion president Peter Becker will be joined by the legendary documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker; Jill Drew (Robert Drew’s daughter-in-law and Drew Associates’ general manager); journalist Frank Rich; and more to discuss these groundbreaking films, especially relevant in an election year so dominated by the 24-hour news cycle. Admission includes tickets to the discussion, plus rare outtakes; an advance copy of the gift set; drink reception with the speakers; and screenings, including the alternate Richard Leacock cut of Primary (1960); Crisis (1963), documenting the tense standoff between the White House and the segregationist governor of Alabama; and the mournful Faces of November (1964), shot at Kennedy’s funeral. Tickets available at the Metrograph website. The event starts at 7 p.m.

Kennedy Films Join The Criterion Collection

Remastered for unparalleled visual and audio quality, the four Kennedy films produced by Robert Drew and his Associates, will be released on disc by The Criterion Collection on April 26. These are the classic films that form the bedrock of what President John F. Kennedy understood would be a new form of history.

Drew and his Associates — including famed filmmakers Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles — trace the promising-to-tragic political arc of the nation’s 35th President. Filmed in what was then a revolutionary style that came to be known as American cinema verite, the films capture the drama from Kennedy’s Presidential campaign in 1960 (PRIMARY), his inauguration and first days in office (ADVENTURES ON THE NEW FRONTIER), the top-level strategizing in the Oval Office during the forced integration of the University of Alabama in the summer of 1963 (CRISIS: BEHIND A PRESIDENTIAL COMMITMENT), to the funeral of the assassinated President (FACES OF NOVEMBER) in November of that same year.

The Criterion Collection, in partnership with the Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, selected original elements of all four films and created new digital versions, expertly restored. The Criterion Collection edition of “The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates” includes several extras, such as never-before-seen outtakes from the raw footage of CRISIS, and several original interviews with figures including filmmaker Pennebaker, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and Kennedy scholars Richard Reeves and Andrew Cohen.

The Blu-Ray and DVD discs are also available for purchase on Amazon.

Rare Drew Films Streaming on SundanceNow

These are rarely seen, cutting-edge films that form the bedrock of early American cinéma vérité.

Robert Drew’s vision went far beyond his breakthrough film, PRIMARY, when he and Richard Leacock trained the world’s first sync-sound camera rig on John F. Kennedy campaigning for president. Drew set out to prove that there was a superior way of telling stories – that by using custom-designed portable equipment, two-person crews could capture life without directing the action and then edit that footage into a visually driven, viscerally experienced narrative of real life.

The films, curated by documentary aficionado Thom Powers, are JANE, THE CHAIR, THE CHILDREN WERE WATCHING, YANKI NO!, ON THE POLE: EDDIE SACHS, STORM SIGNAL, MOONEY VS. FOWLE, MISSION TO MALAYA, LETTERS FROM VIETNAM and SUSAN STARR.

SundanceNow Doc Club members can stream the films for free as part of their membership.

The creative foment that defined the early years Drew Associates revolutionized documentary filmmaking, charged by the collaborative talents of master filmmakers including Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles.

Filmmaker Kim Longinotto To Receive 2015 Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence

(from the Oct. 13, 2015 DOC NYC press release)  The Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence goes to a mid-career filmmaker distinguished for observational cinema. This year’s recipient is Kim Longinotto, who will receive a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by Drew Associates.

For more than thirty years, Longinotto has made acclaimed documentaries that have won awards from BAFTA, the Sundance Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among others. Her most recent film, “Dreamcatcher,” follows a former prostitute in Chicago who has dedicated her life to helping other sex workers.

The award’s name celebrates Robert Drew, who pioneered the documentary style that came to be known as American cinéma vérité, and his wife Anne, who was his filmmaking partner for more than four decades.

Jill Drew, the general manager of Drew Associates, who helped select the recipient, said, “Kim has trained her lens with a graceful touch on some of the most heartbreaking stories of women around the globe. By letting those stories unfold naturally, Kim lets the viewer feel what it’s like, to feel our shared humanity.”

Last year’s recipient was Laura Poitras who went on to win the Oscar for “Citizenfour.”

Laura Poitras to Receive First-Ever Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence

(from October 31, 2014 DOC NYC press release) Laura Poitras (CITIZENFOUR) will receive DOC NYC’s first annual Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence, a $5000 prize to celebrate the work of a mid-career documentary maker upholding the traditions of observational cinema.

The award will be formally presented at the DOC NYC Visionaries Tribute at the Park Restaurant at noon on November 14, in conjunction with the Lifetime Achievement Awards presented to Albert Maysles, DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus; and the new Leading Light Award presented to Dan Cogan of Impact Partners.

Responding to the news, Poitras said, “My filmmaking is built upon the groundbreaking legacy and artistry of Robert Drew. What he pioneered in the ’60s with films like Primary and Crisis, where he documented real world events unfolding in real time in front of his camera, is the foundation of all of my work. Drew understood that human drama exists in everyday life – from the simplest acts of daily life, to life threatening situations. I am honored to receive this award and to continue the tradition of non-fiction filmmaking that he founded.”

Jill Drew, the General Manager of Drew Associates (and daughter-in-law of Robert Drew), selected the recipient in conjunction with the DOC NYC programming team led by artistic director Thom Powers. Reflecting on the choice, Jill Drew said, “CITIZENFOUR is cinéma vérité at its best. Poitras’ camera is up close with a compelling character at a significant turning point of great consequence. I know Bob and Anne would applaud this powerful film.”

Poitras’ CITIZENFOUR is screening in the festival’s Short List section, while Drew Associates’ “The Chair” and “David” are set to screen in Docs Redux.