...another new documentary is forthcoming about Hurricane Katrina.

Variety reports that in addition to Spike Lee and Michael Moore (additional details of which can be found in The New York Times) , perhaps the most qualified dude of them all is making his own Katrina doc:

"Stephen Rue, president of the Motion Picture and Television Assn. of Louisiana, is self-financing and producing a doc, "New Orleans Story," from live footage of the recovering city and interviews with hurricane victims, evacuees, public officials and historians."

Our reaction is two-fold. One: Self-financing? Easily the biggest domestic natural disaster in the history of the Republic, and this man has to self-finance? Really? A&E? Bravo? Sundance? Harvey? Somebody? No one wants to help get this thing made?

Two: Regardless of how it gets funded, this is good news. Film everything down there. If they can't use Louisiana to make regular Hollywood features, at least the word get out about the plight of these poor bastards in the 9th ward.

In the words of Amir Bar-Lev, a New York filmmaker who's gone to Louisiana to tell the story of National Guard members arriving home from Iraq: "Everybody realizes that the hurricane was blowing the roof off something more than the Superdome."