THE GREAT HIP HOP HOAX
One of the titles I was saddest to have missed upon its premiere at SXSW was Jeanie Finlay’s exploration of a talented but disrespected Scottish hip hop duo who managed to talk their way into a recording contract only after passing themselves off as California natives (pictured above). Though intending to reveal the truth early into their scam, Billy and Gavin get caught up in their “Silibil n’ Brains” assumed identities, and make it much closer to hip hop stardom than anyone can believe – only to just miss capitalizing on their big break, at the cost of their friendship. Finlay has their full participation, as well as thoughts from others who were caught in their web of well-meaning mischief, to reveal the full, entertaining, and often unbelievable story in this expertly constructed cautionary tale about the siren call of fame.

SHOOTING BIGFOOT
Speaking of hoaxes, British filmmaker Morgan Matthews turns his camera on several men who aim to find the legendary man ape, the subject of numerous hoaxes over the decades. Despite the lack of any believable evidence, Bigfoot has developed an impassioned following of would-be cryptozoologists and hunters, eager to prove the Sasquatch’s existence. Matthews follows three different search parties: Dallas and Wayne, prone to trying to communicate with the creature via unusual screams; short-tempered longtime hunter Tom Biscardi and his motley crew of assistants, including comic standout Chico, a Navy Seal; and, primarily, “master tracker” Rick Dyer, who is trying to rehabilitate his image after a 2008 hoax wherein he claimed to have the body of a Bigfoot. Matthews, logically, is skeptical as to Bigfoot’s existence, but affects a naivete during his ridealongs that proves revealing of his subjects. Audiences will likely debate this, but, generally, Dallas and Wayne seem genuine in their beliefs, and ultimately harmless, while both Biscardi and Dyer come off as absolute hucksters, either trying to trick Matthews into buying into their schtick, or otherwise, working in collusion with him to perpetrate another hoax – the jury’s still out. Regardless, it can’t be denied that Matthews’ film is very entertaining, if structurally challenged – for all the buzz the conclusion has generated, it’s headscratchingly sloppy, with Matthews ending the film abruptly, basically dropping the Dallas and Wayne and Biscardi threads to focus exclusively on a suspicious (and not terribly convincing) encounter in the woods while accompanying Dyer.

SICK BIRDS DIE EASY
Also speaking of hoaxes… This Nightvision entry purports to be the chronicle of filmmaker Nicholas Fackler’s expedition to Gabon with a random assemblage of friends and others to explore the healing properties of iboga, a plant used by shaman to cure addiction, but illegal in the Western world. The entire pretentious enterprise seems manufactured rather than real, with thoroughly and intentionally unlikeable and illogical characters right out of central casting – arrogant, entitled Westerners who speak for the pygmy tribe they visit rather than actually gain any insight from them, and who continuously engage in morally ethical behavior. It’s hard to give this the benefit of the doubt and trust that it’s a genuine, if ineptly made, documentary rather than some ill-planned attempt at a satire. Whether it is or not, it just doesn’t work at all.

NAKED OPERA
There’s a huge amount of pretension displayed by the subject of Angela Christlieb’s portrait, wealthy Luxembourger Marc Rollinger – but he’s refreshingly well aware of and even self-deprecating about his pomposity. Rollinger is obsessed with Don Giovanni – so much so that he spends his free time jetting to whichever European city is staging the opera, usually with a handsome, beefy, and well-compensated male companion at his side. Unapologetically opinionated, strangely candid, and possessed of an often quite funny sardonic wit, Rollinger sees his life paralleled in the opera – not just in the protagonist’s self-indulgence but also in his tragic end: Rollinger suffers from a terminal autoimmune disease, which motivates his excesses and informs his sadness. Still, even Rollinger, early in the film, questions whether he makes for an appropriate documentary subject, and I’m not entirely sure he’s wrong, to be honest. There are intriguing aspects to his life and his way of approaching impending mortality, but he doesn’t always sustain viewer interest in what is, nevertheless, a well-shot and stylish film.

FUREVER
Mortality and grief are at the core of the final film in Nightvision, Amy Finkel’s engaging exploration of the bond between pets and their caretakers, even beyond the grave. The film surveys the lengths pet owners (aka “pet parents”) go to process their grief after their companion’s death – from freeze-drying to pet cemeteries, mummification to cloning – revealing our culture’s own uneasy relationship with mortality. Owners interviewed indicate a sense of comfort from their attempts to hold on to their beloved animals, speaking to the scientific research briefly presented about the biochemistry at play between human and animal, while service providers note the importance of validating their customers’ loss – pets viewed as beloved family members, not just as a disposable piece of property. In some ways an updated GATES OF HEAVEN, Finkel’s approach is ever respectful, even when dealing with some of the more outré practices on display.

