The Full Frame Doc­u­men­tary Film Festival

The Full Frame Doc­u­men­tary Film Fes­ti­val is an annual inter­na­tional event ded­i­cated to the the­atri­cal exhi­bi­tion of non-fiction cin­ema. Each spring Full Frame hosts a four-day, morn­ing to mid­night array of films, dis­cus­sions, pan­els, and south­ern hos­pi­tal­ity. In show­cas­ing the con­tem­po­rary work of estab­lished and emerg­ing film­mak­ers along­side clas­sic doc­u­men­taries, the fes­ti­val is com­mit­ted to build­ing wider national and inter­na­tional audi­ences for doc­u­men­tary film and enhanc­ing pub­lic under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of the art form. Now in its 13th year, the 2010 fes­ti­val will take place Thurs­day, April 8 through Sun­day, April 11. Full Frame takes place in down­town Durham, North Car­olina in the­atres and venues inside and sur­round­ing the his­toric Car­olina The­atre. The City of Durham is one of the festival’s strongest sup­port­ers and Durham is home to a grow­ing arts com­mu­nity.  The fes­ti­val has a long-standing rela­tion­ship with its pre­sent­ing spon­sor Duke Uni­ver­sity, along with the Cen­ter for Doc­u­men­tary Stud­ies and other area uni­ver­si­ties and orga­ni­za­tions. The largest sec­tion of films at the fes­ti­val is NEW DOCS, which includes short and fea­ture films com­pleted within the past two years.  Each year, the fes­ti­val invites a guest cura­tor to pro­gram a series of films around a par­tic­u­lar theme. In 2009, film­maker Steve James of Hoop Dreams curated a series about sports.  The fes­ti­val also presents a Career Award, screen­ing films from the honoree’s body of work.  The 2009 Career Award was given posthu­mously to St. Clair Bourne, direc­tor of Paul Robe­son: Here I Stand and Mak­ing Do the Right Thing.  Each year, Full Frame receives roughly 1200 sub­mis­sions. A 20-person, vol­un­teer selec­tion com­mit­tee works with the Pro­gram­ming Depart­ment to watch and dis­cuss each film.  The com­mit­tee nar­rows the field down to about 100 films, of which sixty are even­tu­ally pro­grammed as part of NEW DOCS.  Last year, Full Frame was able to offer a very inti­mate fes­ti­val land­scape – all venues were within a sin­gle city block in the heart of down­town Durham and film­mak­ers stayed at hotels within walk­ing dis­tance.  In 2010 we’re expand­ing one block over to offer a ded­i­cated panel venue, which will also serve as a hub through­out the fes­ti­val for indus­try meet­ings and par­ties. It will allow us to expand our panel offer­ings while also pro­vid­ing a space for the con­ver­sa­tions that take place organ­i­cally dur­ing the festival.

Typ­i­cally, about one third of NEW DOCS films are by first time film­mak­ers. We also offer two awards for up-and-coming film­mak­ers: the Charles E. Guggen­heim Emerg­ing Artist Award, which hon­ors a first time direc­tor, and the HBO Emerg­ing Film­maker Award, which rec­og­nizes a first or sec­ond time direc­tor and pro­ducer team.