Last week, I sat on the Documentary Competition Jury at the Sarasota Film Festival. The lineup was extraordinarily strong, and my fellow jurors and I found something to admire about most of the eight films on the slate. In the end, we gave the grand prize (which included a DVD/VOD/Educational/Television and “first look” theatrical offer from First Run Features, as well as a guaranteed slot on the Fall 2009 lineup of Stranger Than Fiction at the IFC Center in NY) to Ben Steinbauer’s Winnebago Man, and a special cinematography award to Jody Lee Lipes, the director and camera operator of Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be The Same. I’ll write about the winning films individually as they continue their travels on the festival circuit. Below the jump, some notes on the other six films in competition.

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