FREE THE MIND
Moving over to the festival’s thematic sidebar, Rule Breakers and Innovators, Phie Ambo’s film puts more of a focus on brain chemistry and its potential to address serious disorders. Ambo’s focus is the work of researcher Richard Davidson and his scientific work on the Buddhist practice of Mindfulness, as demonstrated in parallel studies of PTSD in soldiers and ADHD in children. The former go through a more regimented treatment for the debilitating effects their time in combat is having on their lives, while the latter is primarily focused on the efforts to help a small boy conquer his fear of riding in elevators. While it’s interesting to consider the contrasting applications of Davidson’s theories on these two distinct studies, the veterans are far more practically explored, and, honestly, simply more convincing than the situation with the young boy, on whom the concept of Mindfulness is far more diffusely applied. As a whole, the film provokes intriguing questions, but seems to be stretching a bit to show Davidson’s efficacy.

TINY: A STORY ABOUT LIVING SMALL
Taking on just the right amount for its length and focus, Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller’s follows the filmmaking couple as they set out to build a tiny house – a residence that suits their essential needs but can fit in a standard parking space. Decidedly Smith’s dream, but with Mueller’s cooperation and support, he purchases five acres of pristine Colorado land and sets to work, of course underestimating how complex the undertaking is. The filmmakers’ observations about the process, and their personal and environmental reasons for wanting a tiny house, join interviews with other tiny house owners to impart a clear sense of the growing movement. By the project’s nature, the personal narration works more often than it doesn’t, and the film’s structure makes for an ultimately satisfying viewing experience.

THE HUMAN SCALE
Andreas M Dalsgaard also offers a design-oriented doc for Hot Doc’s Rule Breakers strand with this smart consideration of the need for city planning to return to the smaller scale. Using Danish urban planner Jan Gehl’s ideas as a focus, the film looks at several cities that are attempting to shift their design away from an elevated macro view to an eye-level perspective, where residents, and, importantly, pedestrians, can make better use of them than motorists. Beautifully lensed, with a smart selection of test case cities under consideration, Dalsgaard’s film is a compelling thinking piece, even if it’s at times a bit insular.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY
Rounding out Rule Breakers, Cullen Hoback serves as a guide through the erosion of privacy on the Internet. Recognizing that most people spend no more than a few seconds glancing at the various terms and conditions agreements connected to various websites, applications, and the like, Hoback seeks to understand what exactly we’re authorizing by so easily clicking “yes.” This alone is a great structuring device for a doc, and Hoback follows it through to its often sobering conclusion, establishing how we’ve become willing participants in the destruction of our own privacy, authorizing entities like Google or Facebook to give authorities access to our information and behavior patterns. While the film is constructed on the conventional side, and Hoback’s narration might be somewhat overused, both approaches are suited to the project, and its provocative conclusions definitely hold the viewer’s attention.

THE PUNK SINGER
The Next section of the festival turns the spotlight on films about art, music, and culture. Sini Anderson’s entry is a comprehensive, honest, and intimate appreciation of Kathleen Hanna, known to many as the lead singer of seminal bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and one of the pioneers of the riot grrrl movement – and someone who inexplicably vanished from the scene for several years. Blending an impressive body of archival footage of performances and personal movies with candid interviews from Hanna and key musicians and other figures from her life, the doc reintroduces adherents to the singer’s appeal and importance, especially to young women in the 1990s, and, no doubt, wins her some new fans. Well-spoken and outspoken, Hanna also candidly discusses the health concerns that led to her withdrawal from music until very recently in Anderson’s strong portrait.

AS TIME GOES BY IN SHANGHAI
Uli Gaulke’s film offers a collective profile of the oldest jazz band in China, Shanghai’s Peace Old Jazz, as they prepare for an international concert appearance in Rotterdam. Ranging in age from 65 to 87, these men have seen dramatic change in their country, including the Cultural Revolution, which was meant to cut them off from their passion for American music. Some still performed in secret, waiting until China opened up again to play professionally, which the band has done since 1980. With multiple characters, Gaulke never gets into extreme depth with any one individual, but the passing musings they make evoke an ethereal sense of the tumultuous history of China in the 20th century, elevating this from what could have been a condescending, sentimental geriatric portrait.

THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC!
Closing out Next and this year’s Hot Docs coverage, Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling’s celebrates the work of Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz, a German immigrant who has made it his unrelenting life’s mission to locate and preserve American folk music in its myriad forms. The only thing the affable Chris doesn’t like, as noted by the film’s title, is soulless, irredeemable commercial throwaway music, and this breadth of interest informs Simon and Gosling’s portrait, which is awash in the sounds of New Orleans jazz, zydeco, Louisiana blues, and Tex-Mex norteño. Chris doesn’t provide a strong enough central thread to carry the film, resulting in a high concentration of anecdotes and an overall survey-like approach, but his passion is clearly and lovingly conveyed, proving resonant with the audience.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s impressionistic portrait of Detroit made its debut at Sundance last year, picking up the best documentary editing award. Its fest circuit included True/False, Cleveland, Hot Docs, DocAviv, Silverdocs, Milwaukee, Documentary Edge, and Traverse City, among others. Following a theatrical release, the doc made the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature.

I profiled the film before Sundance here.

Alex Gibney’s exploration of the history of Julian Assange’s controversial site, and its intersection with Bradley Manning, had its world premiere earlier this year at Sundance. Since then, the doc has screened at Sydney and is part of Seattle’s lineup.

My pre-Sundance profile on the doc may be found here.

THE MANOR
The Special Presentations begin, appropriately enough, with Hot Docs’ opening night film, director Shawney Cohen’s exploration of his family’s dynamics and dysfunctions (pictured). Working with co-director Mike Gallay, Cohen introduces the viewer to his dangerously overweight father, equally alarmingly underweight mother, player brother, and, most importantly, their family business – the titular strip club/motel, and some of its employees. No doubt because of Cohen’s personal connection, the film has an effortless, fly-on-the-wall immediacy and intimacy, where it makes perfect sense that a completely nude dancer would walk into the frame to ask Shawney’s dad a question about her next shift. But far from the broad, titillating farce such a set up might suggest, the film is surprisingly complex, focused less on T&A and more on the impact of their unconventional trade on each family member, manifested in the weight issues for the parents, an embrace of a lothario lifestyle for his brother, and a resigned passivity, even inertia, for Shawney himself. It’s a very strong portrait, with characters and conflicts indelible enough that at times it even feels like it could support a continuing episodic series.

HIGH FIVE: A SUBURBAN ADOPTION SAGA
Another intriguing portrait of a family comes from Julia Ivanova, who follows the efforts of childless couple Cathy and Martin Ward to adopt five Ukrainian siblings into their suburban Canadian home, over the course of several years. While initial efforts to adopt the younger children prove relatively easy, changes to Ukraine’s international adoption policies result in difficult, protracted delays that put stress on the slowly forming new family. Even when the red tape is finally cleared, the Wards must contend with the economic reality of providing for their new children, as well as interpersonal conflicts as the eldest daughter, Yuliya, struggles to find a place after years of serving as a de facto mother to her younger siblings. The frayed and ultimately fractured relationship between Cathy and Yuliya is both fascinating and heart-wrenching to watch unfold. Though she occasionally interjects, asking the children questions in Russian, Ivanova generally shows great restraint in this mostly observational film which doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges of crosscultural adoption.

RENT A FAMILY INC
Family is also at the core of Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s film about a Japanese family man’s most unusual business enterprise, dubbed I Want To Cheer You Up Ltd. For a fee, Ryuichi Ichinokawa poses as a client’s father, husband, or employer – and can call on others to fill other needed roles – usually to help his clients save face – of extreme importance in Japan’s strictly regimented, approval-seeking culture. The opening scene, however, shows a different, and very revealing, application of Ryuichi’s business – he plays a client’s new husband, who humbles himself to her ex-husband, mentioning that his salary is not as high, so that the ex will help with child support. While affected for the job, this self-effacement speaks to Ryuichi’s own family life – scenes at home show him to be completely disrespected by his children and wife, who has kicked him out of the bedroom. He works multiple jobs to provide for them, and keeps his company a secret out of fear of further rejection. Without overtly psychologizing his subject, Schöder clearly conveys the underlying connections between Ryuichi’s unsatisfying personal life and the make-believe family roles he’s able to step in and out of as a sort of coping mechanism, solving problems along the way.

REMOTE AREA MEDICAL
Some of the subjects of Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s film have problems that go far beyond saving face – they are without basic medical care and so desperate for assistance that they spend days waiting for a limited number of slots to see the volunteer doctors of Stan Brock’s free pop-up clinic in Bristol TN. Set up in a NASCAR stadium over a weekend, the service – originally providing assistance to the developing world, but now primarily focused on the overwhelming demand in the US – provides medical, dental, and eye care to those in most need. Appropriately taking a survey approach to provide a kaleidoscopic view of uninsured America, and focusing on the patients moreso than the volunteer doctors and nurses, Reichert and Zaman’s observational film demonstrates the impact a pair of glasses or some relatively simple dental work can have on self-esteem, speaking to the sorry state of the healthcare system that necessitates such economically-motivated triage.

