So it was our premiere last night and half an hour before we left for the cinema we were on the phone to Roger Ebert the film critic (who gave the film a rave review) trying to convince him that our documentary is, well, a documentary. A couple of days ago he gave the film '2 thumbs up' and we were delighted, but then he announced that he thought the film was probably a hoax!!

It's been an amazing few days here in New York and whilst no small independent filmmaker could complain about the amount of press attention UNKNOWN WHITE MALE has been getting, it's quite strange to have made a documentary and have the press assume it's a fake. But it's worse than that, because for Doug it's really unfair and unwarranted. His story (Doug suffered total retrograde amnesia 2 and a half years ago) is 100% true and he has never sought any publicity from it.

Anyway I want to thank Roger Ebert for his revision today which said "I am persuaded that the documentary “Unknown White Male” is either (a) factual and authentic, or (b) the most convincing mockumentary ever made". The full piece is at http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060220/COMMENTARY/60221004.

Anyway here are some photos from the premiere - please come see the film when it opens THIS FRIDAY at Loews Village 7 3rd Avenue and 11th New York, NY 1-800-FANDANGO #780
or online at http://www.fandango.com/MoviePage.aspx?date=2/24/2006&mid=89558&source=moviesearch

PLEASE COME SEE THE FILM THIS WEEKEND!
Your support at the opening weekend box office can really help the film survive to it's second week!

Okay so the 'Is Unknown a Hoax?' story is kicking off in New York after fucking Michel Gondry commented to men's magazine GQ that he found Doug 'unconvincing' and that Doug must have got the idea from Gondry's movie "Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind"!?!

Unfortunately I think that last year's amnesia hoaxer, the Piano Man, (who incidentally the whole Unknown team had pegged as a fake from the beginning because we know what a real amnesia story smells like) has made everyone really jumpy.

Anyway we want to say, for the the record - once again and for clarity - that the film is 100% true. That we the filmmakers have told the truth and that we know Doug to be 100% genuine. He's a pretty amazing guy and we all admire him for having survived what he did and come out of it such a lovely person. Imagine doing that and having people question whether you are for real. It must be a bit like accidentally falling out of 30 storey building and surviving only to have people accuse you of pretending you can fly..

Anyway here is Monday's Guardian piece on whether the film is a hoax..

roll out the red carpet

Okay so we’ve all had to get over the disappointment of not being nominated
for an Oscar by telling each other a load of rubbish about how we hate winning
prizes anyway (I for one love winning prizes, at least I think I do – if I ever win
anything meaningful I’ll be able to test it).

But anyway all of that is behind us now because we’re in New York for the
premiere and opening of Unknown at PROPER CINEMAS. We’ve gone to enough
film festivals with the film now and nice as that is, it’s not the same as having your
film in a proper cinema where people who aren’t a) other filmmakers b) your
family are going to pay hard cash to see the film because they think it sounds good.

The press here has been very good. We were in the Movies that Matter this
Month section of Premier magazine. Penthouse loved it ? They called it
‘inspirational’ in a section of the magazine called “Full frontal flicks”.
In fact look! I can paste it here.



And here’s another from style mag NYLON



So the premiere and party is the 21st February. It opens in NY and LA on
Friday 24th then Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis and then, if it’s a big success,
it’ll play everywhere, forever and ever and ever (or major US cities for 2 weeks,
whichever is shorter)

If you are in NYC Come and see the film at the Landmark Sunshine from Friday
February 24th. AND PLEASE COME ON OPENING WEEKEND – it will really
help the film stay in theatres longer!

The Oscar nominations were announced at 1.30pm yesterday and well, we were not selected.
I spent all morning feeling actually really sick, a very particular kind of sick feeling I haven't had since my A levels. I passed those and have flunked the academy awards. Worse still those bloody penguins are in the last 5 and I do think it's a not very good film. Sanctimonious Disney wildlife. Good news is that the very very brilliant Darwin's Nightmare has made it - and I think can very probably win it. Last year was Born into Brothels and year before Fog of War - serious films win Doc Oscars. Maybe they make special statues with very serious faces.

To comfort ourselves we have decided to get hold of a copy of Darwin's Nightmare and get some friends round to watch it again and tell ourselves that we made room for that film to be nominated when we didn't get through..

if you wish to comfort me, you may send chocolate.

The winners:

March of the Penguins
Streetfight
Darwin's Nightmare
Murderball
Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room (also very good)

Made the shortlist but lost the nominations:

Rize
After Innocence
The Boys of Baraka
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (ah bit disapointed for them too)
Favela Rising
Mad Hot Ballroom
Occupation: Dreamland
On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission Report
39 Pounds of Love
Unknown White Male

Question - How do you get an Oscar nomination?
Answer - we don't know but we are finding out and fast.

