Documentary filmmaking has blossomed over the last decade, and the trifecta of affordable digital cameras and editing programs, online distribution channels and commercial success for the genre's superstars has resulted in an abundance of real-life storytelling. At the same time, these factors have also contributed to the fictional side of filmmaking, which is the focus of the local television program Not Docs.
Broadcast on WYOU Channel 4, Madison's community cable television station, Not Docs is produced by Robert Lughai and Tashai Lovington of previsualization), and anything else that's not a documentary.
Lughai, who serves as the station's program coordinator and education director, explains the idea behind the show: "It's basically a series that showcases independent filmmakers' shorts films, mainly from local people or folks who have spent at last a little time in Madison." In fact, the program features works by filmmakers from the U.K., France, Hungary, India, and elsewhere, many of whom have worked with or have received assistance from the station. "I have been able to connect with them through 'YOU," says Lughai.
The first season of Not Docs consists of 12 episodes, a new one introduced each month. Launched back in February, the show is airing its ninth episode this week, featuring four short films by the Hungarian-born filmmaker Zsuzsanna Nagy and a collection of experimental footage by WYOU's technical director Eric Allin.
A trailer for the program follows below.
Other episodes feature films from Tarazod, Buckystein creator Geoff Lafayette, the Chad Vader series and other comedy shorts by Blame Society Productions, works by regular Wis-Kino contributors Shelby Falk, Heidi Johnson, and Lucie Ferrari, and a broad array of shorts from international filmmakers who have landed in Madison at one time or another.
Not Docs is open to all and regularly accepts submissions. "You don't need to have enough film to fill up the entire half-hour," says Lughai. "At the end of the year, we're doing an episode called Super Shorts, in which we're putting a bunch of single works together." After this, they'll be gearing up for a new season in 2008.
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