More News

With the scores of cable TV stations, this is the heyday for documentaries. And even though Susan Raymond contends that ‘‘Michael Moore is the only one who makes money,” filmmakers like Susan Koch believe no matter what, it is wonderful work, repeating her mantra: ‘‘It’s a back stage pass to life.”

Holding this special pass, Koch may have transformed audience members, but also admits rethinking her own stereotypes. Although the filmmaker is a world traveler, she recalls thinking of the homeless as mere ‘‘panhandlers.” That image disappeared once she began working on ‘‘Kicking It.” She learned there are one billion homeless worldwide; a majority of them are children. And the reasons for homelessness are as varied as the individuals and their countries.

World Cup participant Craig, 19, had spent much of his childhood living in a dozen or so foster homes. Once he ‘‘aged out” of the North Carolina child welfare system, he became homeless, Koch says. Russia has a different but equally disturbing problem, with the demise of the Soviet state; unemployment in rural communities is rampant. Traveling to St. Petersburg or Moscow in search of work, folks soon learn that without a ‘‘resident” card they are unable to find work or a place to live. Worse, the subject of homelessness is taboo; soon the victims become part of an invisible society. Long-term solutions sometimes seem elusive, but then homeless World Cup street soccer matches were introduced in South Africa some six years ago. It is the one sport that ‘‘speaks a universal language,” Koch explains. ‘‘The best soccer players come from the street. It can be played anywhere. In the slums, people wrap rags to make the ball.”

Soon, countries all over the world were introducing street soccer. Koch watched many come to the game ‘‘wounded,” then after regularly participating in the sport, changing their lives with some 80 percent finding employment and permanent housing.

Watching the homeless play at the World Cup, fans aren’t cheering the down and out but athletes, period. Koch recalls many people asking her if the athletes were really homeless.

Worldwide grassroots efforts along with education are major themes in this year’s SILVERDOCS festival. Allan and Susan Raymond spent a full school year filming ‘‘Hard Times at Douglass High.” Their goal was to explore the effectiveness of ‘‘No Child Left Behind” in urban high schools. But don’t ever compare the filmmakers to flies on a wall.

‘‘We aren’t a surveillance camera,” Ann Raymond observes.

In fact, they spent many hours getting to know the teacher and students, gaining their trust before they can even turn on the camera.

Filmmaker Tom Cappello learned that trust takes time when he made ‘‘A Powerful Noise.” Although the filmmaker knew the Vietnamese subject he was filming was HIV positive, it took a month for her to tell the painful story. Meanwhile, she works to bring the rarely discussed subject to the forefront, hoping to educate and prevent the spread of the disease. While the film is designed to show the grassroots efforts of three women, Cappello isn’t afraid to expose their daunting challenges. Serbian and Bosnian women maybe working together building an agricultural cooperative to offer employment opportunities for war widows, but he also shows mass graves and burnt out villages. In Mali, Cappello filmed a local woman prodding the village elders to allow children to attend school in a male dominated society that perceives children as laborers.

SILVERDOCS maybe awash with somber subject matter, but even doc fans need to smile just a little. While ‘‘Herb & Dorothy” is sweet, serious and somehow uplifting, filmmaker Megumi Sasaki didn’t have any idea what she was getting into when she decided to document the couple’s life. ‘‘I figured I’d do a few interviews. Film them at home and it would take a couple of weeks and cost a few thousand dollars,” she says. Instead, it blossomed into a four year and half a million dollar love affair, the self-described ‘‘naïve” first-time filmmaker explains. SILVERDOCS will host the world premiere of ‘‘Herb & Dorothy,” with the couple attending, offering a loving look at a couple of hoarders who saved serious stuff. It’s hard not to be fascinated with the couple, who for 30 years lived on her librarian’s salary and used his postal worker pay to buy art cheap. And when they gave the entire collection — 4,000 art works to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. — people were stunned. Much has been written about the couple, but Megumi is the first to film them in their home before the work was transported to D.C. — the contents of the tiny apartment requiring five moving vans to get to the museum.

Sasaki had no art training and was interested in the human side of this story. Although she didn’t have a clue about what she describes as the elite world of ‘‘minimal and conceptual art,” her goal was to ‘‘bring down the snobbishness and enjoy it simply for what it is.”

In the process, she earned an art education and became a granddaughter to the couple. A native of Japan, she recalls spending hours with them, going out to dinner and helping Dorothy with odd jobs.

Now, with movie finished, she admits ‘‘I am on the verge of bankruptcy.” But she doesn’t care. Like the other filmmakers, she is simply ‘‘grateful” for the time her subjects gave her.

Doc filmmakers, take a bow.

SILVERDOCS is scheduled for Monday, June 16, through Monday, June 23, at AFI Silver, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. For a complete list of movies and times, call 301-495-6700 or visit www.silverdocs.com.