Author Archives: basiltsiokos

Coming to PBS tomorrow, Tuesday, April 14:
THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY

Director:
Gabriel London

World Premiere:
Miami 2020

About:
An inside look at a Miami program which attempts to help people with mental illness stay out of the prison system.

Due to a unfortunate confluence of factors, over the past sixty years, the criminal justice system also has become the dumping ground for those with mental health care issues. Provided inadequate treatment and instead treated like criminals, they continue to suffer and have higher rates of recidivism, with negative consequences not only for the sufferer, but for their families, community, and the economy. Gabriel London’s informational documentary focuses on an alternative to this punitive system, the Miami-Dade Criminal Mental Health Project (CMHP). Developed by judge Steve Leifman after he realized that the Miami-Dade jail system had become the largest psychiatric care facility in Florida – for those mental health sufferers who were not instead killed by law enforcement – the CMHP works to divert the mentally ill out of the courts and jails and into coordinated community treatment programs. The program has been so successful that other communities around the country have started to implement the Miami model. London’s film – unfortunately hampered by intrusive expository narration – profiles the worthwhile work of the CMHP, following current clients as well as a peer counselor, to show the ups and downs of the program.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 14:
CHICHINETTE: THE ACCIDENTAL SPY

Director:
Nicola Hens

World Premiere:
Haifa 2019

Select Festivals:
Hof, UK Jewish, Kasseler Dokfest

About:
A nonagenarian French Jewish woman reveals her unlikely WWII espionage activities.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS today, Monday, April 6:
BROKEN PLACES

Director:
Roger Weisberg

World Premiere:
Kansas 2018

Select Festivals:
Cinequest, United Nations Association

About:
The impact of early childhood trauma is explored via longitudinal portraits incorporating the filmmaker’s decades-long documentary career.

Oscar-nominated director Roger Weisberg draws from his previous projects of the 1980s-2000s, incorporating footage of children and teen subjects and following up with them in the present day as young adults to demonstrate the impact of traumatic experiences and of unstable homes on health and well-being. The central question is why some children succumb to adversity while others persevere, measured by ACES – Adverse Childhood Experience Scores – which have been shown to not only contribute to repetitions of cycles of poverty and violence, but also to negative health consequences. Weisberg’s longitudinal portraits include individuals who have suffered negative outcomes, like Yvonne and Bobby, a harried African American mother living in poverty and her most troubled son, who have experienced depression and further biological health consequences, continuing into the next generation; as well as those who have managed to persevere, like Daniela, who met her ex-husband in a group home as a teen and became a teen mother, but has been unwilling to let her own children fall into the same cycle, as has happened to her ex. The story of brothers Danny and Raymond, who were neglected and abandoned by their drug addicted mother, illustrate that children in the same traumatic environment can have very different outcomes from one another. Advances in the measurement of the impact of ACES have allowed for better early intervention, which has a cascading benefit both socially and economically. While the stories are affecting, Weisberg’s filmmaking approach feels very dated, employing voice of God narration and talking heads that result in a project that looks like it was made in the 1980s rather than today.

Coming to The WORLD Channel’s Reel South today, Monday, April 6:
F11 AND BE THERE

Director:
Jethro Waters

World Premiere:
Austin 2018

Select Festivals:
Full Frame, RiverRun

About:
An exploration of photographer Burk Uzzle’s acclaimed 65-year career.

Burk Uzzle began his photojournalism career in the 1950s. By 1961, at the age of 23, he became the youngest photographer to work for Life magazine, and later was an influential member of the Magnum collective. Through his career, he has captured iconic images, from Woodstock to the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr, with a particular focus on the 1960s civil rights struggle. In his awkwardly named film – which reflects Uzzle’s two key bits of advice for photographers, which aperture to use and to simply be present – director Jethro Waters accompanies the near-octogenarian on his current projects, documenting the African American community in his native North Carolina, as well as landscapes across the country, while discussing his process. Waters brings a string visual style to mirror his subject, but stumbles when it comes to the film’s overbearing, distracting score, marring an otherwise compelling artist portrait.