CAUCUS
If Reichert and Zaman’s film spotlights the masses, director AJ Schnack’s world premiere hones in on their would-be leaders – the Republican contenders for the White House in 2012. The setting is Iowa, the first major proving ground in the 2012 presidential campaign, with the major contenders for the nomination forming a veritable circus sideshow for Schnack’s direct cinema approach. Following the ups and downs of the polls, the film trails Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and, to a lesser extent, Rick Perry, as they shake hands, kiss babies, give stump speeches, and try to win over the hearts and minds of a divided and dysfunctional Republican party. While the outcome is no surprise to anyone who paid any attention to the race while it was happening, that’s not the point of Schnack’s well-constructed film. The fascination comes in the unexpected and rare moments of candor he captures, from Marcus Bachmann’s bizarre thumbwrestling fetish and untoward excitement over baked goods to Santorum’s vexed, almost paranoid interview about being ignored by the media. What’s perhaps not as surprising, but which speaks volumes, is how the candidates, for the most part, are always on – rarely seeming genuine and always looking for that opportunity to get that vote.

A WHOLE LOTT MORE
Shifting over to the World Showcase section, Victor Buhler’s film, which had its world premiere at Hot Docs, took third place in the audience award vote. Its title refers to Lott Industries, a Toledo OH based company that employed the developmentally disabled in manufacturing jobs for decades. However, when the US auto industry tanks – Lott’s biggest client – the company is forced to assess its sustainability and its mission. Buhler follows Lott’s president, Joan Browne, as she faces bureaucratic pushback on the changes she hopes to make to save the company; the experiences of job-seeking Kevin, demonstrating the employment challenges faced by developmentally disabled people; and Lott employees Wanda and TJ, who depend on their jobs not only for income and independence but as a way to show their abilities and worth to the larger society that tends to dismiss them out of hand. The heart of the film rests in the characters of Joan and especially Wanda – both immensely likeable and relatable figures who are intimately connected to Lott’s fate. Much less successful are the other two subjects, particularly Kevin, who has a tangential relationship to Lott that often makes his sequences feel like they belong in another film.

SECOND CLASS
Marta Dauliūtė and Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall have no such problem with their subjects – their film focuses on just two young Lithuanian migrant workers and themselves. Meeting Edvardus and Arturas on a ferry headed to Sweden, Marta and Elisabeth push them to be the subjects of their project. Wary of exposing themselves on camera, reinforcing prejudices against migrant workers, the young men nevertheless begin to open up – partly a product of sexual chemistry, partly a desire to matter. Despite being part of their own film, the filmmakers manage to avoid self-indulgence, wisely keeping Arturas and Edvardus central as they slowly open up, revealing their insecurities and dreams. At the same time, Marta and Elisabeth’s efforts offer a telling study of the documentarian/subject relationship, and the negotiations that it necessitates, perhaps most explicitly in the film’s excellent closing scene.

TRUCKER AND THE FOX
Arash Lahooti’s film also explores the rapport between a filmmaker and his subjects, but in this case those subjects are of the four-legged variety. Iranian truck driver Mahmood Kiyani Falavarjani has won awards for his short films starring animals, but faces a devastating setback when his leading lady, his pet fox, is killed. Distraught, he’s institutionalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but beyond various forms of therapy, Mahmood knows that he can only heal if he makes another film. He’s got a story worked out – a donkey romance – but he needs a new fox, and sets out to trap and domesticate his new star. As might be expected, Lahooti’s film is unusual and at times entertaining – a portrait of an artist, his affliction, and his potentially healing and hurtful obsession.

LUCKY
The titular subject of Laura Checkoway’s film is also seeking healing in her own way. New Yorker Lucky Torres hides a lifetime of abuse and abandonment behind an angry, tattooed exterior. Growing up in foster care after their mother left them, Lucky and her sister Fantasy have struggled with stability all their lives. While Fantasy has settled down since having children, motherhood has not straightened Lucky out. She’s still usually homeless, jumps from girlfriend to girlfriend, and finds it difficult to find work, though she dreams of success as a model. She’s a compelling figure, if not always a likeable one – the audience feels frustration in the choices Lucky makes, but Checkoway’s film also engenders empathy and understanding for her struggles.

