New to VOD at iTunes today, Monday, January 30:
LOVE CRIMES OF KABUL
Director:
Tanaz Eshaghian
Premiere:
Hot Docs 2011
Select Festivals:
Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch, Noor, Movies That Matter
About:
A inside look at an Afghan prison for moral crimes.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 31:
GIMME DANGER
Director:
Jim Jarmusch
Premiere:
Cannes 2016
Select Festivals:
Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Austin, New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, Sarajevo, Helsinki, Mill Valley, Rio, Adelaide, Woodstock, Leeds
About:
An appreciation for the influential band The Stooges.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 31:
DANNY SAYS
Director:
Brendan Toller
Premiere:
SXSW 2015
Select Festivals:
London, San Francisco Jewish, Provincetown, Sound + Vision, Big Sky, Montclair, Melbourne, CPH:DOX, Athens
About:
A portrait of an unsung music world impresario.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, January 31:
SEVEN SONGS FOR A LONG LIFE
Director:
Amy Hardie
Premiere:
Scotland (October 2015)
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Margaret Mead, Aspen, DOXA, GlobeDocs, Guth Gafa, EBS, Documentary Edge, DocPoint
About:
Hospice patients confront mortality through music.
Set in Strathcarron Hospice in Scotland, Hardie’s film follows nurse Mandy Malcomson, whose love of singing has encouraged a music therapy program for the residents, and six of her charges. Not a musical in a strict sense, the doc instead intermittently weaves in a number of songs, supplementing both observational and interview-based footage of the institution, its patients, and their caregivers. Some songs are performed impromptu by patients, like the Sinatra crooning Tosh and amateur opera singer Dorene, while others are more elaborate, produced in a music-video style, such as nurse Mandy and patient Nicola’s poignant duet of REM’s “Everybody Hurts.” Hardie wisely shows restraint here, preventing the proceedings from becoming either too twee or too dour, and ultimately focuses on the powerful impact this community support has on dealing with the complex reality of terminal illness and mortality.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The Sundance Film Festival wraps up with a final full-day of screenings tomorrow, Sunday, January 29, including encores of several of the winning films announced at the awards ceremony earlier tonight. w(n)td will resume regular posting starting Monday, but for now, a list of the awards follows: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
The Best Documentary Feature Oscar finalists were announced this morning, together with all the other categories – the entire list of nominees has been posted by the Academy here. The documentaries are listed below. Congratulations to all the nominees – which were all on the DOC NYC Short List, and include two Sundance alums! – and good luck on Sunday, February 26!
Congrats also to the Documentary Shorts nominees:
EXTREMIS
4.1 MILES
JOE’S VIOLIN (produced by DOC NYC’s Raphaela Neihausen)
WATANI: MY HOMELAND
THE WHITE HELMETS
In addition, a documentary figures in the Best Music (Original Song) race, via “The Empty Chair,” featured in JIM:THE JAMES FOLEY STORY.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival kicks off tonight, Thursday, January 19, and runs through Sunday, January 29. Because of my responsibilities as a Programming Associate for the festival, w(n)td will be on hiatus for the event’s duration – regular daily weekday posting will not resume until Monday, January 30.
Follow me on Twitter, to keep up with Sundance, and also follow my Sundance 2017 Twitter list to experience the festival through the eyes of this year’s filmmakers.
To catch up with Sundance doc programming, here are links to my series of 2017 Sundance documentary profiles, divided by festival section:
US Documentary Competition
CASTING JONBENET
NOBODY SPEAK: HULK HOGAN, GAWKER AND TRIALS OF A FREE PRESS
QUEST: THE FURY AND THE SOUND (pictured)
WATER & POWER: A CALIFORNIA HEIST
World Cinema Documentary Competition
THE GOOD POSTMAN
IN LOCO PARENTIS (pictured)
JOSHUA: TEENAGER VS SUPERPOWER
RUMBLE: THE INDIANS WHO ROCKED THE WORLD
Documentary Premieres
500 YEARS
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER
LEGION OF BROTHERS (pictured)
TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON
TELL THEM WE ARE RISING: THE STORY OF BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
THIS IS EVERYTHING: GIGI GORGEOUS
TRUMPED: INSIDE THE GREATEST POLITICAL UPSET OF ALL TIME
UNTITLED BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB DOCUMENTARY
DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN? (pictured)
WORLD WITHOUT END (NO REPORTED INCIDENTS)
Midnight
78/52
Kids
THE MARS GENERATION
Spotlight
LOOK AND SEE: A PORTRAIT OF WENDELL BERRY
Special Events
TIME: THE KALIEF BROWDER STORY (pictured)
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
New to VOD on Vudu today, Thursday, January 19:
TALES FROM THE ORGAN TRADE
Director:
Ric Esther Bienstock
Premiere:
Documentary Edge 2013
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, London, Margaret Mead, Dockufest, Hot Springs, Zurich, Bergen, Fantastic Fest
About:
An exposé of the human organ black market.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Reel South series next Sunday, January 29:
THE STATE OF EUGENICS
Director:
Dawn Sinclair Shapiro
Premiere:
Columbia Law School screening (November 2016)
About:
An investigation into North Carolina’s four-decade-long modern eugenics program.
Between 1933 and 1974, the state of North Carolina sterilized an estimated 7600 residents without their consent – but legally. Like the majority of the US, NC had adopted eugenics laws prior to World War II, convinced that the dodgy science would help maintain the strength of genetically superior Americans. Targeting those deemed “undesirable” – poor, disabled, feeble-minded, or promiscuous – these laws introduced compulsory sterilization, and in more extreme cases, euthanasia. Class, race, and gender played into these programs, affecting poor white and black residents alike, with NC among the most aggressive of states enforcing the practice until an ACLU lawsuit brought led to reforms. The public had long forgotten this dark chapter of the state’s past until the Winston-Salem Journal revisited the law’s impact in a series of articles in 2002. While fairly conventional in its approach, Shapiro’s film attempts to broaden the story further, giving voice to survivors of the practice, researchers and journalists who exposed it, and lawmakers who have championed reparations to in some small part make up for the abuses of the system.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres next Friday, January 27:
BEHEMOTH
Director:
Zhao Liang
Premiere:
Venice 2015
Select Festivals:
IDFA, New Directors/New Films, Dubai, True/False, DocAviv, Moscow, Sheffield, Melbourne, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Istanbul
About:
A poetic meditation on the environmental impact of China’s rapid economic development.
Taking a more experimental approach than his past work, the social issue documentarian exposes the ecological and human costs of industry through unsettling tableaux of destroyed landscapes set to Dante’s THE DIVINE COMEDY. Using visually impactful images of the stark borders between verdant fields and neighboring desolation, the filmmaker demonstrates the devastation wrought by dangerous coal mining practices. Occasionally, he inserts naked figures within these hellscapes, but these unnecessary stylistic flourishes carry far less weight than images of miners and their families suffering from their toxic work. While its attempt to merge nonfiction with video art is not always successful, the film’s imagery proves disturbingly memorable.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
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