Beyond the Distributor (Feb 5 IDAinsight): Key Takeaways
idastaff
Tue, 03/03/2026 – 11:08
Beyond the Distributor (Feb 5 IDAinsight): Key Takeaways
idastaff
Tue, 03/03/2026 – 11:08
Endless Cookie is the winner of the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary award from the Toronto Film Critics Association. win award was announced tonight at the annual TFCA Awards Gala at the Omni King Edward Hotel in Toronto, hosted by actress Tamara Podemski. Endless Cookie scores a cash prize of $50,000, courtesy of Rogers, with the award.
Directed by half-brothers Seth Scriver and Pete Scriver, the animated documentary offers a riotous and offbeat feat of storytelling as the siblings—one white and one Indigenous—collaborate as Seth sets out to record Pete’s stories. Along the way, Pete’s rambling tales take plenty of digressions and find just as many interruptions as family members and neighbours enter the scene and make some noise, all of which Seth keeps in the final track. The audio interviews serve as the basis for Seth’s eclectic animation that vividly and humorously accentuates the divergent nature of Pete’s yarns. Seth was on hand to collect the prize, along with Pete’s son Chris.
Endless Cookie also won the TFCA’s Best Animated Feature prize back in December, marking the first time that a film has won both honours. The film is now streaming on Crave.
Meanwhile, the two runners-up for the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary Award—Ghosts of the Sea, directed by Virginia Tangvald, and Who Killed the Montreal Expos?, directed by Jean-François Poisson—receive cash prizes of $5,000, courtesy of Rogers.
Also announced at the gala was Blue Heron as the winner of the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. The drama directed by Sophy Romvari sees a fateful summer through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl as her troubled brother acts out in ways that will forever shape their Hungarian-Canadian family. Blue Heron also won Best First Feature for Romvari in the TFCA’s main slate of previously announced awards and the film continues her deeply personal blurring of the lines between fiction and non-fiction. It opens in Toronto at the Fox Theatre on March 28 and expands to more theatres in April.
Runners up for Rogers Best Canadian Film also receive cash prizes of $5,000. Those films are Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, directed by Matt Johnson, and The Shrouds, directed by David Cronenberg.
“Both of this year’s Rogers Prize-winning films speak so eloquently to our present moment,” said Robin Mirsky, executive director of the Rogers Group of Funds, in a release. “Blue Heron addresses the timeless subjects of immigration, belonging, family, memory, and the ache of love in such a timely way. And Endless Cookie layers urgent ideas about isolation, addiction, colonialism and economic disparity under great warmth, humour and originality. Both are about searching for home – specifically, searching for home in Canada – and we’re proud to celebrate them, along with all the nominees.”
“Our six Rogers nominees this year are about as different from one another as six films could be,” added TFCA Johanna Schneller. “That is thrilling to me, because it shows the remarkable range of talent in this country. But I’m delighted to single out Endless Cookie and Blue Heron. You couldn’t possibly distill either film into a tidy elevator pitch — they’re each too wonderfully singular for that. But they do have this in common: They both take you on an unforgettable journey, though neither takes you where you think it will.”
Other honours at the TFCA gala included the presentation of the Company 3 Luminary Award to documentary filmmaker and Films We Like co-founder Ron Mann (Clairtone). As part of the prize, Mann gets to pick an emerging filmmaker to receive $50,000 in services from Company 3. Mann’s “pay it forward” selection is filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills (Geographies of Solitude).
The TFCA gala included thank you videos from most of the night’s winners, including Ryan White, whose film Come See Me in the Good Light scored the Allan King Documentary Award. Also sending thanks via video were Best International Feature winner Oliver Laxe, director of Sirāt, actors Nina Hoss (Hedda), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another), Joan Chen (Montreal, My Beautiful), and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Sweet Angel Baby), while Paul Thomas Anderson sent a note of thanks, as his crime dramedy One Battle After Another led the field with four wins including Best Picture.
The post Endless Cookie Wins Rogers Best Canadian Documentary from Toronto Film Critics Association appeared first on POV Magazine.
