Shifted Landscapes
A documentary feature in production, co-produced by ITVS, Shifted Landscapes is an observational documentary examining climate change's pervasive effects on California's environmental, cultural, and psychological landscapes. The film explores the insidious ways that the state's fragile ecosystems are currently being affected by climate change and how these changes impact the lives of communities within the state.
Awards & Support
- A Co-production of ITVS
- Inaugural recipient of Stanford University's Faculty Creative Project Seed Grant
not even for a moment do things stand still
Strangers gather at a sea of white flags, a tribute to every life lost to COVID in America. As participants honor their loved ones, we quietly witness their many expressions of loss and mourning.
Recognition
- SXSW, 2022 — Special Jury Mention for Visual Reflection
- Published as a New York Times Op-Doc, April 2022
Huntsville Station
Every weekday, inmates are released from Huntsville State Penitentiary, taking in their first moments of freedom with phone calls, cigarettes, and quiet reflection at the Greyhound station up the block.
Awards
- Vimeo Staff Pick, 2021
- Published as a New York Times Op-Doc, July 2020
- Cinema Eye Honors — Outstanding Nonfiction Short Nominee, 2020
- IDA Documentary Awards — Best Short Nominee, 2020
- Crested Butte Film Festival, 2020 — Best Documentary Short
- Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, 2020 — Best Documentary Short
- Docaviv, 2020 — Best Short Award
Festival Screenings
- Berlinale, 2020
- SXSW, 2020
- Hot Docs, 2020
- AFI Docs, 2020
- DOC NYC, 2020
- DOXA, 2020 — Honorable Mention: Short Documentary Award
- Seminci: Valladolid International Film Festival, 2020 — Special Mention: Time of History Competition
- Camden International Film Festival, 2020
- Double Exposure Film Festival, 2020
- SFFILM Doc Stories, 2020
- Black Canvas Festival de Cine Contemporaneo, 2020 — Special Jury Mention
- Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2020
- Calgary International Film Festival, 2020
- Chicago International Film Festival, 2020
- New Orleans Film Festival, 2020
- Palm Springs International Shortfest, 2020 — Special Mention: Best Documentary Short
- IFF Message to Man Film Festival, 2020
- Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, 2020
- Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, 2020 — Special Mention: International Competition
- Kyiv International Short Film Festival, 2020 — Grand Prix Award: International Competition
- Telluride Mountainfilm, 2020
- Champs-Élysées Film Festival, 2020 — Jury Prize: Short Film
- Uppsala International Short Film Festival, 2020
- St. Louis International Film Festival, 2020
- Milwaukee Film Festival, 2020
- Odense International Film Festival, 2020 — Nominee: The Soapbox Award
- Beijing International Short Film Festival, 2020
- Indy Shorts International Film Festival, 2020
- Lille International Short Film Festival, 2020
- DC Shorts Film Festival, 2020
- OFF CINEMA International Documentary Film Festival, 2020
- Rhode Island International Film Festival, 2020
- Savannah Film Festival, 2020 — Southern Voices "Best of Show"
- Philadelphia Film Festival, 2020 — Honorable Mention: Best Documentary Short
- Nashville Film Festival, 2020
- Tirana International Film Festival, 2020
- Tofifest International Film Festival, 2020
- Tacoma Film Festival, 2020
- Glimmerglass Film Days, 2020
- Drunken Film Festival, 2020
- Shorts That Are Not Pants, 2020
- Blue Danube Film Festival, 2020
- Loft Short Film Festival, 2020
True Conviction
A feature-length documentary about a new detective agency in Dallas, Texas, started by three wrongly convicted and exonerated men, with decades in prison served between them. True Conviction follows these remarkable men as they wade into complex cases of possible wrongful conviction and try to put their own lives back together after decades in prison.
Production & Support
A Co-Production of ITVS. Funded in part through the Sundance Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Impact Partners, the San Francisco Film Society, The Gucci/Tribeca Film Fund, Perspective Fund, and the Catapult Film Fund.
Press
"Jamie Meltzer's documentary True Conviction was a surprising and profound experience. The film follows three exonerated men who have dedicated their lives to freeing other wrongly-accused prisoners. The men are superbly charismatic, and their passion combined with the film's depiction of jaw-dropping corruption within the Texas judicial system makes for a rousing piece of work."
