Documentary filmmakers and journalists may breathe a partial sigh of relief today as the Court of Appeals has issued a largely positive order in the case of documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger. Attorney Michael C. Donaldson filed an Amicus Brief on behalf of the Writers Guild of America, East, as well as 22 other industry organizations and individuals, who saw an earlier court order for Berlinger to turn over footage he filmed making CRUDE, The Real Price of Oil as a grave threat to the future of investigative documentaries.

On May 16, at 8 PM ET/EP, join Animal Planet in a two-hour journey through the lives of more than 900 elephants that roam Kenya’s National Samburu Reserve. From the producers of LIFE and PLANET EARTH, THE SECRET LIFE OF ELEPHANTS, shot in glorious high definition, provides an intimate window into what it’s really like to be an elephant by focusing on several dozen of these creatures.

What are the consequences of a human society removed from nature? How will this impact our children, our society, and eventually, our planet?

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Federal District Court in New York granted Chevron’s request for a subpoena, which demands access to over 600 hours of footage from “Crude,” a documentary that chronicles a legal battle being supported by 30,000 Amazonian settlers hoping to hold Texaco (now owned by Chevron) responsible for environmental devastation in Ecuador. Local documentary filmmakers in Chicago react to the decision.

Hot Docs has careened down the path of screening outstanding documentaries, facilitating frenetic networking and busting out boozy social gatherings for a 17th time this year. One of the largest documentary film festivals in the world, it is an understatement to say that the festival is intoxicatingly exhausting. Five days in to the ten day extravaganza, I do have some notes to share on the parties, the people, the films and the ethics of the festival itself.

Dirt! The Movie is a documentary that educates, entertains, and engages it’s viewers.

The first film I was able to catch at this year’s One World Human Rights Film Festival was A Place Without People documenting the expulsion of the Maasai from the Serengeti in Tanzania. “Can’t at least we preserve the Serengeti for the animals and the people who come after us,” exclaimed Bernhard Grzimek, a German conservationist/zooligist famous for inspiring the creation of the Serengeti National Park. By this statement I presume he meant preserve it for other colonialists and not the Maasai, the parks original inhabitants. From British rule up to the country’s present day independent government, those in power have failed to recognize the tribe’s place in the park’s ecosystem and their role in preserving its balance for centuries.

Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story takes aim at the elite bankers and CEOs who are steering America’s economy into the gutter, and among the bad guys he goes after is none other than the world’s largest and most brutal retailer, Wal-Mart (now re-branded as Walmart). Moore exposes Walmart’s dirty practice of taking out insurance claims on its employees and cashing in on their deaths without telling their families.

Two minutes into The Art of the Steal, I knew I was not about to watch an impartial documentary. The overbearingly ominous music indicated to me at once that this was going to be a slow revelation of a vast and disconcerting conspiracy (at one point I even thought I heard Black Sabbath). Despite its obvious partiality, however, the film was entertaining, informative, and well-paced throughout, and will at the very least serve as a basic primer to those who are new to the complexities of the almost two decade long struggle to wrest the Barnes museum from its home in Lower Merion to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

A short film on the 2.17.10 demonstration at Anthem Blue Cross’ downtown L.A. offices.