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE
Also featuring an indelibly unique protagonist is Matthew Pond and Kirk Marcolina’s entertaining portrait of an octogenarian jewel thief. Over six decades, the charming Doris Payne has made away with close to $2 million of jewels, hitting high end stores all over the world, from Monte Carlo to Costa Mesa CA. Interviews with Payne – facing theft charges during the course of the film – and her best friend Jean – who shows more concern about Doris’ legal troubles than the subject herself – reveal the story of how a poor African American woman rebelled against the limited opportunities in a still racially divided America to become one of the world’s most infamous jewel thieves. These one-on-ones are the most effective tool Pond and Marcolina have in capturing Payne’s vitality, humor, and charisma – even if audiences know they’re probably being conned, they can’t help but find her endearing. Less successful are the re-enactments, which too often impart a cheesy TV feel to the proceedings, but thankfully they don’t radically undermine the film’s overall charm.

FELIX AUSTRIA!
Unfortunately, while charm is ostensibly what Christine Beebe is going for in her portrait of an effete would-be artistocrat, the actual result is annoyance. Focused on a self-obsessed, self-described aesthete prone to expensive tastes and fantasies – so much so that he changes his name from Brian to the pretentious Felix – the film follows him in his quest to meet with the last surviving Habsurg after he is bequeathed sixty years of correspondence between the latter and a man named Herbert Hinkel. At the same time, Felix worries he will develop the same degenerative disease afflicting his father – the apparent motivation for his journey. Aside from the latter, the rest is all too precious, with Felix growing increasingly more irritating the longer he’s on camera. Demonstrating not a whit of self-awareness of how absolutely ridiculous he is, Felix makes for an incredibly unsympathetic and tiresome subject, yet Beebe allows him to dominate while only briefly touching upon potentially more intriguing subjects like Hinkel and Otto von Habsburg.

THE DEVIL’S LAIR
Riaan Hendricks’ main subject, Braaim, suggests much richer character terrain. He’s a leader of the Nice Time Kids, a powerful gang in South Africa’s Cape Town flats, and the master of the drug trade in the area. Facing a potential turf war from rival gangs the Americans and the Boy Scouts, Braaim’s world is a dangerous one – but his wife, Gadija, knew that going in, as she tells Hendricks’ camera more than once. Still, beyond worrying about Braaim making it home in one piece, she’s also increasingly concerned about their children – so much so that she’s actively considering divorce. Hers seems like the only voice of relative reason in Hendricks’ film, which features scenes of disturbing violence, the presence of both firearms and drugs in front of children, and plans to use a school as a cover for an assassination attempt. Hendricks captures a rawness and surprising, stark access to a life decidedly on the fringe – one that almost never willingly allows this much public exposure. At the same time, there’s a banality to Braaim’s activities that is more offputting than inspiring of outrage, and suggests that no matter what he might tell Gadija, he’s never going to change. This blaséness imparts an overall lack of dynamism that works against the film as a whole, suggesting that there may not really be enough here to sustain its feature length.

Kevin Couliau and Bobbito Garcia’s tribute to outdoor court basketball made its world premiere at the San Francisco Black Film Festival. It went on to screen at Urbanworld, Philadelphia Awesome Festival, New Jersey, and Toronto’s Regent Park, picking up awards at several. After its week run at the Maysles, the film will expand to other venues in NYC and around the country via Tugg.

Expressing a deep love not only for basketball but for the specific culture of New York City’s playgrounds, Garcia and Couliau’s film takes an expansive look at the lasting influence street ball has had on players and the game itself. In many ways, the doc is a guided tour of the city’s park courts and, most effectively, its legendary players – not only men who made it to the NBA, but old school street players like Pee Wee Kirkland and Kid Sundance Davis. Interviews from these men and others convey a clear sense of the positive impact of their experiences on the court, in addition to often very funny anecdotes about the unwritten set of rules unique to each park, and limited but effective archival footage of court play, complete with amazing period fashion. This sense of living history manages to elevate the film from its very unfocused, meandering survey structure – its weakest aspect. Still, despite this looseness, fans of the game will find plenty to like, and even non-fans should respond to this look at street-level cultural history.

For more information about the selections, see my Indiewire article.

