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DN EP 088: All The Drunken Horsemen - Tomas Leach

Director Tomas Leach joins us to discuss his feature documentary All The Drunken Horsemen, which saw him travel to the isolated Mayan town of Todos Santos in the mountains of Guatemala to capture the preparations for its legendary annual drunken horse race. Showlinks Tomas Leach 3 Minute Wonders FourDocs Fabrica

Featured Notes

A Gift for Dickie

Not content with organizing an increasingly popular independent film festival, Neil Fox and Justin Doherty of Filmstock fame have today launched a scheme to help one of the true legends of Cinema.

Hotel Harabati Competition

A few days ago it was my pleasure to interview French director Brice Cauvin about his feature debut, the excellent Hotel Harabati, which you may recall appeared in both Miss D’s and my top ten lists of 2007. I’ll be posting clips from the film and our interview in a few days, but right now [...]

INSIDE THE CIRCLE Breakin’ Convention Screening

You’d think that running Directors Notes would mean I spend all my time at screenings and hobnobbing with directors, but the sad reality is that most of my filmmaker contact is via Skype, email and screeners, partially because they live in different countries to me, but more often than should be the case laziness and [...]

Asides

• It's MarBelle Short of the Week rotation time again and I feel I've outdone myself with the find that is I Love Sarah Jane - OK, El Vez actually found it and dropped me an email but I'm taking all the credit as usual! Now just got to convince director Spencer Susser to come on the podcast... Have a read and watch. #
• Doc It Out has posted an interesting piece about a subject that raises its head again and again in the ethics of documentary filmmaking; should subjects get paid for their participation? This latest hubbub has centred around Errol Morris' admission that some of the 'bad apples' interviewed for his Standard Operating Procedure doc did receive a consultancy fee. Anyway read the Much Ado About Nothing, or Not? article for more. #
• Back on DN043 Peter Bunzl joined us to discuss his dark, thought experiment animation Mind Games and wet our appetites with talk of his new topsy turvy short On The Upside, in which an elderly couple overcome quirks of gravity to maintain their relationship. On The Upside is now finished and there's a clip over at Peter's website or you can watch the full film on Babelgum. Enjoy! #
• Directors Notes' friends Boca & Ryan Uhrich - DN076 - have rightly been nominated as finalists at FITC 2008 for their dual screen extravaganza DUELITY which automatic puts them up as an entry for the people's choice awards - this is where you come in. Just go to http://awards.fitc.ca/pc, select DUELITY on the Motion Graphics list, put your name and e-mail address on the bottom and click on submit vote. You know it's the right thing to do! #
• Checking through my mail this morning I came across a useful link in the Shooting People bulletin for the Free Film Festivals website. As they put it: Our schedules list free entry film festivals right across the planet, all of which will accept both submission and screening copies on either small gauge film or inexpensive and accessible DV media. And, to help you plan with ease, the closing date for each festival is clearly shown. So you can put the money you save towards that new camera you've been lusting after instead! #