Author Archives: basiltsiokos

About basiltsiokos

Basil Tsiokos is a Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on nonfiction features. He was most recently with DOC NYC for nearly a decade, where he served as Director of Programming since 2014, and with the Nantucket Film Festival as its Film Program Director. Prior to those positions, Basil was the longtime Artistic and Executive Director of NewFest. He has been affiliated with Sundance since 2005 as a Programming Associate. Basil serves on the feature nominating committees for the International Documentary Association Awards and Cinema Eye Honors. He has written about documentaries daily since 2010 on what (not) to doc. Basil holds a Masters degree from New York University and two undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.

August 8, 2017 · 1:31 PM

On DVD: SEA GYPSIES: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 8:
SEA GYPSIES: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

Director:
Nico Edwards

Premiere:
Telluride Mountainfilm 2016

Select Festivals:
Napa Valley, Banff Mountain, Lone Star, Wild and Scenic, Washington DC Environmental, Oxford, Newport Beach, BendFilm

About:
A ragtag group of adventurers set sail from Australia to Patagonia.

Edwards joins the international crew of the Infinity, a refurbished 1977 yacht captained by Clemens, a German who has traveled the open seas for years with his young family. The latter sit out this particular voyage, which is intended to last for a couple of months through the rough, icy waters of the Ross Sea, conducted without permission or insurance and just for the sheer fun of it all. Although Edwards uses an excess of narration and includes some fairly extraneous footage at times, he does convey the warmth and camaraderie of the handsome crew as they enjoy their time on the water, while also facing dangerous weather and even assisting the efforts of radical environmentalists, the Sea Shepherd, in frustrating an illegal Japanese whaling expedition.

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Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases

August 8, 2017 · 12:01 PM

In Theatres: MACHINES

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, August 9:
MACHINES

Director:
Rahul Jain

Premiere:
IDFA 2016

Select Festivals:
Sundance, Thessaloniki Doc, Hot Docs, DocsBarcelona, Docaviv, Beldocs, Documenta Madrid, Docs Against Gravity

About:
On the lives of Indian textile factory workers.

I profiled the doc before Sundance here.

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Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance

August 7, 2017 · 1:31 PM

On DVD: NOTES ON BLINDNESS

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, August 8:
NOTES ON BLINDNESS

Directors:
Peter Middleton and James Spinney

Premiere:
Sundance 2016

Select Festivals:
Karlovy Vary, Sheffield, Tribeca, Cleveland, Sydney, Melbourne, New Zealand, Jerusalem, San Francisco

About:
An immersive recreation of a man’s experience of losing his sight.

My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.

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Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance

August 7, 2017 · 12:01 PM

Special Screening: MONKEY BUSINESS: THE ADVENTURES OF CURIOUS GEORGE’S CREATORS

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Tuesday, August 8:
MONKEY BUSINESS: THE ADVENTURES OF CURIOUS GEORGE’S CREATORS

Director:
Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Premiere:
Los Angeles 2017

Select Festivals:
Nantucket

About:
The secret origin of Curious George.

The mischievous monkey Curious George made his first appearance more than 75 years ago and has been entertaining readers young and old ever since. If not for a pair of handmade bicycles, however, the beloved children’s book character might never have made it out of Nazi-occupied Europe. Brought to life with whimsical animation, Yamazaki’s film celebrates the power of storytelling as it recounts how refugee couple Hans and Margret Rey created an enduring classic.

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Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations

August 4, 2017 · 3:02 PM

Special Screening: CALIFORNIA DREAMS

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tonight, Friday, August 4:
CALIFORNIA DREAMS

Director:
Mike Ott

Premiere:
Berlin Critics Week 2017

Select Festivals:
SXSW, Docville, Sarasota, San Francisco, Champs Élysées

About:
Five people pursue unlikely aspirations of Hollywood fame in this hybrid.

Mike Ott’s unusual hybrid documentary comedy features several hopeless would-be actors, as well as one aspiring screenwriter, ostensibly auditioning their talents, and then later briefly interviewed – sometimes about their entertainment dreams, but also awkwardly about personal matters, from virginity to homelessness to mental health issues. While some of their scenes appear to be staged – particular conversations in cars conducted by the film’s fifth ostensible subject, Cory Zachariah – they otherwise seem to be genuine. Zachariah, on the other hand, is a real working actor who has appeared in Ott’s previous films, but here has supposedly never held down a job and struggles with basic literacy and math, making his narrative the most obviously fictional, and the one that takes up the majority of the screen time. Apparently sending himself up, the attractive, lanky Zachariah is a loveable loser of sorts, but his dominance of the project has the effect of drowning out the other subjects and whatever truths that they might have teased out. Ott intentionally means to upend expectations of what is real and what is not here, but as with most hybrid projects, it seems unclear what benefit that lack of clarity ultimately serves. He and his collaborators are talented filmmakers, but this project decidedly won’t be to everyone’s taste.

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Filed under Documentary, Film

August 4, 2017 · 1:31 PM

Dokufest 2017 Overview

Festival:
The 16th Dokufest

Dates:
August 4-12

About:
The well-respected Prizren, Kosovo festival features a curated collection of approximately 80 international nonfiction feature standouts as well as new regional work, noted below. Continue reading →