Jonathan Demme

Director Jonathan Demme's first fictional feature in nearly five years, "Rachel Getting Married" captures the anxieties of family dynamics and the difficulties of emotional closure. The film is shot in a loose, documentary-like way, and the rangy, exploratory visual style and therapy-infused dialogue caused it to be among the most talked-about films coming out of the Toronto International Film Festival, where it had its North American premiere earlier this month.

Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme and PBS' Tavis Smiley will team up every night next week to present Demme's series on the post-Katrina efforts of various New Orleans residents as they try to reclaim their homes, neighborhoods, lives and livelihoods. "Right to Return: New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward" was filmed in New Orleans during 2006, leading into January of this year.

The new documentary on our 39th president, "Jimmy Carter Man From Plains," is running newspaper advertisements listing the man's accomplishments. Which is a good thing, because you won't find out much about them in the film. As directed by Jonathan Demme, this narrowly cast documentary focuses so exclusively on a publicity tour the former president took in the closing months of 2006 that a more accurate title might be "Jimmy Carter How I Sold My Book."

Jonathan Demme doesn't want you to misunderstand. He loves directing big studio movies like "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Silence of the Lambs." "When you get a great script, it's unbelievably exciting, and with Hollywood money you get a dream cast." But, oh, the lure of the concert film. "Filming great live music is a whole nother thing," the energetic, articulate director says. "There's something very pure about it, you don't have to do another take to make it realer."

Neil Young's reputation tags him as restless and forward-looking. But that doesn't mean the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member doesn't find inspiration in the past -- or in taking stock as he ages of the changes in his family and in the world around him.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on April 3, 2000, on a clear, sunny morning in Port-au-Prince, Jean Dominique, a radio journalist who had spent his life fighting for democracy and justice for his beloved and troubled Haiti, was assassinated as he stepped out of his car on his way to work. He was 69, a son of the elite.