Steve Boyes is such a perfect participant for a Werner Herzog documentary that he could have been created in a lab. For many years, the South African conservation biologist has been seeking evidence of an elusive herd of elephants located in a difficult-to-reach part of Angola. It’s another impossible dream, but Boyes believes, as he states in Herzog’s film Ghost Elephants, it doesn’t matter if they’re real or a dream. The future of all animals is to be in a dream anyway, as in, they’ll be just a memory.
Compared to other Herzogian subjects, particularly the adventurer-scientist type, Boyes is passionate and determined, yet not overly obsessed. He says in the film that it doesn’t even matter if he finds these elephants, and ultimately, it might be better not to encounter them at all. Herzog’s documentary follows Boyes on an expedition traveling with three KhoiSan trackers from an indigenous group representing our oldest ancestral origins and a spiritual connection man has to elephants.
Ahead of the release of Ghost Elephants, I talked to Herzog, producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, and Boyes via Zoom. Below is a transcript of our conversation in full, including the moment I embarrassed myself trying to get Herzog to comment on the similarities between this documentary and the fake one he’s supposed to be directing in a silly fictional mockumentary he starred in 22 years ago. Apologies for not sharing the audio, but you can easily hear Herzog’s iconic voice in your head while reading.
Nonfics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Nonfics: What came first, the idea to do this film or plans for the specific expedition that it’s documenting?
Steve Boyes: Ten years of expeditions in the Angolan Highlands, a place that was locked away from the world for generations, for over 40 years, 27 years of civil war. In 2015, we get in there, or 2014, as tourists, secretly meet the governor, get a letter from the president, and, in armored vehicles try to get access to this completely undocumented, unknown landscape the size of England, and begin this journey. We find these extraordinary source lakes, launch into them, explore all the rivers, and start to find signs of elephants.
For these 10 years, elephants have been an underlying theme. Where are these giants, the biggest animals, when we’re finding everything else, hundreds of new species to science, new populations of cheetahs, wild dogs, and lions, all not known to be there? Twenty-six source lakes in the end. I found signs of elephants before we found and met people. There are so few people up there. That was a ghost, the first one, 10 years ago. We’ve been going up there pretty much throughout — except it gets tricky with the end of the rainy season, as you saw in the film — for 10 years.
“Overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.”
How did you meet or hear about each other and decide to work together on the film?
Steve Boyes: A mutual friend said to come to dinner in Beverly Hills, of all places, and you must meet Werner. And we did. I think the restaurant closed on us. We were just talking about everything in the universe. And we spoke about the ghost elephants, about the link to the Smithsonian, and that was the beginning.
Werner Herzog: I personally knew right away that this was big. As a storyteller, you know that. I was invited originally just to be an advisor. Steve invited me to come to Namibia to the northern Kalahari Desert, and when I arrived there, there was already a South African team working on this search, this quest, for a long time. But they had no real clear idea how to shape it into a story, into a movie. So after that, it was almost instantly clear I should do the conversations. The next day, everybody was clear: “Oh, please, step in completely.” And I said I don’t want to take the job of anyone. But everybody pushed me: “Please take over. Do it. Do it.” So overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.
Steve Boyes is such a perfect participant for a Werner Herzog documentary that he could have been created in a lab. For many years, the South African conservation biologist has been seeking evidence of an elusive herd of elephants located in a difficult-to-reach part of Angola. It’s another impossible dream, but Boyes believes, as he states in Herzog’s film Ghost Elephants, it doesn’t matter if they’re real or a dream. The future of all animals is to be in a dream anyway, as in, they’ll be just a memory.
Compared to other Herzogian subjects, particularly the adventurer-scientist type, Boyes is passionate and determined, yet not overly obsessed. He says in the film that it doesn’t even matter if he finds these elephants, and ultimately, it might be better not to encounter them at all. Herzog’s documentary follows Boyes on an expedition traveling with three KhoiSan trackers from an indigenous group representing our oldest ancestral origins and a spiritual connection man has to elephants.
Ahead of the release of Ghost Elephants, I talked to Herzog, producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, and Boyes via Zoom. Below is a transcript of our conversation in full, including the moment I embarrassed myself trying to get Herzog to comment on the similarities between this documentary and the fake one he’s supposed to be directing in a silly fictional mockumentary he starred in 22 years ago. Apologies for not sharing the audio, but you can easily hear Herzog’s iconic voice in your head while reading.