Morgan Spurlock bought Beadie and I dinner and lots and lots of drinks in New York to celebrate the Oscar shortlisting. He also ran through some of the things we have to do now if we are to have a hope of getting nominated. The Academy Awards are based entirely on merit of course but it does help if you sleep with all 130 members on the committee between now and January 31st when the final 5 are chosen. Bagsy I do the girls.




Thanks also to our friend Maxx who suggested that we put vicious slanderous rumours around about all the other films - kill the opposition off one by own like in "Arsenic and Old Lace". She suggested we tell people that 100 penguins were killed during the making of "March of the Penguins".

Rize - those dancers are actually lawyers and accountants
Murderball - they didn't need the wheelchairs
Darwin's Nightmare - ah no I love this film, it should probably win.
Mad Hot Ballroom - the children are puppets

other slanderous suggestions gratefully received

I am in New York today having meetings with various people who might be able to help
with the release of Unknown White Male. Had dinner with the nice people at Wellspring
who are releasing the film here last night and today they rang to say that

WE HAVE MADE THE OSCAR DOCUMENTARY SHORTLIST.

I was so shocked as I didn't realise that there was going to be an announcement at all
- that I sort of couldn't really take it in. I just thought "I think they are saying that
we have been shortlisted for the oscars, but that seems quite unlikely and it would be
really tragic to think that we had been nominated for an oscar if, in fact, they are
a) fucking with me or b) are refering to the Mozambique Oscars not the Hollywood ones"


But apparently it is true as people keep emailing their congratulations. Anyway 15
documentaries have been shortlisted (5 of us will get through to nomination stage
on January 31st) and we are in great company - very happy that The Devil and
Daniel Johnston and Darwin's Nightmare are also picked:

"After Innocence"
"The Boys of Baraka"
"Darwin's Nightmare"
"The Devil and Daniel Johnston"
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"
"Favela Rising"
"Mad Hot Ballroom"
"March of the Penguins"
"Murderball"
"Occupation: Dreamland"
"On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission Report"
"Rize"
"Street Fight"
"39 Pounds of Love"
"Unknown White Male"

It's Sunday night and I'm just going through emails . George, one of the Shooters team, just
alerted me to the fact that Jason Solomons wrote a nice thing about the film in the Observer
today. I scrambled around and found the Review section under the sofa and here it is:



"The British gem was a documentary called Unknown White Male, made by Rupert Murray,
about a friend who one day lost all his memory and became a different person. It becomes
a thoroughly captivating film about who we are and where we're going. In the middle of a
film festival, those are exactly the questions everyone should be asking of themselves".


That's nice. I'm almost over my Time Out mauling.

Sold out! We sold out the big screen at the Curzon which is great
because hopefuly it will help persuade cinema owners to take the film
when we release it next March.





This was the last screening in the festival
and a special screening for me because a lot of my family were there.
So a big thanks to the Script Factory for putting it on and to everyone
who came down to see it. Thank you.




.

We've been Daily Mailed!

They rang everyone up and even managed to get a home phone
number for Doug and harrassed him too.

.


Their piece first suggests the film is a hoax and then that it is really
exploitative of Doug - which are surely mutually exclusive but anyway
the funniest thing is that they managed to use the phrase
"The Mail can reveal...". Brilliant.

The good news: It's three days after the premiere and look
- we got a whole page in the Sunday Telegraph! They loved the film

"the documentary is a fascinating, at times emotional and uncomfortable, journey"





And some bad news! Time Out gave us a shit review

"I spent most of the time during the Sundance screening of this British documentary wondering whether it was, in fact, fake and I was having the wool pulled over my eyes by some clever-clever filmmaker. Ultimately, though, the truth was more simple: it’s a poor example of documentary-making."

We are all a bit gutted especially as the guy reviewed the work in progress version of the film that went to Sundance NOT the new final version at the London Film Festival. We shot for 2 more weeks over the 4 months after Sundance and spent another 9 weeks in the cutting room. Oh well.

Also Time Out said "It’s hard, too, not to see this entire enterprise as exploitative, considering that its subject is suffering from a severe psychological disorder" which could not be more wrong and we'd encourage anyone who is worried about that aspect of it to read Doug's own words about the film on this website (under MEET DOUG).

And to end with, here's a picture of our illustrious director Rupert Murray after another evening hard at work promoting the film. What a trooper




.

****

We got 4 stars in the TIMES TODAY!!
I know it makes us sound like a hotel but we are over the moon
- we got a fantastic review too.




Thank you Wendy Ide, we all want to kiss you.


.

Okay so last night was it - the film opened to a packed house -
and best of all Doug decided at the last minute to fly over and join us!










First screening out of the way - 2 to go!


.