Year of the Bull, the project of the July/August 2002 class, won Best Documentary at this year's Sonoma Film Festival. Year of the Bull was edited by teacher Emir Lewis with assistant editors Matthew Ludvino and Sonya Rhee, who were both Emir's students in the July/August 2002 class. Matthew also edited the Year of the Bull trailer.
Evergreen, the project of the May/June 2003 six-week class, won the Best Director Prize at the Sonoma Film Festival. Directed by Enid Zentelis, the film was edited by Edit Center instructor Meg Reticker with Edit Center alumni Anita Gabrosek and Chad Beck as associate and assistant editors, respectively. Evergreen will also be screening in New York this month as part of the Avignon/New York Film Festival.
Control Room, a documentary about Al-Jazeera and its coverage of the war in Iraq, won for Best Film at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. In addition, Control Room was reviewed in the New York Times on April 2, where A.O Scott wrote that the film "proves that cinema verite is alive and well, and perhaps more potent and necessary than ever." Control Room is directed by Start-up.com co-director Jehane Noujaim. Edit Center alums Lilah Bankier and Julia Bacha were editors on the film and Edit Center founder Alan Oxman was the supervising editor. Post-production was done at the Edit Center.
Finding Eleazar: Portrait of a Tenor and a Role, has been accepted into the documentary competition of this year's Tribeca Film Festival. The film was edited by Jody Jorgensen, a graduate of the January/February 2003 six-week class.
Dogs in the Basement, the project of the November/December 2001 class, will screen at the San Francisco Film Festival on April 16 in the Castro Theater. Dogs in the Basement was directed by Leslie Shearing and edited by Edit Center alum Lilah Bankier.
Room, the project of the March/April class, dramatizes the mid-life crisis journey of a working class American woman as she travels from her daytime Houston worries into the woods of a Grimm's fairy tale New York City at twilight. The film is being produced by The 7th Floor with executive producers Michael Stipe and Jim McKay. Director Kyle Henry's feature film debut, American Cowboy, a documentary about a gay rodeo champ, won a student Academy Award in 1998. His short, "N.EW Y.ORK C.ASINO," won the Best Experimental Short Film award at South by Southwest in 2003.
The documentary Gotham Fish Tales, edited by Edit Center graduate Dave Kausch, will premiere on the Sundance Channel on Monday, March 22 at 9:00 pm. It will also play on the following dates: March 25 (8:15 am), March 27 (7:30 pm), March 28 (5:40 am) and March 29 (3:00 pm).
Riva Marker and Matthew Jacob, graduates of the January/February 2004 course, will be assisting on the television show Ride with Funkmaster Flex for the production company Red Moxie. Ride with Funkmaster Flex is aired on SpikeTV. Riva and Matthew will also be teaching assistants for the March/April six-week course.
"Ferry Tales," edited by Edit Center graduate Moira Demos, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. Moira took the class in November of 2000. "Ferry Tales" is about a group of women who meet every morning in the powder room of the Staten Island ferry and is slated for broadcast on HBO later this year.
Sharon Hughes, an alum from the November 2003 class who is also a Teaching Assistant for the January class, will be assisting editor Melissa Niedich (The Two Towns of Jasper) on Right-Wing Hollywood, a documentary for AMC. Right-Wing Hollywood is directed by Jesse Moss, who worked with the Edit Center in the summer of 2002 on his demolition derby documentary, Speedo.