The Little Rock Film Festival announced today that the 2014 festival will include a new category devoted to “Cinematic Nonfiction,” to be programmed by the filmmaker and writer Robert Greene, who will also present an award for “Extraordinary Achievement in Non-Fiction Cinema.” As the Festival’s announcement noted, “The old dogmas of documentary film are being gleefully disregarded,” citing recent filmmakers who have worked toward this end by “blurring the lines between fact and fiction all together, scripting lines for documentary stars, or even creating elaborate choreographed sequences reminiscent of a Hollywood movie set.”
Greene himself has been working in this hybrid space for a number of years to great acclaim: his film, “Fake It So Real,” about semi-pro wrestlers in North Carolina, made New Yorker film critic Richard Brody’s Best of 2012 list, and Roger Ebert named it one of the best documentaries of the year. His new film “Actress,” stars Brandy Burre, best known for her role in “The Wire,” and, as Indiewire writes, “explores Burre’s hiatus from acting for motherhood and her current efforts to revitalize her career.”