If you don’t live in Los Angeles or New York or you do and just haven’t had a chance to go out and see director Asif Kapadia’s Senna, one of the best documentaries of the year about one of the greatest race car drivers of all time, don’t worry. You’re going to get your chance.

How do we know? Well, the doc is doing so well at the LA and NYC box office, averaging over $35K per screen, that the film’s distributor, Producers Distribution Agency, are planning to take it into 11 new markets and put it on 15 more screens this weekend.

“Obviously, we’re thrilled with the opening,” said John Sloss, co-founder of the Producers Distribution Agency in the article. “What it proves, both numerically and anecdotally, is that the film plays well beyond the core. We knew from our advance screenings, to our surprise, that the film played better to women that even gearheads, and they showed up. This movie is much more playable than it is marketable, so we couldn’t be happier with this word-of-mouth base.”

In case you’re not familiar with the film (even though you should be) it “follows the story of Ayrton Senna, perhaps the greatest race-car driver who ever lived. In the mid ‘80s, Senna burst onto the world of Formula One racing. As a Brazilian in a predominantly European sport, he had to fight hard both on (against his nemesis, French World Champion Alain Prost) and off (against the politics that infest the sport) the track.”

That description doesn’t really do the film justice. If you like compelling stories, great characters and fast cars, this doc is for you. Be sure to check it out.

Page One: Inside the New York Times focuses on several facets of the paper itself—its day-to-day operations, the folks who write, edit, and run the paper, and its struggle to remain competitive in the age of the digital news, but it also provides a glimpse into the quickening change of newsmedia as well.

Director Andrew Rossi (Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven) was granted a year’s access inside one of the oldest papers in America to film, and from what must have been a warehouse of footage, he scaled it down to a mere 88 minutes that covers an exhaustive array of topics through the camera’s own eyes and those of The Times‘ colorful cadre of show-runners. Among the faces we meet and follow are the paper’s Executive Editor Bill Keller, Jill Abramson, the Managing Editor, Brian Stetler, the cherubish Media reporter, and, mostly, Media Columnist David Carr, the plain-talking, ex-cocaine addict.

Rossi does an excellent job of capturing the toils, trials, and tension of a daily newspaper with practically every shot. We see reporters and editors ensconced in their workspaces, surrounded on all sides by endless stacks of books, papers, and computer monitors. We see them plan a day’s paper and then go to work furiously, bicker amongst themselves, check their facts, chew out interviewees, and feel the tension as they wait for a call back from one source minutes before the deadline.

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(Even though it’s been over for a while, there’s still some reviews to squeeze out of SXSW!)

The opening scene of Fambul Tok is as powerful as any documentary could hope for: A few dozen Sierra Leone villagers circle a campfire—the social center of their tiny community—one of them stands and accuses another, her own uncle, of slaughtering her family during the 1991 civil war. The gathering becomes a tribunal as the leader reiterates the charges and then asks the accused if they are accurate. And then, instead of handing down a sentence, the leader asks the man’s accuser if she forgives him. She does.

It’s everything an opening scene should be: engaging, tense, and a capsulation of the film.

Fambul Tok, which is Sierra Leonean for “family talk,” refers to this process, where, instead of charging one with a crime and judging him with a jury of his peers, justice is replaced with forgiveness in the hope of fostering peace. This method, its application and merits, are the focus of the film as explored by director Sara Terry and her guide John Caulker, himself a victim of the Sierra Leonean atrocities.

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No matter your political leanings, most people can’t deny that Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, was a fascinating character. The story of a man going from humble beginnings as a small-town lifeguard through his time as a Hollywood actor, as Governor of California and then on to the Presidency is an amazing journey and a tale to be told.

Fortunately, HBO has us covered and will be bringing this story to their network tonight with the premiere of Eugene Jarecki’s documentary Regan. According to the network, the film is a “fresh examination of the fascinating paradoxes surrounding the man, the myth and his legacy.”

It “follows the 40th president’s rise from small-town lifeguard to revered architect of the modern world . . . and investigates how Reagan’s homespun political vision fueled a seismic career, one whose reverberations still shape American life.” Sounds interesting to me. Think I’ll tune in . . . or at least set the DVR.

The film first screened at the Sundance Film Festival and now will air for the first time tonight at 9/8C on HBO. Check out the trailer for the film after the jump.

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Even though the 2010 SXSW Film/Interactive/Music Festival is all but finished, that doesn’t mean there are not still a few awards left to give out. Today the fest announced additional audience awards for films that screened during the film portion of the event.

These films include films from the Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Lone Star States, 24 Beats Per Second and Midnighters categories. For the 2010 SXSW Film Festival, 134 feature-length films, including 64 world premieres, were selected from a record 1,572 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,206 U.S. and 366 international feature-length films. 130 shorts were selected from 2,312 short film submissions.

Here’s a list of the additional 2010 SXSW Film Festival Audience Award Winners:

Feature Film Audience Awards

SPOTLIGHT PREMIERES
Winner: Richard Garriott – Man on a Mission
Director: Mike Woolf

EMERGING VISIONS
Winner: NY Export: Opus Jazz
Director: Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes

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While most eyes are on Austin, Texas this week for SXSW, many people on the East Coast eagerly await a closer show as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival kicks off on April 21st. The festival is mainly for indie pictures, rather than the larger, blockbuster films, but is also a great place for up-and-coming directors and writers to showcase their work.

With the festival coming up in just over a month, they are already rolling out this year’s schedule and have announced the first 34 films out of a total of 85 feature length and 47 shorts screening at this year’s fest. Among the titles were those submitted to the World Narrative and Documentary competition, as well as the Showcase and Special Events.

Some of the titles look to be quite intriguing, and could include some of the bigger names of the next decade. Be sure to check out the first 34 films to be announced after the jump, and keep it here, as we bring you extensive coverage of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

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We talk quite a bit about narrative feature films here at The Flickcast. You know, the ones that exist in a fictional world full of characters and situations contrived to tell a story. There are also these other films known as documentaries where actual, real people relate the experiences of their lives and also tell a story.

And yes, some of them are quite good, even if they’re not directed by Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock (although, they do make some good films). Case in point, the SXSW documentary premiere film American Grindhouse.

Narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor Robert Forster, the feature-length documentary “boasts exclusive interviews with filmmakers Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, Jack Hill, Fred Williamson, John Landis and many more. Not only that, quite a few of these actors, directors and writers are speaking out in their first-ever on-camera interviews.”

In addition, the film features “clips and scenes from more than 200 of the most jaw-dropping movies ever screened, American Grindhouse is poised to be the most comprehensive motion picture ever made on the subject of Exploitation Cinema. Shameless ballyhoo or certifiable fact? Watch the film and see for yourself.”

I’m going to go on record right now and say “certifiable fact.” See for yourself and check out the trailer after the jump.

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