By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Documentary Initiative Field Of Vision Shifts Focus In Second Year To Include Anonymous Submissions

Posted Tuesday, September 20th, 2016 - Comments Off on Documentary Initiative Field Of Vision Shifts Focus In Second Year To Include Anonymous Submissions
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FIELD OF VISION ANNOUNCES MAJOR CHANGES FOR SECOND YEAR
Acclaimed Cinematic Journalism Unit Field of Vision Launches Year Two
 
Debuts New Website, Creates SecureDrop for Anonymous Image and Video Submissions, Announces the First Films of its Fall Season
 
Co-Creator Laura Poitras Leaves The Intercept to Work on Expanding Field of Vision
Today First Look Media’s award-winning visual journalism unit Field of Vision begins its second year with the launch of a stand-alone website www.fieldofvision.org, featuring a SecureDrop platform for the anonymous leaking of newsworthy image and video submissions and the announcement of the first of its Fall season films.
Field of Vision’s new website showcases a custom-designed media player for the unit’s shorts and series. The new site also features a custom SecureDrop platform that will allow anonymous sources to submit newsworthy audio and visual material. While many news organizations use technology like SecureDrop, Field of Vision’s is the first that is requesting image and video material specifically related to abuses of power.
“Without the images from Abu Ghraib Prison disclosed by whistleblower Joseph Darby, the world would never know the torture and abuse that occurred there,” said Laura Poitras, Field of Vision co-creator. “Images can literally transform how we understand the world. We believe the public has a right to not only know, but also a right to see. Our new SecureDrop will help make this possible.”
Additionally, Poitras announced today that she is transitioning from First Look Media’s The Intercept, where she had been a Co-Founding Editor, to focus on expanding Field of Vision. In a letter posted at The Intercept, Poitras wrote that Field of Vision would continue to collaborate with The Intercept while also expanding its partnerships with other news organizations and distribution platforms internationally.
Next week, Field of Vision premieres the first film of its Fall season, Yung Chang’s award-winning Gatekeeper, a haunting portrait of a retired policeman who patrols Japan’s steep cliffs looking to intercept suicide jumpers. Gatekeeper will be followed by Emily Pederson’s They Took Them Alive, a wrenching look at the ongoing struggle of families to find answers in the 2-year case of 43 missing Mexican students.
On October 3rd, 2016, Mila Aung-Thwin and Van Royko’s The Vote, a poetic look at the historic elections in Myanmar, will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival to be followed by a launch on the Field of Vision site.
In the coming weeks, Field of Vision will debut new films from Elizabeth Lo, Laura Poitras & Henrik Moltke and Hito Steyerl, among others. The Fall season also sees the launch of Anders Sømme Hammer’s four-part series about militias and foreign fighters battling Isis in Iraq and Syria.
Along with the launch of the website, Field of Vision, in collaboration with The New Yorker, presents an updated version of AJ Schnack’s Speaking is Difficult, its award-winning ongoing short film that catalogues mass shooting deaths in the United States. The film now includes sections on the recent shootings in Orlando and Dallas. Field of Vision will also publish the expanded versionof Stephen Maing‘s Emmy Award-nominated The Surrender which premiered on The Intercept, and re-publish The Journey, Matthew Cassel’s six-part series on Syrian refugees, which originally premiered at newyorker.com.
About Field of Vision
Field of Vision was launched in September 2015 at the New York Film Festival.  Co-created by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, filmmaker AJ Schnack and curator & producer Charlotte Cook, Field of Vision has commissioned 22 stand-alone nonfiction short films, 3 episodic series and 2 feature-length documentaries in its first year.
Work created by Field of Vision has been featured at major international film festivals, including Sundance, Cannes, SXSW and Rotterdam and has received a number of Grand Jury Prizes for Short Documentary, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy nomination. Three Field of Vision films have been shortlisted for the 2017 Cinema Eye Outstanding Nonfiction Short Film Honor. In addition, Field of Vision won the Webby Award for Online Film & Video – News & Politics: Series.
 
Laura Poitras [Co-Creator] is a filmmaker and journalist. Her film CITIZENFOUR won an Oscar for best documentary, as well as awards from BAFTA, Independent Spirit Awards, and the Director’s Guild of America. The first film in her post-9/11 trilogy, My Country, My Country, was nominated for an Oscar. The second film, The Oath, was nominated for two Emmys. Her reporting on NSA surveillance received the George Polk Award for National Security journalism, and shared in the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service. She recently exhibited her first solo museum show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
AJ Schnack [Co-Creator] is a nonfiction filmmaker. His work includes Speaking is Difficult(2016), Caucus (2013), We Always Lie To Strangers (2013), Convention (2009), Kurt Cobain: About A Son (2006) and Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns) (2002). He has created episodic series on American electoral politics for Vanity Fair (Nomination, 2016), Fusion (Primaries, 2016) and Al Jazeera America (Midterms, 2014). He is the Founding Director of the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking and a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism
Charlotte Cook[Co-Creator] is a curator, writer and producer. Prior to Field of Vision, she was the Director of Programming at Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival. In London, Charlotte was the Head of Film Programming at The Frontline Club. She has also worked with BBC Storyville, the Channel 4 BritDoc Foundation’s Puma Creative Catalyst Fund and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where she curated the strand Conflict | Reportage. In addition to her work at Field of Vision, Charlotte is currently a programmer at CPH:DOX.
About First Look Media
First Look Media is a new-model media company devoted to supporting independent voices across all platforms, from fearless investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking to smart, provocative entertainment. Launched in 2013 by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, First Look operates as both a studio and digital media company.

 

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

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