Some tickets are still available for Sex and Broadcasting: A Film About WFMU (our review here). The documentary will premiere at the Doc NYC festival on November 15 and 17. Director Tim K. Smith will appear at both showings at the IFC Film Center in Manhattan. There’s also a San Francisco showing scheduled for February. Full details about that event to come.
While we are on the subject of documentaries about radio, I was at the Pacific Film Archive the other day to appear on a panel about Veronica Selver and Sharon Wood’s 2000 documentary KPFA on the Air. Having written a book about KPFA’s early years, I’m in the first half of the doc quite a bit, talking about the country’s first listener supported station. Many interesting comments came from my co-panelists Sharon and Veronica and from former KPFA staffers Larry Bensky, Bari Scott, and Alan Snitow.
These films are part of a suite of great docs about free form and non-commercial/public radio available or about to be released. They include Bob Fass: The Documentary, which profiles WBAI’s famous free form host, and La Maison de la Radio, a 24 hour exploration of French public radio. Also in the works: I Am What I Play, a celebration of four innovative free form deejays in the United States and Canada.
Add to that a slew of short films about various college radio stations, and we’ve got enough for a weekend long video festival about alternative and public radio. I’ll add pulling that together to my to-do list.
