The Documentary Institute

NY Fundraiser For Ginz Film

Wake Forest Vice-President of Development Bob Baker, Churchill Roberts, Academy Award-winning actress Lee Grant, UF alumnus Amy Goldeberger and Sandra Dickson at New York fundraising reception.

UF alumnus and DI advisory board member Amy Goldberger recently hosted a reception in her Manhattan home to acquaint people in the New York area with The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. The fundraising event featured a diary reading by Academy-award winning actress Lee Grant and a screening of the film’s trailer. The event also served as venue for the reunion of several survivors of the Terezin concentration camp. Also in attendance were representatives of the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations and the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

NEA Funds Ginz Animation

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded the Documentary Institute a grant of $30,000 for its production of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. The film will tell the story of artistic and literary prodigy, Petr Ginz. By 14 Petr had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

DI Named Top Ten Program

Noting its “outstanding reputation” and its award-winning student films, The Independent recently named the Documentary Institute in its review of the best programs for documentary filmmakers,
The Academics of Documentary: The Top Ten

Documentary Institute Moves to Wake Forest University

Due to statewide budget cuts, the Documentary Institute will no longer offer a graduate program in documentary film. But the top-ranked documentary program will continue at Wake Forest University where DI faculty members Sandra Dickson, Cindy Hill and Cara Pilson will join Wake Forest professor and award-winning filmmaker Mary Dalton in launching a new graduate documentary program.

Offering students the option of an MA or MFA in documentary production, the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest will continue the DI tradition of producing award-winning and socially significant student documentary films. “We will be part of a top-ranked national university with a strong intellectual tradition and a keen sense of social responsibility—the perfect environment for creative and responsible storytelling,” says Dickson, who joined the Wake faculty in July.

The new Documentary Film Program is slated to begin in Fall 2010 and is currently accepting applications.

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Film Festival Premiere for Better Bones and Gardens

Better Bones and Gardens, produced by 2009 DI grads Lindsey Clark and Natalie Edler makes its film festival premiere at the Grand Rapids Film Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The film, an official selection in the Student Documentary Category, follows Dan Phillips, a trash architect, and Kipp Nash, an urban farmer as these men transform the common house and garden in wildly imaginative ways.