Author Archives: basiltsiokos

Coming to the World Channel’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, May 9:
GOOD LUCK SOUP

Director:
Matthew Hashiguchi

Premiere:
Cleveland 2016

Select Festivals::
CAAMFest, American Doc, Chagrin Doc, Asian American fests in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Boston

About:
The filmmaker explores the complexity of identities in his extended mixed-race family.

Taking an understandably personal but ultimately unfocused approach to his subject matter, the biracial Japanese/Italian Hashiguchi, who grew up in a predominantly white, Irish-Catholic part of Cleveland, ruminates on his ambivalence towards his Japanese American heritage while also surveying various family members about their own experiences. What first seems like a rough-hewn and familiar but appealing portrait of the filmmaker’s grandmother, Eva – an 88-year-old Japanese-American born in California and interned during WWII – too soon gives way to interviews with Hashiguchi’s immediate and extended family members. While their perspectives on overt or subtle racism, passing, and embracing or rejecting elements of their ethnic backgrounds offer some interest, the project as a whole never fully coheres.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, May 9:
ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE: TRUTH, DECEPTION, AND THE SPIRIT OF I F STONE

Director:
Fred Peabody

Premiere:
Toronto 2016

Select Festivals:
IDFA, Thessaloniki Doc, CPH:DOX

About:
A consideration of the work of independent journalists, through the lens of the pioneering I F Stone.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 5:
JULIAN SCHNABEL: A PRIVATE PORTRAIT

Director:
Pappi Corsicato

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

About:
An affectionate profile of the maverick artist and filmmaker.

Corsicato’s film offers an archivally rich rundown of Julian Schnabel’s artistic and filmmaking career since the 1970s, detailing how he got his start as an artist, the significance of his collaboration with gallery owner Mary Boone, the resultant critical and financial acclaim, and his later turn to filmmaking. Interviews with Schnabel himself are supplemented by a chorus of admirers from family members to past collaborators and fellow art and film world luminaries, while a career retrospective serves as a further excuse to reflect on his work. Scant attention is paid to the controversies his work has attracted, resulting in a serviceable, but fairly one-note, portrait.