Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, February 28:
MAGNUS
Director:
Benjamin Ree
Premiere:
Tribeca 2016
Select Festivals:
Munich, Traverse City, Moscow, Zurich, Vancouver, Hamptons
About:
A profile of Norwegian chess wunderkind Magnus Carlsen.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, February 28:
BE HERE NOW: THE ANDY WHITFIELD STORY
Director:
Lilibet Foster
Premiere:
Los Angeles 2015
Select Festivals:
Hot Springs Doc, Santa Barbara, Documentary Edge, Sedona
About:
An actor and his family struggle against a devastating cancer diagnosis.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28:
KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE
Director:
Robert Greene
Premiere:
Sundance 2016
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Berlin, True/False, Indielisboa, DocAviv, Sydney, BAMcinemaFest, New Zealand, Melbourne, Sydney
About:
An actress researches a particularly challenging role.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28:
SOUND OF REDEMPTION: THE FRANK MORGAN STORY
Director:
NC Heikin
Premiere:
Los Angeles 2014
Select Festivals:
Hot Springs Doc, Palm Springs, Virginia, Vancouver, Atlanta, Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound + Vision
About:
A profile of a musician and his struggles with drug addiction and crime.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28:
BROTHER’S KEEPER
Directors:
Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofksy
Premiere:
Sundance 1992
Select Festivals:
Toronto, Chicago
About:
The lives of the aging Ward brothers are upended when one is accused of murder.
Presented on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, Berlinger and Sinofsky’s acclaimed portrait explores the strange case of the 1990 death of 64-year-old William Ward, in small town Munnsville NY. Together with with his three brothers, known collectively to townsfolk as “the Ward Boys,” William had lived in poverty conditions for his entire life, and had been sick for quite some time. Despite what seemed to be a clear case of death by natural causes, his brother Delbert soon found himself accused of murder, and the case attracted national media attention. The larger Munnsville community rallied behind Delbert, despite having previously viewed the Ward Boys as outcasts, raising bail money to free him from jail. Adopting a direct cinema approach, the filmmakers follow Delbert and his brothers, listen as neighbors weigh in on the case, and chronicle the trial, including the theories the prosecutors come up with to explain the supposed murder, from mercy killing to incestuous crime of passion. Addressing issues of class, regionalism, and criminal justice, and at once engendering sympathy for their subjects yet careful to allow an ambiguity regarding what really happened, the film rightfully has left its mark as a seminal work of documentary filmmaking.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, February 27:
TICKLED
Directors:
David Farrier and Dylan Reeve
Premiere:
Sundance 2016
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, True/False, Cleveland, Sarasota, San Francisco, Hot Docs, Montclair, Seattle, Sydney, Auckland
About:
Journalists embark on a wild investigation into an online fetish subculture.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to IFC Center tonight, Monday, February 27:
HEAVEN ADORES YOU
Director:
Nickolas Rossi
Premiere:
San Francisco 2014
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, IDFA, Leeds, Denver, Stockholm, CPH:DOX, Doclisboa, Antenna Doc, Montreal, BendFilm, Athens, Calgary, AFI Docs, In-Edit, Belfast,
About:
An intimate profile of the late Elliott Smith.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
Elliott Smith was unexpectedly thrust into the mainstream spotlight when his song “Miss Misery” was nominated for an Oscar in 1998. He died just five years later, at the age of 34. Structured as both an expansive overview of the singer/songwriter’s life and as an elegiac city symphony focused on the influence of Portland, New York City, and Los Angeles on his music, Nickolas Rossi’s film is an artful tribute to a talent cut too short.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
New on DVD this week:
HOMELAND: IRAQ YEAR ZERO
Director:
Abbas Fahdel
Premiere:
Visions du Réel 2015
Select Festivals:
New York, Rio, Lussas Doc, Hamburg, Yamagata Doc, Doclisboa, CPH:DOX, Jihlava, Mar del Plata, Cinema Vérite, Göteborg, True/False, Vilnius, BAFICI, Taiwan Doc, Dokufest Kosovo, Vienna
About:
Life in Iraq, before and after the 2003 American-led invasion.
Split into two distinct sections – “Before the Fall” and “After the Battle” – Fahdel’s epically-lengthed yet intimately-scaled film provides viewers with a look at the activities of several Iraqis, many of them his own family members, in the lead up to and in the aftermath of the initial 2003 attack. Taking a loose, observational approach, the film feels more like a home movie at times, and serves as a survey rather than creating in-depth portraiture. This actually suits it well, particularly in the first part, which captures individuals who don’t have a full sense of what’s to come but think they have seen it all before. Digging wells to deal with expected resource shortages, and taping windows to prevent glass shattering, they seem practical rather than concerned, and otherwise try to go on with their everyday lives, seemingly comfortable enough despite the reminders that they’re living in a repressive regime. The tone changes in the project’s second half, with an Iraq overrun with foreigners, frustrations beginning to mount over disruptions in daily life, and, of course, reckoning with lives lost – including, as revealed in the film’s conclusion, one of its most engaging young subjects. It’s a deeply humanistic, and often difficult to watch, time capsule of a nation forced to contend with the tragedy of war.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
This Sunday, February 26 sees the start of the 13th annual ZagrebDox. The Croatian event will present 75 new and recent feature documentaries before it comes to a close on Sunday, March 5. In addition to offering local audiences a look at many favorites from the larger doc festival circuit, the festival showcases new regional work, some of which is noted below: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
New to VOD this Sunday, February 26:
NIGHT WILL FALL
Director:
André Singer
Premiere:
Berlin 2014 (work-in-progress), Sheffield 2014 (official world premiere)
Select Festivals:
Jerusalem, Telluride, CPH:DOX, IDFA, Hamptons, Traverse City, Documentary Edge, Jewish fests in Moscow, Warsaw, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Vienna, Las Vegas, and Copenhagen
About:
The story behind a long-abandoned Allied documentary revealing the horrors of Nazi concentration camps.
As WWII began to come to a close and British, Russian, and American troops liberated German concentration camps, uncovering the atrocities that had been committed there, military cameramen captured film footage as evidence and for propaganda purposes. The plan, as Singer’s impactful film reveals, was to create a documentary, GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FACTUAL SURVEY, under producer Sidney Bernstein of Britain’s Ministry of Information, to demonstrate the realities of the camp to audiences worldwide, including Germans who might otherwise try to deny the extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity. Bernstein called on his friend Alfred Hitchcock, already well-established in Hollywood by this time, to serve as a supervising director, but beyond offering some helpful advice, the latter’s role was limited. Ultimately, despite Bernstein’s best efforts, the documentary stalled and was eventually shelved, a victim of political expediency in the face of the need to win the public’s favor back toward Germany as a Cold War ally. The project wouldn’t be completed and restored until 2014. Singer’s compelling but fairly straight-forward chronicle of SURVEY’s origins, development, and censorship includes difficult, necessary footage from that film while laying out its history via very British television-styled narration, and interviews with cameramen, camp survivors, and experts.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 