DRAGON GIRLS
Inigo Westmeier was the big winner with this profile of three students of China’s Shaolin Tagu Kung Fu School, an elite training facility located in the birthplace of the martial arts discipline (pictured above). This is no casual afterschool activity for its 20,000 students, as is immediately apparent by the opening scene, which offers the spectacle of the entire student body in perfect, regimented synchronicity as they demonstrate their skills in the school’s huge plaza. While Westmeier returns to this broader picture of the school throughout the film, the focus narrows on three teenage girls and their responses to the incredible pressure – both physical and mental – from their trainers and parents to excel. Though the film occasionally feels too drawn out to sustain complete interest, it’s overall a skillfully made, bittersweet, and at times revealing portrait of the sacrifices made by young individuals in a collectively-oriented society.

CLOUDY MOUNTAINS
Another Chinese-focused film that scored with the Hot Docs jury, Zhu Yu’s Special Jury Prize winner reveals the hazards of asbestos mining among a small group of workers. Between April and October, people like Wang Hongbin and his father risk their health – wearing only flimsy scarves or masks for protection from the omnipresent dust – for the economic rewards the dangerous work provides – enough for the younger man to pay for his wedding. Strictly observational, detailing both the backbreaking toil and the occasional quieter moments in the workers’ makeshift tents, Zhu’s somewhat overlong film nevertheless offers understated insight into a dangerous job and those who are motivated to perform it.

THE CIRCLE
The final film in the International Spectrum to receive a jury nod covered here, Bram Conjaerts’ featurette aims to explore some big issues. The title refers to the path formed by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, located 175 meters below the Franco-Swiss border, and which aims to unlock the mysteries of the universe’s creation. While CERN’s device has some screentime, the bulk of the film follows its 27km circuit above ground, with Conjaerts questioning ordinary folk about not only the LHC, but their general thoughts on the meaning of life and death. There’s no denying he meets some curious people – such as a former CERN employee who now spends his time marveling at the play of light off of CDs he’s suspended on trees, or a couple of Raelian’s who talk about their belief in extra-terrestrial life – but, despite its unusual and admittedly appropriate setting for tackling these existential questions, the film ultimately feels too scattered and arbitrary, like most other “big question” docs.

FOREST OF THE DANCING SPIRITS
Living among the Aka people of the Western Congo Basin for several years, filmmaker Linda Västrik crafts a somewhat too ethnographic, but still very much intriguing, portrait of the pygmy tribe. Though the fest’s description highlights the impending destruction of their forest by industrial logging, this threat doesn’t feature to any great extent in Västrik’s film. Instead, the filmmaker, largely keeping silent, documents the Aka’s way of life, refreshingly permitting individuals to speak for themselves and tell their own stories. A key focus is on the efforts of a young couple to have a child – previous stillbirths are blamed on black magic, and the camera witnesses the local witch doctor’s efforts to diagnose and rid the young mother of her affliction. While observations like these, and other instances of tribe rituals, such as visitations from important fertility spirits or the sharpening of children’s teeth into points in a rite of passage, offer some level of fascination, the most shocking revelation could have been made much earlier – the Aka are essentially slaves, their owners the larger Congolese people, with both groups speaking matter-of-factly about the arrangement.

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
Also surprising is the very premise of Dan Shadur’s film – while mortal enemies since 1979′s Islamic Revolution, Israel enjoyed a favored status in Iran during the Shah’s regime. Trading infrastructural support for oil, thousands of Israelis made their home in Tehran, enjoying the lower cost of living, and seemingly keeping out of politics – including Shadur and his family. While all that changed with the removal of the Shah, the film focuses on the time before, nicely employing Shadur’s family home movies and the recollections of other ex-patriates interviewed here to provide a curious glimpse at a very different Iran – and perhaps a small bit of hope that present-day biases and dogma are not as intractable as they may appear.

JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF VIOLENCE
Rounding out the International Spectrum is Jon Bang Carlsen’s hybrid doc about the trouble teens and the extreme solution some parents have found to get them in line – enrolling them, against their will, in a strict reform school in Utah, a state whose less restrictive laws enable the very questionable methods employed. Faced with the understandable hesitancy of real parents opening up their family dysfunction for some random Danish filmmaker’s camera, Carlsen chooses to stage long scenes of the intake process – scary thugs make arrangements to arrive at the parent clients’ home at the crack of dawn, surprise the offending teen, and take them into custody – with force if necessary – and transport the rightly freaked out and escape-minded kids to their prison. Carlsen doesn’t explicitly reveal that these are fictional before the fact, but, despite the participation of real-life interventionists, it’s almost immediately obvious given the histrionic acting and the unlikely camera angles. If that wasn’t enough, for some inexplicable reason, the director chooses to insert himself in a parallel thread throughout the film, musing about his non-existent relationship with his deadbeat dad. Frankly, none of it works – there’s no illumination of youth rebellion, no real attempt to dig into the practices of the reform schools, no engagement with the play between reality and artifice, and no excuse for the self-indulgence demonstrated – a real shame given that Danish documentaries have tended to be among the strongest in recent years.