Nonfics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Nonfics: What came first, the idea to do this film or plans for the specific expedition that it’s documenting?
Steve Boyes: Ten years of expeditions in the Angolan Highlands, a place that was locked away from the world for generations, for over 40 years, 27 years of civil war. In 2015, we get in there, or 2014, as tourists, secretly meet the governor, get a letter from the president, and, in armored vehicles try to get access to this completely undocumented, unknown landscape the size of England, and begin this journey. We find these extraordinary source lakes, launch into them, explore all the rivers, and start to find signs of elephants.
For these 10 years, elephants have been an underlying theme. Where are these giants, the biggest animals, when we’re finding everything else, hundreds of new species to science, new populations of cheetahs, wild dogs, and lions, all not known to be there? Twenty-six source lakes in the end. I found signs of elephants before we found and met people. There are so few people up there. That was a ghost, the first one, 10 years ago. We’ve been going up there pretty much throughout — except it gets tricky with the end of the rainy season, as you saw in the film — for 10 years.
“Overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.”
How did you meet or hear about each other and decide to work together on the film?
Steve Boyes: A mutual friend said to come to dinner in Beverly Hills, of all places, and you must meet Werner. And we did. I think the restaurant closed on us. We were just talking about everything in the universe. And we spoke about the ghost elephants, about the link to the Smithsonian, and that was the beginning.
Werner Herzog: I personally knew right away that this was big. As a storyteller, you know that. I was invited originally just to be an advisor. Steve invited me to come to Namibia to the northern Kalahari Desert, and when I arrived there, there was already a South African team working on this search, this quest, for a long time. But they had no real clear idea how to shape it into a story, into a movie. So after that, it was almost instantly clear I should do the conversations. The next day, everybody was clear: “Oh, please, step in completely.” And I said I don’t want to take the job of anyone. But everybody pushed me: “Please take over. Do it. Do it.” So overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.
Steve Boyes is such a perfect participant for a Werner Herzog documentary that he could have been created in a lab. For many years, the South African conservation biologist has been seeking evidence of an elusive herd of elephants located in a difficult-to-reach part of Angola. It’s another impossible dream, but Boyes believes, as he states in Herzog’s film Ghost Elephants, it doesn’t matter if they’re real or a dream. The future of all animals is to be in a dream anyway, as in, they’ll be just a memory.
Compared to other Herzogian subjects, particularly the adventurer-scientist type, Boyes is passionate and determined, yet not overly obsessed. He says in the film that it doesn’t even matter if he finds these elephants, and ultimately, it might be better not to encounter them at all. Herzog’s documentary follows Boyes on an expedition traveling with three KhoiSan trackers from an indigenous group representing our oldest ancestral origins and a spiritual connection man has to elephants.
Ahead of the release of Ghost Elephants, I talked to Herzog, producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, and Boyes via Zoom. Below is a transcript of our conversation in full, including the moment I embarrassed myself trying to get Herzog to comment on the similarities between this documentary and the fake one he’s supposed to be directing in a silly fictional mockumentary he starred in 22 years ago. Apologies for not sharing the audio, but you can easily hear Herzog’s iconic voice in your head while reading.
Nonfics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Nonfics: What came first, the idea to do this film or plans for the specific expedition that it’s documenting?
Steve Boyes: Ten years of expeditions in the Angolan Highlands, a place that was locked away from the world for generations, for over 40 years, 27 years of civil war. In 2015, we get in there, or 2014, as tourists, secretly meet the governor, get a letter from the president, and, in armored vehicles try to get access to this completely undocumented, unknown landscape the size of England, and begin this journey. We find these extraordinary source lakes, launch into them, explore all the rivers, and start to find signs of elephants.
For these 10 years, elephants have been an underlying theme. Where are these giants, the biggest animals, when we’re finding everything else, hundreds of new species to science, new populations of cheetahs, wild dogs, and lions, all not known to be there? Twenty-six source lakes in the end. I found signs of elephants before we found and met people. There are so few people up there. That was a ghost, the first one, 10 years ago. We’ve been going up there pretty much throughout — except it gets tricky with the end of the rainy season, as you saw in the film — for 10 years.
“Overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.”
How did you meet or hear about each other and decide to work together on the film?
