Festival:
The 13th Ambulante
Dates:
March 8-May 17
About:
The annual traveling event, founded by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, among others, brings nonfiction to underserved communities in eight Mexican states over the course of three months. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 6:
FACES PLACES
Directors:
Agnès Varda and JR
Premiere:
Cannes 2017
Select Festivals:
Toronto, DOC NYC, New York, Telluride, Vancouver, New Zealand, Reykjavik, Melbourne, London, Chicago
Notable Recognition:
The doc was nominated for the Academy Awards.
About:
The odd couple director duo travel around French villages and photograph the people they meet.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD/VOD today, Tuesday, March 6:
THE PARIS OPERA
Director:
Jean-Stéphane Bron
Premiere:
Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2017
Select Festivals:
San Francisco, Seattle, BAFICI, BelDocs, Docs Against Gravity, Moscow, Locarno, Melbourne, New Zealand, Biografilm, Jerusalem
About:
An observational portrait of the French cultural institution over a tumultuous season.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, March 6:
HONDROS
Director:
Greg Campbell
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Denver, Hamptons, GlobeDocs, Stockholm, Vancouver
About:
A portrait of Chris Hondros, an acclaimed photojournalist who was killed in the same mortar blast that claimed the life of Tim Hetherington.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, March 6:
OH, RICK!
Directors:
Dustin Sussman and Aaron Rosenbloom
Premiere:
DOC NYC 2017
Select Festivals:
Hollywood Reel Independent
About:
A profile of an unheralded comedy world everyman.
The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Rick Crom, comedy’s everyman, was the long-running emcee at the Comedy Cellar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The piano-playing funnyman integrated his talent for musical theater into his act, while artfully shifting the way comedians discuss homosexuality in their routines. A gentleman and the quintessential host, Rick is well-loved amongst his fellow comedians Ray Romano, Colin Quinn, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, and more who appear in this funny portrait to give Rick his due, and to bust his chops as only comedians can.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Festival:
The 19th Tempo Documentary Festival
Dates:
March 5-11
About:
Sweden’s largest nonfiction festival presents nearly 50 new features, representing a selection of well-travelled international works and several local titles noted below. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Festival:
The 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
Dates:
March 5-14
About:
This notable Czech doc fest presents over 100 features in Prague before touring 36 other cities around the Czech Republic. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to theatres today, Friday, March 2:
HONDROS
Director:
Greg Campbell
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Denver, Hamptons, GlobeDocs, Stockholm, Vancouver
About:
A portrait of Chris Hondros, an acclaimed photojournalist who was killed in the same mortar blast that claimed the life of Tim Hetherington.
Chris Hondros was killed in 2011 in Libya while covering the civil war there. His best friend and fellow journalist, Greg Campbell, directs this portrait, having been on that same trip with Chris but leaving just a few days before his death. The film incorporates interviews conducted with Hondros reflecting on his challenging career and what drives him, together with interviews with his mother, Inge, a German WWII refugee; his fiancee Christina; fellow photojournalists, who had both experienced kidnapping while on the job; plus several others who speak of the dangers of combat photojournalism and of Chris’ character. Campbell also draws on video of Hondros in the field, opening in Liberia in 2003 while Chris is literally dodging bullets, and ending with his coverage of the Libyan conflict, and its tragic consequences. Two of the subjects of Chris’ iconic photographs are also featured: Joe, a Liberian fighter who Hondros captured midjump while protecting a bridge; and Samar, who was photographed as a toddler crying after the accidental shooting by US military of a car containing her family, killing both of her parents. The aftermath of these images – for those within them and for Hondros himself – is examined in a not wholly successful thread which follows Campbell as he tries to track down Joe and Samer. Like other similar projects on slain combat journalists, like the Hetherington-focused WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? or JIM: THE JAMES FOLEY STORY, this elegaic film is its strongest when focused on Hondros himself, via the ample archival footage showing him in his element, compelled to bear witness to war and to capture its difficult yet unforgettable images.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Festival:
The 20th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Dates:
March 2-11
About:
The notable Greek nonfiction event celebrates its anniversary milestone with approximately 165 new and recent features, in addition to retrospective programming. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
New to DVD this week:
MONOGAMISH
Director:
Tao Ruspoli
Premiere:
Rome 2015
Select Festivals:
Austin
About:
After his public divorce (from the never-named actress Olivia Wilde), the filmmaker sets out to understand the nature of love, marriage, and monogamy.
At sea following the end of his eight year marriage, the strangely naive Ruspoli conducts an all-over-the-map survey of the current state of heterosexual relationships, desperately seeking clarity on why our society is so fixated on the ideal of monogamy when it clearly has a poor track record. What results is a talking heads parade of academics, authors, sex workers, sex therapists, and everyday people unpacking myths and misconceptions around love, sex, monogamy, and alternative relationship structures like polyamory, occasionally illustrated with weak re-enactments. Unfortunately, Ruspoli is committed to including his own story in this as much as possible, so he unnecessarily attempts to tie virtually everything back to his own story, or that of his storied family of Italian aristocracy – he himself was the product of the union between a married Italian prince and his American mistress. While this meta aspect yields at least one mildly entertaining subject in Ruspoli’s scene-stealing female cousin, it more often feels like self-indulgent filmmaking-as-therapy and an unneeded storytelling crutch. While offering an occasionally interesting tidbit about the sociohistorical roots of monogamy, the project ultimately comes off as a fairly standard survey film about a “big question” – and one that sadly can never adequately or satisfyingly fulfill its own mandate.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 