Shifting over to Canadian Spectrum, the winners included: Best Canadian Feature Documentary to WHEN I WALK, Special Jury Prize to ALPHÉE OF THE STARS, documentary Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award to BRAVE NEW RIVER, and Inspirit Foundation Pluralism Prize to BÁ NÔI.

ALPHÉE OF THE STARS
I missed the latter two titles, but managed to see Hugo Latulippe’s tender ode to his daughter, the titular figure. Born with a rare neurological disorder, Alphée is challenged on both a physical and cognitive level, calling into question her potential for mainstream schooling. Resisting recommendations to enroll her in a special needs school, the family instead takes a year off from Quebec, relocating to the Swiss countryside, where they hope their daughter will adjust to an integrated progressive preschool. Created as an essay, Latulippe employs an indirect narration that ordinarily would feel too precious, but here is surprisingly affecting. Like his daughter, navigating the world in her own distinct way, the film too is able to find its own pace, occasionally with some self-indulgence, but never to such an extent that it upends it effective simplicity.

UNCLAIMED
Simple is probably the last word that would be used to describe Michael Jorgensen’s controversial investigative doc, which follows the efforts of Vietnam vet Tom Faunce to determine if he’s located a fellow vet, John Hartley Robertson, who was assumed to have been killed in action in 1968. Initially skeptical – after all, the man speaks no English and appears much older than Robertson would have been – but is slowly won over as others come forward lending credence to the man’s claims, including a soldier Robertson trained, and, most touchingly, members of his family. Jorgensen wisely reserves judgement, including elements within his film that would give ammunition to both skeptics and believers, letting viewers come to their own conclusions as this gripping stranger than fiction story plays out to a satisfying conclusion. It should be noted that during the course of the festival, different reports have been made asserting that Robertson is instead a wily French-born imposter, but this has not dampened the conviction shown by some of the subjects featured in the film that the right man has been found.

BUYING SEX
Tackling its own controversial topic – the legalization of sex work – head on, Kent Nason and Teresa MacInnes’ take pains to represent multiple perspectives in what is an incredibly complex issue. Focusing on Canadian law, and a recent ruling that struck down certain provisions that regulated prostitution, the film presents the case for decriminalization of the sellers of sex, represented by an influential, successful attorney and the happy former and current sex workers he found to champion the cause; another group of former sex workers who see sex work as coercive and dangerous, and call for the criminalization of the buyers of sex; and, too briefly, intermittent thoughts from a sampling of the buyers themselves, most represented in silhouette. If this wasn’t enough, the filmmakers demonstrate the competing models more-or-less under discussion by traveling to New Zealand and Sweden, introducing a host of additional subjects. While its admirable that Nason and MacInnes try to give voice to so many, it’s a tall order for 75 minutes, and it ends up diluting the focus, with only one or two main subjects’ personalities really registering above a respectful, but surface, treatment.

NCR: NOT CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE
Finally, John Kastner presents the world premiere of his newest film, an exploration of the impact of the mental disorder defense in horrific cases of violence. His subject is Sean Clifton, a mentally ill man who nearly killed “the prettiest woman he could see” by stabbing her repeatedly in an Ontario Wal-Mart in 1999. Permitted unfettered access, Kastner follows Clifton, who has been treated in a psychiatric hospital for years, as he seeks a conditional release. Interviewing Clifton, the victim, and her parents, the director explores the impact of this random act of violence on them all, while also showcasing another case of mental illness through a secondary but scattered profile of Clifton’s roommate, who is unable or unwilling to admit to his own paranoid condition. As demonstrated in previous work like LIFE WITH MURDER, Kastner has a particular filmmaking style that feels offputting and almost clinical – he’s frequently heard, in monotone, asking questions to his subjects off-camera, and he uses incredibly awkward re-enactments to approximate Clifton’s OCD. Combined with a strange structure that privileges the attack far too much and a decidedly low-energy main subject, the result is a project that is far too stagnantly paced to be entirely effective.

