Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Ray Pride

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In interesting balancing act became apparent to me on Saturday night, as I watched the excellent documentary, Neverland: The Rise & fall Of The Symbionese Liberation Army. With the current trend of theatrical release documentaries, this was one of the hot titles coming into the festival. It feels like the right time to reexamine this story. Patty Hearst is alive and well and willing to talk (though the documentary does not include any current footage of Ms. Hearst, who will be doing a Q&A after the film today, Sunday), as are some of the surviving members of the early SLA.

But beyond the sense that we aren't hearing from Hearst or with of the SLA members she was traveling with after the Los Angeles burn out of most of the group, what struck me was that I was watching a PBS doc struggling for a little more creative breathing room. And perhaps this is the great conundrum of the ambitious documentary world of the moment. If PBS and HBO are the primary financiers behind documentaries in this country, will their formatting preferences inhibit the growth of docs as a legitimate distribution opportunity?

I'm not talking about the quality of the filmmaking or the joy of a doc at a festival or in a small (or tiny) theatrical run. The breakout documentaries of the last couple of years seem to be the non-conformists, which are marked by outside financing (often British and/or Japanese) that allow the style to match the substance.

by David Poland

Neverland
The Rise & fall Of The Symbionese Liberation Army
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Director:Robert Stone

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Documentary
Country: USA
Year: 2003
Time: 89 minutes
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Executive Producers - Nick Fraser, Mark Samels
Producer - Robert Stone
Cinematographers - Howard Shack, Robert Stone, Richard Neill
Editor - Don Kleszy
Composer - Gary Lionelli
Sound Designer - Coll Anderson