Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, May 14: BEWARE OF MR BAKER
Jay Bulger’s profile of drummer Ginger Baker debuted at SXSW last year, picking up the Best Documentary Award. Its fest circuit included Hot Docs, Seattle, Silverdocs, and London, among others, as well as a limited theatrical and VOD release.
I included the doc in my SXSW coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, May 14: OF TWO MINDS
Doug Blush and Lisa Klein’s look at bipolar disorder premiered at Cleveland last year. It has also screened at Newport Beach, Napa Valley, St Louis, and the LA/NY/SF United Film Fests, and had a theatrical run as part of DocuWeeks.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The twelfth edition of NYC’s Tribeca Film Festival came to a close just over two weeks ago, but my back-to-back travel schedule has delayed my roundup until now – as it is, I’m writing this from my Reykjavik hotel room with spotty Internet. While readers have likely already noted Tribeca’s awards, for the sake of comprehensiveness, the doc winners included: Best Documentary to THE KILL TEAM, with a Special Mention to OXYANA, which also received the jury award for Best New Documentary Director; Best Editing to LET THE FIRE BURN (pictured); Tribeca (Online) Best Feature to LIL BUB & FRIENDZ; and Documentary Audience Award to BRIDEGROOM. I managed to miss the two bookending award winners, but cover OXYANA and LET THE FIRE BURN below, which covers docs from the Competition and Viewpoints categories, with LIL BUB in a follow up post that includes the Gala, Spotlight, and Special Screenings sections. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, In Brief, Recommendations
The 66th edition of the Festival de Cannes begins this Wednesday, May 15, and runs through Sunday, May 26. Independently organized side events, Directors’ Fortnight and International Critics’ Week, begin Thursday and end on Sunday and Friday, respectively. Frankly speaking, Cannes doesn’t embrace nonfiction. Out of the nearly hundred feature films presented this year, only twleve are docs, and, of those, three are retrospective works. Defenders crow about the organizers’ discerning eyes, but I refuse to believe that there are fewer than a dozen new documentaries out there that are strong and worthy of the platform that these events could provide. At the same time, doc makers know that Cannes isn’t really a place that regularly champions nonfiction the way it does fiction, so perhaps they keep the cycle going by not bothering to submit. That said, here’s a brief overview of the ones that will be screened this month:
Four are part of Cannes’ Official Selection. None are part of the Competition, but one is in Un Certain Regard: Rithy Panh’s meditation on the Khmer Rouge, L’IMAGE MANQUANTE (THE MISSING PICTURE). Another is Out of Competition: Documentary master Claude Lanzmann’s LE DERNIER DES INJUSTES (THE LAST OF THE UNJUST) (pictured), a revisitation of the director’s 1975 interviews with the last President of the Jewish Council of Elders in Czechoslovakia’s Theresienstadt ghetto, and a return to the Theresienstadt in 2012 to explore its past. The final two docs are part of the Special Screenings: James Toback’s SEDUCED AND ABANDONED, a meta-doc about veteran filmmakers and actors attending last year’s Cannes and seeking support for their next projects; and Frank Simon’s rarely-seen film from 1971, WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION, in which the film’s producer, Roman Polanski, spends a weekend with Formula 1 racing champion Jackie Stewart – who have an onscreen reunion for a forty-year-later postscript.
Another five titles are part of Cannes’ special Cannes Classics selections. Three are in the utilitarian named “Documentaries” sidebar: Diego Galán’s CON LA PATA QUEBRADA (pictured), on nine decades of women in Spanish cinema; Mark Cousins’ A STORY OF CHILDREN & FILM, an essay film about the interplay of childhood and cinema; and Treva Wurmfeld’s SHEPARD & DARK, which premiered at Toronto last year, but which was produced by Joanne Woodward, subject of this year’s festival poster. Of the fest’s twenty “Restored Prints,” two are docs: Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s 1963 LE JOLI MAI (THE LOVELY MONTH OF MAY), which consists of interviews with Parisians just after the end of the Algerian War; and Youri Ozerov, Milos Forman, Mai Zetterling, Claude Lelouch, Arthur Penn, Michael Pfleghar, John Schlesinger, and Kon Ichikawa’s 1973 VISIONS OF EIGHT, an omnibus portrait of the 1972 Munich Olympics, which went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Documentary in 1974.
There are only three films in the parallel events – all in Directors’ Fortnight, none in International Critics’ Week. Frank Pavich’s JODOROWSKY’S DUNE (pictured), a look at the doomed 1974 adaptation of the scifi novel by the renowned Chilean/French director; Marcel Ophuls’ UN VOYAGEUR (AIN’T MISBEHAVIN), the reflections of the director on cinema and his collaborators; and Kaveh Bakhtiari’s L’ESCALE, a personal exploration of the experiences of a group of undocumented Iranians in Athens.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
A British DJ and radio show creator joins with the producers of THE KING’S SPEECH to reveal the stories behind the forgotten record albums of the American South.
Motivated by a broken heart to leave the UK for the US, DJ/writer/artist Joseph Fletcher began a roadtrip through the deep South over a decade ago, stopping along the way at thriftstores to pick up the odd record albums that caught his eye. The closest to fame most of these records’ featured musicians, evangelists, and ventriloquists likely reached is through emailed-around “World’s Worst Album Covers” links, but Fletcher saw something more – an opportunity to explore what motivated these individuals and to expose their stories and their forgotten music, to larger audiences. Having already crated a BBC radio show about some of his rediscoveries, Fletcher now turns to the visual medium of documentary, partnered with British production company Bedlam Productions. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
Coming to theatres via Cinedigm’s Docurama initiative next Tuesday, May 14: THE FRUIT HUNTERS
Yung Chang’s exploration of the world of exotic fruits and the people who love them made its world premiere at RIDM last year. It’s since gone on to screen at IDFA, Toronto Reel Asian, Palm Springs, Washington DC & Yale’s Environmental fests, Hawaii, and Global Visions, among others. The film is part of Cinedigm’s new seven-film program bringing feature documentaries to theatres weekly in up to fifteen US markets, including NYC, LA, Pasadena, Encino, San Diego, Palm Desert, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Hartford, New Haven, Ithaca, Richmond, and Helena. The films are also available for additional theatrical-on-demand screenings via Tugg. In NYC, Cinema Village will screen the doc this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
I included the doc in my IDFA coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens next Monday, May 13: THE INVISIBLE WAR
Kirby Dick’s candid investigation into rape in the US military made its debut at Sundance last year, picking up an audience award. It went on to screen at Full Frame, Dallas, San Francisco, Human Rights Watch, Los Angeles, and Hot Docs, among others. It was nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar following its theatrical release.
I wrote about the film before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
