Brooklyn’s Northside Festival returns for its fifth year beginning tomorrow, Thursday, June 13 and running through Thursday, June 20. Showcasing music since its inception, it expanded to include film in its second year, and ideas in its third – now referred to as NExT (entrepreneurship x technology) – becoming a local, smaller SXSW in the process. The film program doesn’t begin until Monday, but runs through the end of the fest, and presents about two dozen features, with nearly half being docs, as well as a number of shorts.
Recent new nonfiction that I haven’t yet seen includes: Andre Valentim Almeida’s FROM NEW YORK WITH LOVE, a cinema essay exploring NYC through a European tourist’s eyes; Olallo Rubio’s GIMME THE POWER, a sociopolitical exploration of Mexican alternative band Molotov; and Kevin Hegge’s SHE SAID BOOM: THE STORY OF FIFTH COLUMN (pictured), a tribute to the influential Toronto feminist/queer punk band. The fest also features Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s FOLLOW THE LEADER, following the evolving politics of three young conservative teenagers, which I’ve seen and will be covering upon its release later this month.
Northside also presents a couple of classic docs as part of this year’s lineup: Jennie Livingston’s PARIS IS BURNING, about Harlem drag ball culture in the late 1980s; and William Greaves’ SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: TAKE ONE (pictured), an experimental hybrid film about filmmaking.
what (not) to doc 