Topp Twins

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls heads to Arizona for the Sedona International Film Festival. Screenings are February 23 @ 12:30pm, and February 26 @ 9:30pm.   Tickets can be purchased here: www.tinyurl.com/toppsedona. Spread the word to friends and family in Arizona.

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls screens on TV One at 8.30pm on Sunday as part of the Sunday Theatre series (NZ only – sorry!).

So if you’ve never seen it, or if you haven’t had a chance to get your hands on the DVD and you want to see it again, or if you just love it so much that you want to watch it at every opportunity then do TUNE IN and watch it with your fellow Kiwis!

Two more wins for the documentary! Now that puts the award count to 19 . . .

Audience Award – Best Documentary
21st Hamburg International Queer Film Festival 2010, Germany

Best Documentary Feature
Reeling 2010: The 29th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival, USA

Thanks to those of you who saw the film at these screenings!

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls is a finalist for the Music Documentary at the International Documentary Association Awards. This is very exciting! The ceremony takes place on the 3 December in Los Angeles at the DGA Theater. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Here’s the full press release:

The International Documentary Association Announces Nominees for The 2010 IDA Awards

IDA Members to Select Winners in Feature and Short Categories

LOS ANGELES, October 27, 2010 – The International Documentary Association, one of the leading organizations in the world of documentary film and filmmaking, announced the nominees for the 2010 edition of it’s prestigious IDA Documentary Awards today, with many of the year’s most buzzed about titles and festival favorites making the list. Winners will be feted on December 3^rd at the Directors Guild Theater in Los Angeles in a ceremony hosted by award-winning documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.

“This has been another banner year for documentary films,” said IDA Executive Director Michael Lumpkin, “and that is reflected in our list of nominees. Entries to the Awards increased by nearly 20% this year, and the quality of the films vying for recognition is unprecedented.”

Lumpkin also announced that for the first time two of the awards – for Distinguished Feature and Short Documentary – will be selected by IDA’s members through an innovative process in which members who wish to participate will view all of the nominated films in these categories through a secure, password-protected online system. After viewing all of the films in their entirety, these IDA member judges will cast their votes to determine the winners.

The five films nominated in IDA’s Distinguished Feature category are: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the debut film from the renowned and elusive graffiti artist Banksy; THE OATH, Laura Poitras’ riveting story about two men whose fateful encounter set them on a journey that would lead to Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the U.S. Supreme Court; Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen’s STEAM OF LIFE, a poetic and emotional tour of Finland’s saunas in which men of all walks of life share their touching stories about love, death, birth and friendship; SWEETGRASS, Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s cinematic and observational tour-de-force that captures a family and their animals in their final season herding sheep in Montana’s spectacular Absaroka-Beartooth mountain range; and Lucy Walker’s WASTE LAND, which follows artist Vik Muniz on a transformative journey from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho.

The five nominated films in the Distinguished Short category are: THE FENCE, Rory Kennedy’s revealing and often surprising look at the story behind the controversial Southern U.S. Border Barrier; KEEP DANCING, Greg Vander Veer’s endearing portrait of legendary dancers Marge Champion and Donald Saddler; THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF GOVERNOR BOOTH GARDNER, Daniel Junge’s look at Washington’s former governor Booth Gardner as he leads a campaign to legalize assisted suicide in the state while dealing with the devastating effects of Parkinson’s disease; Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s THE LAST TRUCK: THE CLOSING OF A GM PLANT, which views the final months of the plant through the workers’ eyes as they reflect on their work and consider their next steps; and WOMAN REBEL, Kiran Deol’s story of “Silu,” a female soldier with Nepal’s People’s Liberation Army, who eventually becomes a democratically elected government official.

In the Continuing Series category, the five nominees are: 30 FOR 30, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, BRICK CITY, and WIDE ANGLE. Limited Series nominees are: AFFLICTION SERIES: CULTURE AND MENTAL ILLNESS IN INDONESIA, HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG, LATIN MUSIC USA, MASTERCLASS, and THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE.

Nominees for the David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award are: LITTLE MOM, directed by Maria Fortiz-Morse; PERRY COUNTY, directed by N’Jeri Eaton and Matt Durning; THE STINKING SHIP, directed by Bagassi Koura; and WHALES OF GOLD, directed by Lucia Duncan. Nominees for the IDA Music Award are:  FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, directed by Jim Bigham and Mark Moormann; GENIUS WITHIN: THE INNER LIFE OF GLENN GOULD, directed by Peter Raymont and Michele Hozer; THUNDER SOUL, directed by Mark Landsman; THE TOPP TWINS: UNTOUCHABLE GIRLS, directed by Leanne Pooley; and WHEN I RISE, directed by Mat Hames.

Other IDA competition categories include the IDA/HUMANITAS Award, the IDA/ABCNEWS VideoSource Award, for best use of television news footage as an integral component, as well as the IDA/Pare Lorentz Award, presented to the filmmaker whose documentary best represents the activist spirit and lyrical vision of the acclaimed Pare Lorentz.  Winner of these awards, as well as of the IDA Music Award and the David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award, will be announced in late November. For a complete list of nominees, please see the attached.

In addition to competitive awards for the year’s current crop of outstanding documentaries, IDA also acknowledges exemplary creative contributions to the field at large. Jeff Malmberg, director of the one of the year’s most celebrated films, MARWENCOL, will receive the 2010 IDA/Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award.

As previously announced, this year’s IDA Career Achievement honoree, to be celebrated during December’s event, is legendary and innovative filmmaker Barbara Kopple. Susan Raymond and Alan Raymond, creators of the landmark PBS series AN AMERICAN FAMILY, will receive IDA’s Pioneer Award, and award-winning filmmaker and film professor Mark J. Harris will receive IDA’s Preservation and Scholarship Award.

Eligibility requirements for the Awards were simplified this year and are now based on time of completion of the film or program. The change resulted in an eligibility window of January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 for this year’s Awards. The 2011 Awards eligibility window will be July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011.

Tickets for the 2010 IDA Documentary Awards are available for purchase now at www.documentary.org/awards2010.

Listen to the post screening Q&A with the Topp Twins here and it will almost be like you were there!

Cindy Widner from the Austin Chronicle also has written an article based on an interview she did:

It’s possible you think you are not interested in a documentary about yodeling Kiwi lesbian twins. You would, in that case, be very, very wrong. “Sometimes, you’ve got to take a gamble on something,” says Jools Topp on the phone from her ranch on New Zealand’s north island. “If you’ve got ‘lesbian singing duo from New Zealand that’s political,’ you might think, ‘Wow, that’s not something I’d want to see.’ Then again, if you go, you might be pleasantly surprised, and sometimes that’s the best thing.” Read the rest of the article here.