Documentary film fest takes on a German focus

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Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:00a.m.

Until very recently she was one of the most powerful women in America, so what better way to chronicle the life and career of Condoleezza Rice than with a musical comedy?

It sounds like a joke, but Courting Condi is in fact a doco and it hits our screens at the end of this month as part of this year's documentary film festival.

The full program is out today and festival director Alex Lee spoke to Sunrise about it.

 
More Information:
 
DOCNZ is the annual international competitive documentary film festival held in New Zealand that showcases the very best in documentary film from New Zealand and around the World. The festival runs in 4 major centres around New Zealand from late February and includes Awards Night, Q&A Sessions with filmmakers and more.
 
This year they have a German focus: The 2009 DOCNZ Festival is proud to present a selection of cutting edge German cinema, thanks to a partnership with the Goethe Institut. From the plight of a small village that hosts the worlds' biggest heavy metal festival, to an attempt to bring classical music to city schoolchildren.
 
They also have a German scholarship available for a NZ documentary maker this year - The DOCNZ Goethe-Institut Documentary Scholarship recipient will travel to Germany, undergo an intensive German language course and work on his or her project through a tailored programme put together by Goethe-Institut and the German documentary industry.
Alex has been invited by the German Embassy as a select group of international filmakers to be official guests of the German Government at the Berlin Film Festival 2009.
 
DOCNZ Festival 2009 Dates
Auckland 26 February - 8 March
Wellington 12 March - 22 March
Christchurch and Dunedin  26 March - 5 April
 
Alex's picks of the festival
All Together Now - The Beatles meets Cirque du Soleil
At the Death House Door
Oblivion - by Heddy Honnigmann
Body of War - co-directed by Phil Donahue
The Wild Horse Redemption - cinematic and inspiring
Her name is Sabine - directed by world renowned French acclaimed award winning actor, Sandrine Bonnaire about her autistic sister
The Beetle - about a VW Beetle and its owner
Recipes for Disaster - family's eco dreams of reducing Carbon consumption goes awry
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Comments

04 Feb 2009 07:03a.m.

Dudley Sharp wrote:

"At the Death House Door" Can Rev. Carroll Pickett be trusted?
Dudley Sharp

Rev. Pickett's inaccuracies are many and important.

Does Rev. Pickett just make facts up as he goes along, hoping that no one fact checks, or is he just confused or ignorant?

1) Pickett: (1989) "I was so 100% certain that he couldn't have committed this crime. (Carlos) was a super person to minister to. I knew Carlos was not guilty. " "I knew (executed inmate) Carlos (De Luna) didn't do it." (1)

REPLY: There is this major problem. It appears that Rev. Pickett is, now, either lying about his own 1989 opinions or he is very confused.

In 1999, 4 years after Rev. Pickett had left his death row ministry, and he had become an anti death penalty activist, and 10 years after De Luna's execution, the reverend was asked, in a PBS Frontline interview,

"Do you think there have been some you have watched die who were strictly innocent?"

Pickett's reply: "I never felt that."(2)

For at least 15 years, Pickett never felt that any of the 95 executed were actually innocent.

This directly conflicts with his current statements on Carlos De Luna. Rev. Pickett is, now, saying that he was 100% sure of De Luna's innocence in 1989!

If he was 100% sure of DeLuna's innocence in 1989, what's up with the PBS interview?.

How could Rev. Pickett forget the only "innocent" person he saw executed - he was 100% sure of his innocence - on his watch? Wouldn't anyone find that to be 100% impossible to forget, particularly when you are asked, specifically, about it during a formal interview?

When is the first confirmable date that Rev. Pickett stated he believed in DeLuna's actual innocence? It appears the reverend has either revised history to support his new anti death penalty activism - he's lying - or he is, again, very confused. Reverend?

See complete response in COMMENTS, at bottom of
http://blog.spout.com/2008/03/14/sxsw-2008-at-the-death-house-door/