Steve Boyes: A mutual friend said to come to dinner in Beverly Hills, of all places, and you must meet Werner. And we did. I think the restaurant closed on us. We were just talking about everything in the universe. And we spoke about the ghost elephants, about the link to the Smithsonian, and that was the beginning.
Werner Herzog: I personally knew right away that this was big. As a storyteller, you know that. I was invited originally just to be an advisor. Steve invited me to come to Namibia to the northern Kalahari Desert, and when I arrived there, there was already a South African team working on this search, this quest, for a long time. But they had no real clear idea how to shape it into a story, into a movie. So after that, it was almost instantly clear I should do the conversations. The next day, everybody was clear: “Oh, please, step in completely.” And I said I don’t want to take the job of anyone. But everybody pushed me: “Please take over. Do it. Do it.” So overnight, I find myself with a film in my lap.
The film is about a very special moment in Michael Nyman’s artistic life. Composing with innovative minimalism for films as memorable as “The Draughtsman’s Contract”, “Man on Wire”, and most famously for Campion’s “The Piano”, he has reached an international audience. But he became a filmmaker himself. At first, it was documenting, curiosity about the visual world, but this turned into an art process. Featuring unprecedented access to the composer and his working life, this film shows one of the great composers of our time in all his diversity and endless energy. From London to Berlin, in Mexico, Poland, the Netherlands, and Portugal, this film is also a journey through the musical world today. It shows Michael Nyman, the musician, in his concerts with the Michael Nyman Band and live collaborations with other internationally known musicians or orchestras. But throughout his journeys, this film discovers Nyman’s increasing passion for filming and photography.
Watch more videos with Michael Nyman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHVU3UlLHRg&list=PLuXYMwUTJnzQ1XteYfRwNqzj2h9trr5pZ
Subscribe to the Monarda Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@monardachannel
#music #composer #documentary #film #artist
A film by Silvia Beck
© 2010, Monarda Arts Production
The film is about a very special moment in Michael Nyman’s artistic life. Composing with innovative minimalism for films as memorable as “The Draughtsman’s Contract”, “Man on Wire”, and most famously for Campion’s “The Piano”, he has reached an international audience. But he became a filmmaker himself. At first, it was documenting, curiosity about the visual world, but this turned into an art process. Featuring unprecedented access to the composer and his working life, this film shows one of the great composers of our time in all his diversity and endless energy. From London to Berlin, in Mexico, Poland, the Netherlands, and Portugal, this film is also a journey through the musical world today. It shows Michael Nyman, the musician, in his concerts with the Michael Nyman Band and live collaborations with other internationally known musicians or orchestras. But throughout his journeys, this film discovers Nyman’s increasing passion for filming and photography.
Watch more videos with Michael Nyman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHVU3UlLHRg&list=PLuXYMwUTJnzQ1XteYfRwNqzj2h9trr5pZ
Subscribe to the Monarda Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@monardachannel
#music #composer #documentary #film #artist
A film by Silvia Beck
© 2010, Monarda Arts Production
In this special Awards Season interview, Morgan Prygrocki (Adobe Video) sits down with Page Marsella, the editor behind ‘The Alabama Solution.’ This Academy Award Best Documentary nominee has made a significant impact on the awards circuit for its investigative approach to cinema, relying on both traditional methods of filmmaking and undercover footage. Watch and learn how Page approaches this breadth and variety of assets, the origins of her editing journey, and the nuances of her Premiere workflow when tackling such a complex project.
Chapters
00:00 – Intro
00:37 – What drew you to editing?
01:25 – How did you get involved in The Alabama Solution?
02:26 – Editing The Alabama Solution in Premiere
04:51 – The collaborative process
07:06 – What made this project challenging?
08:38 – What advice would you give to aspiring editors?
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The Art of Editing ‘The Alabama Solution’ | Between the Frames | Adobe Video
https://youtu.be/3gKjZvT5SxQ
Join moderator Jay Holben (technical editor of American Cinematographer) for a wide-ranging deep dive into the world of documentary filmmaking, with cinematographers Helki Frantzen (Who Killed Alex Odeh?, Joybubbles) and Abd Alkader Habak (Birds of War) discussing their projects that are premiering at this year’s festival.