— Meredith Alloway, Filmmaker Magazine
"True Conviction is a must-see documentary, filled with as many happy tears as sad ones."
— North Texas Daily
"A profound look at our judicial system through the lens of three men it nearly destroyed… True Conviction is powerful, devastating and remarkable."
— Shadow and Act
"By focusing on the experiences of a group of exonerees who are themselves learning to investigate … this project is unique. It celebrates the indomitable spirit of these men… follows a gripping storyline… and highlights the challenges and roadblocks of investigating and proving another man's innocence. This unprecedented approach sets the film apart from other documentaries that have explored the lives of the wrongly convicted."
— Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, Co-founders and Co-directors, Innocence Project
Informant
This feature-length documentary film closely follows Brandon Darby's turbulent journey from radical activist to FBI informant. Using personal archival footage, stylized reenactments of key moments, footage of the intense protests around the 2008 Republican National Convention, as well as intimate and in-depth interviews with all the major players, the film reconstructs Darby's experiences, while also presenting the dissenting views of those he worked with and eventually helped to imprison.
Distribution & Support
- Distributed by Music Box Films
- Funded in part through a production grant from Cinereach
Welcome to Nollywood
An exploration of the Nigerian "video-film" industry, known as "Nollywood." Video-films are generally shot on digital video equipment in five to ten days and soon after released through an extensive home-video network throughout Africa. The films are a shining example of a successful Third World culture industry and are more popular among West Africans than imported Hollywood films. This feature-length documentary celebrates and examines this unique industry by following two video-film directors as they struggle to make their productions in Lagos.
Production
Co-produced with the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
A fascinating, at times unsettling, feature-length documentary that exposes the strange underworld of the song-poem industry. In this little-known subculture, ordinary people respond to ads in the back pages of magazines ("Send in Your Lyrics and Make $50,000 in royalties!"), mailing in their heartfelt but often bizarre poems to companies that, for a fee, turn those poems into real recordings. Through interviews with several song-poem writers, the jaded producers and musicians who set their words to music, and a few of the growing number of zealous song-poem connoisseurs, Off the Charts explores a truly unique, never-before-seen slice of Gothic Americana.
A Guide to (Short) Documentary Filmmaking
A Guide to (Short) Documentary Filmmaking: Creating Artful Short Documentary Films explores what is unique about the short-form documentary and guides the reader through the process — from ideation to completion and distribution.
Using examples and hard-earned experiences from the author's courses and lectures at the MFA in Documentary Film Program at Stanford University, this accessible and practical textbook guides readers through the steps of creating powerful and artful documentaries. Interviews with filmmakers and case studies of innovative and successful recent documentary shorts are included throughout to provide experienced insights and complement the chapters on Research, Pre-production, Production, Editing, and Distribution.
About
Jamie Meltzer teaches in the M.F.A. Program in Documentary Film at Stanford University. His feature documentary films have been broadcast nationally on PBS and have screened at numerous film festivals worldwide.
Shifted Landscapes, a documentary feature in production, presents a mosaic of stories depicting the environmental, cultural, and psychological landscapes of California amidst the ongoing climate crisis.
His most recent short film, not even for a moment do things stand still, premiered at SXSW in March 2022, and was honored with a Special Jury Mention for Visual Reflection. The film provides an observational glimpse into a COVID-19 art installation, dropping into intimate moments of people honoring their loved ones, and interrogating the role of mourning and closure during an unfolding tragedy.
Huntsville Station, a short documentary film directed with Chris Filippone, was featured as a New York Times Op-Doc and premiered at Berlinale and SXSW. The film observes the scene at a bus station — where dozens of inmates just released on parole take in their first moments of freedom before taking the bus home.
True Conviction (broadcast on Independent Lens in May 2018), a co-production of ITVS and the recipient of a Sundance Institute grant and a MacArthur grant, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it received a Special Jury Mention in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Informant (2012), about a revolutionary activist turned FBI informant, was released in theaters in the US and Canada in Fall 2013 by Music Box Films and KinoSmith.
Previous films include Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story (Independent Lens, 2003), about the shadowy world of song-poems; Welcome to Nollywood (PBS broadcast, 2007), an investigation into the wildly successful Nigerian movie industry; and La Caminata (2009), a short film about a small town in Mexico that runs a simulated border crossing as a tourist attraction.