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Feb
14
    

A biting documentary about the twilight years of Yves Saint Laurent’s haute couture fashion house screened at the Berlin Film Festival after a court blocked its release in France.

The designer, who is credited with putting women in tuxedos, peacoats and sheer chiffon blouses, is losing his sharp eye and depends on his helpers who treat him like a child.

After the film was completed in 2001, Berge went to court in France and managed to prevent its commercial distribution. Meyrou was also ordered to pay a fine.

The director’s previous films includes gritty documentaries about apartheid and the gay world.

He said in a press statement here that he wanted to show the secret life of Saint Laurent with the film which was originally called “5 Avenue Manceau” after the Paris address of the fashion house.

“He is a unique artist whose personality and life are, however, a mystery.”

In the end only Loulou de la Falaise, the designer’s discreet long-time collaborator, and the clothes themselves emerge from the picture unscathed.

The documentary is screening in the Panorama fringe section of the 57th Berlinale which runs until Sunday.

Read the complete article at Breitbart.


 
Nov
08
    
It’s apparently OK to say the S-word on TV — as long as it’s on a program that the Federal Communications Commission says even faintly resembles a news show.

The FCC reversed itself Tuesday and deemed acceptable a Survivor contestant’s use of the obscenity during an interview on a December 2004 episode of The Early Show on CBS. The contestant used a vulgar term for “smooth talker” to describe a fellow contestant on Survivor: Vanuatu.

Full USA Today article.

By allowing a entertainment interview on a morning “news” show to be exempt from the strict standards, controversy about documentary content should largely go away. Ken Burns’ “The War” use of profanity in combat footage and interviews should no longer be a issue that might have kept some PBS affiliates from running it.


 
Oct
29
    

Brad Will, 36, a documentary filmmaker and reporter for Indymedia in New York, Bolivia and Brazil, died today of a gunshot to the chest when pro-government attackers opened fire on a barricade in the neighborhood of Santa Lucia del Camino, on the outskirts of Oaxaca, Mexico. He died with his video camera in his hands.

A friend of Brads reporting for NarcoNews provides the details.

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Sep
02
    

If you saw the film in 2002 and weren’t offended, well you might be today, or more likely the FCC might.  While it seems highly unlikely that films on such important subject matter as terrorists attacks and world wars, will lead to FCC fines, some CBS affiliates believe they might.  Reuters reports that dozens of CBS affiliates are unwilling to rebroadcast 9/11 because of course language used by firefighters.  With possible fines increasing ten fold under new rules, content caution is happening.


 
Jul
31
    

[PBS CEO Paula Kerger]: “My point to them is that we, as public television, don’t have the resources to try to understand what they’re thinking,” said Kerger, who won big points with reporters for her forthright comments. “I can’t tell you, as I stand here today, that I have a clear understanding” of whether PBS stations could face fines for airing the Burns documentary — with language intact — before 10 p.m.

“When you look at the indecency rulings as they have transpired, I don’t see a clear path. Right now, it’s a moving target.”

The context for the concern is that KCSM, the San Mateo-based public TV station, is facing a $15,000 fine from the FCC for a repeat showing of an episode of Martin Scorsese’s “The Blues” that included a smattering of blue language. The FCC acted even though it got just one complaint and “The Blues” was shown all across the country without issue.

Full Mercury News story by Charlie McCollum