Tom Bean and Luke Poling’s portrait of an unlikely citizen celebrity premiered at Silverdocs last year. Its fest run has included DOC NYC, Martha’s Vineyard, Camden, Hamptons, Hot Springs, Austin, Palm Springs, Cleveland, Oxford, and RiverRun, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc out of Silverdocs for Indiewire, saying:
Tom Bean and Luke Poling’s comprehensive portrait of the late Renaissance/Everyman made its world premiere at the festival this week. Known for both his forays into participatory journalism and as the co-founder/editor of THE PARIS REVIEW, Plimpton emerges as a fascinating subject – willing to be the ultimate amateur – trying his hand at stand-up, football, and the flying trapeze for the sake of an experiential story – despite criticisms, while also cultivating the talents of multiple generations of authors through his influential journal. Smartly constructed, using copious archival interviews to allow Plimpton to largely tell his own story, Bean and Poling’s documentary is a brilliant example of creative biographical filmmaking.

Starting locally, SIFF annually highlights films from the Pacific Northwest in its Northwest Connections strand. Among the feature docs here are Alex Stonehill and Bradley Hutchinson’s BARZAN (pictured), about what happens when an Iraqi immigrant is classified as a terrorist by the US government; Sini Anderson’s THE PUNK SINGER, a portrait of the influential riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna; and Omar J Pineda’s DEAD MEAT WALKING – A ZOMBIE WALK DOCUMENTARY, which explores the participatory pop culture phenomenon which finds ordinary people dressing like the walking dead and shambling around city streets – a film that is also the sole doc in the fest’s Midnight Adrenaline section.

Other Northwest Connections filmmakers serving double duty in another section of the festival are Leah Warshawksi and Chris Towey, whose look at Rwandan filmmaking, FINDING HILLYWOOD (pictured), is also part of the festival’s African Pictures strand. Among the other docs in this Africa focused section include Mosco Kamwendo’s COMRADE PRESIDENT, an investigation into the death of Mozambican revolutionary leader Samora Moises Machel; Samouté Andrey Diarra’s SAND FISHERS, about the changes wrought to Malian fishermen’s trade due to environmental factors; and Alex Pitstra’s doc hybrid DIE WELT, which follows a young Tunisian DVD salesman in the aftermath of the country’s 2011 revolution.

Africa’s not the only continent spotlighted by SIFF this year – the eight films in Asian Crossroads shift the focus to a range of countries in both Asia and South Asia. Among the offerings are: Tien-hau Hua’s GO GRANDRIDERS, about Taiwanese senior citizens who take a trip around the island’s coast; Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s CELLULOID MAN, a tribute to the founder of India’s National Film Archive, PK Nair; and a retrospective screening of Japanese New Wave director Shôhei Imamura’s 1967 classic, A MAN VANISHES, an investigation into Japan’s missing persons.

Additional programming sections featuring a handful of documentaries include the music oriented Face the Music, Contemporary World Cinema, New American Cinema, Special Presentations, and Alternate Cinema. From the latter two strands are Jason Wise’s SOMM (pictured), following the efforts of four sommeliers to pass one of the most difficult industry exams in the world; Max Andersson and Helena Ahonen’s TITO ON ICE, the chronicle of two comic book artists’ road trip through the former Yugoslavia with a mummified Marshal Tito in tow; and Mia Engberg’s BELLEVILLE BABY, a personal essay film about the filmmaker’s former lover, a drug dealer who seeks her out after his release from prison.

Outside of these specialized sections, the balance of SIFF’s nonfiction programming appears in its DocsFest strand. Some of the titles here are part of the festival’s twelve-strong Documentary Competition, including Pratibha Parmar’s ALICE WALKER: BEAUTY IN TRUTH, a profile of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE COLOR PURPLE; Jamila Wignot and Sierra Pettengill’s TOWN HALL (pictured), which follows two ardent Tea Party activists; Mahdi Fleifel’s A WORLD NOT OURS, about the director’s return to the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon where he grew up; and Thomas Riedelsheimer’s BREATHING EARTH, a look at the environmentally motivated artwork of Susumu Shingu.

Outside of the competition, other notable titles in DocsFest include: Judith Litt’s AFTER WINTER, SPRING (pictured), a portrait over three years of a French traditional farming community facing the challenges of the modern world; Marco Bonfanti’s THE LAST SHEPHERD, a profile of an Italian shepherd’s efforts to reignite Lombardy’s passion for his dying profession; Peter Young’s THE LAST OCEAN, about the imperiled marine ecosystem of Antarctica’s Ross Sea; and Cullen Hoback’s TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY, a cautionary consideration of the erosion of privacy in the digital age.

Patrick Shen’s look at one Haitian man’s quest to improve his village debuted at Silverdocs last year. It went on to screen at DocuWeeks, DocuWest, Big Sky, Newport Beach, Sarasota, Atlanta, and Palm Springs, among other fests.

I previously wrote about the doc here.