Not a lick of music till the very end. The silence, intermingled with the subjects speaking, is very effective. Of course, the imagery is just tremendous. Beautiful, something I’d love to imitate.

Watch it.

Watch it.

Watch it – via Kottke.

Appalled by modern day sex slavery, filmmaker Libby Spears began a covert investigation to document the worldwide child sex trafficking problem, and to see how and if it led back to the United States.

Watch the moving trailer to the upcoming documentary and visit the official website to support the project.

Watch it

Pure Detroit from Ivan George.

Gorgeous cinematography that hints at social change. Somewhere between heaven, hell & quiet meditation.

Watch Part one, two, three, four.

In the summer of 2006, while the football world’s attention was focused on Germany, thousands of players around the globe were training hard and competing to be part of another World Cup … The Homeless World Cup. It had been a wild idea by a Scot and an Austrian—to give homeless people a chance to change their lives through an international street soccer competition. Five years later, the annual Homeless World Cup had become an internationally recognized sports competition. 500 homeless players from 48 nations would ultimately be selected to represent their country in Cape Town, South Africa – coming from such disparate parts of the world as war torn Afghanistan, the slums of Kenya, the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland, the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain, and the unforgiving city of St. Petersburg, Russia, where the homeless have no rights or identity. Win or lose, for these players it would be the journey of a lifetime.

Watch it.

Shorts

Best Short: Glory at Sea – A 25 minute tour de force that uses a contemporary tragedy (Katrina disaster) to create a powerful myth that seems as old as the hills.

Special Mentions:

• Validation
• How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels
• Dilemma
• Home

Best Stop Motion: Illuminant – To experience this on a big screen like I did at Carrboro Film Festival was incredible.

We posted quite a few innovative stop-motion video including Lucia & Adjustment

Best Short Doc: Bullet Proof Vest

Best Hidden Product Placement: The Ramp

Best Acting in Shorts: R.L. Jackson & Tori Lee in Remember When

Best Abstract film: Pencil Face

Also:

• William Lamson
• Still Life vs Cashback

Special mentions for Animations:

• Holtgban
• Big Buck Bunny
• Ark
• Pearce Sisters

Web

Best Web Video: Dr. Horrible – It is nice to see big name talent doing web content. It certainly lived up to the hype. Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come.

Special mentions:

• The Guild
• Goodie Bag
• West Side (nothing since June)
• Rhett & Link
• Epic Fu

Music Video

Best Music video: Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal – After a year full of shocking videos, especially in content, the one video that haunted me was Sean Pecknold’s animated classic. Simple in style, resonant story and a great fuckin’ song.

Sexiest Music Video of the year: Toe Jam

Special mentions Music videos:

• How much of a woman
• Damien Jurado – Caskets
• Bjork – Wanderlust
• MGMT – Time to Pretend
• The New Pornographers – Myriad Harbour

Commercials

Best Commercial: JC Penney: Aviator – Also the cutest video of the year. The direction is pitch perfect.

• Carrboro Film Festival (it is good to love one’s own work)
  
• Zürich Chamber Orchestra

Other awards

Best Interview of the Year: Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin – Unintentionally hilarious that changed the course of the presidential elections.

Best Parody: SNL’s version of Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin – Saturday Night Live came back with a bang. Even more wicked than the original.

Best Online Radio: This American Life: Super

Note: Some of these videos were not released in 2008, they are included here because this is when we discovered them.

An experimental walk through the modern Peace Movement in the United States.

Watch it. (Flash Video)

via Greencine Daily

JUAN GONZALEZ: Bob Scheer, the issue also of this rush to pass this legislation—I’m reminded somewhat of the PATRIOT Act after 9/11: an immense tragedy occurs, and immediately they try to rush through legislation without many of the members of Congress even having a handle as to what it really contains.

ROBERT SCHEER: Oh, it’s absolutely outrageous, and we can’t let them get away with it. I mean, consider that Paulson was the head of Goldman Sachs, OK? He knew about credit swaps. He knew about hybrid instruments. He knew all of this stuff. And now he’s the guy that says Congress has to give him a blank check, it has to be a pure bill? Nonsense!

This is our money. Why isn’t this money used to help people who are going to lose their houses? You miss two, three payments, and they’re going to foreclose on you; then they say, “Well, we hope the banks will work out new agreements.” Nonsense! Do a freeze on foreclosures. Stop the bleeding. Have a year to let it settle, and force the banks to come to agreements.

Listen to or read the show transcripts – via Gruber