Author Archives: basiltsiokos

Coming to NYC’s Film Forum tomorrow, Wednesday, November 27: COUSIN JULES

Dominique Benicheti’s portrait of a French farmer and his wife debuted at Locarno in 1973, where it won a special jury prize. While it went on to screen at various festivals, including New Directors/New Films, Moscow, and the Los Angeles International Film Expo – the precursor to the American Cinematheque – the film went without a US theatrical release and essentially vanished after its initial appearance on the circuit. The restored version debuted at the New York Film Festival last year and went on to screen at both Berlin and Venice.

I previously wrote about the doc out of last year’s NYFF here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, November 26: DINNER AT THE NO-GOS

Marco Orsini’s provocative exploration of politics and religion had its world premiere at Woodstock last year. It went on to screen at Thin Line and Sydney’s Lebanese Film Festival, as well as at a special IEFTA event in Monaco. The Orchard now makes the doc available on iTunes, Amazon, Google, and Netflix.

There are typically more than thirty countries listed on the US State Department’s Travel Warning list, a roster of those nations deemed too potentially dangerous or unstable for Americans to risk entering – from Syria and Egypt to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Questioning what impact such admonitions have on the ability of everyday people both in the US and in those forbidden nations to mutually understand one another, outside of political rhetoric and fear-mongering, director Orsini and producer Bilal Mekkaoui set out to challenge stereotypes and misunderstanding at the most direct level possible: by breaking bread in various Middle Eastern countries that have been on that list – including Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel – as well as in the UK and the US. Hosting a series of dinner parties – some with prominent attendees representing the elite of society, others with refugees from the seemingly perpetual conflict in the region – their only rule is that politics and religion must be discussed. Using the universal setting of a meal, these fascinating, charged conversations put a human face to diverse peoples all-too-easily dismissed en bloc by some as rabid anti-American extremists, while the American affair, held in Atlanta, manages to hold up a mirror to our own at times shockingly simplistic, if not dismissive, sense of geopolitics.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, November 26: LE JOLI MAI

Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s classic street exploration of Paris had its world premiere at 1963’s Cannes in its original form, moving on to New York and Venice. This restored new cut made its debut at Cannes this past May before screening at Toronto and at art houses around the country.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical re-release here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 22 and to VOD this Monday, November 25: IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? AN ANIMATED CONVERSATION WITH NOAM CHOMSKY

Michel Gondry’s playful engagement with the noted MIT professor just had its world premiere at DOC NYC last night. After opening in NY/LA, it will expand to San Francisco and beyond over the next few weeks before making its international bow at the Berlinale in February.

Very much a film about both Gondry and his learned subject, the doc nearly entirely consists of the filmmaker’s simple but enchanting drawings illustrating a series of far-ranging conversations between the two men. Gondry, who narrates – helpfully transcripted to offset his thick French accent, and, in a few cases, to clarify some points of confusion – explains this conscious stylistic decision as a way to underscore the subjective nature of documentary truth. At the same time, of course, it turns what could have otherwise been a talking heads fest into a vibrant, endlessly creative visually-focused romp through the terrain of language and philosophy that Chomsky and Gondry explore. The latter shows an appealing vulnerability, confessing his disappointment that he’s not always able to make his questions legible to the great thinker, who, appropriately, is happily up for discussing the nature of how humans understand – from the very nature of being, to, as referenced in the title, grammatical construction. It makes for an entertaining and freewheeling exploration of ideas, and an eminently fitting profile of the director and the thinker.

Coming to HBO as part of its Docs Fall series this Monday, November 25: TOXIC HOT SEAT

James Redford and Kirby Walker’s exposé of the dangerous chemicals in our everyday objects made its world premiere at Mill Valley. It’s gone on to screen at DOC NYC, Napa Valley, and Tiburon, among other special screenings around the country.

Nearly four decades ago, a law was passed in California that stipulated that furniture manufacturers make their products non-flammable to curb the destructive potential of common house fires. Because of the state’s large market share, products containing chemical flame retardants have since spread to the rest of the US and Canada, ushered along by a powerful chemical lobby. Walker and Redford’s provocative film follows the efforts of a diverse coalition of firefighters, scientists, activists, and politicians that has dared to stand up to this lobby, and question the safety of these largely unregulated chemicals. Structured around the investigative reporting of the Chicago Tribune, which found disturbing links to Big Tobacco in their celebrated series of stories, the film serves as a compelling advocacy piece that will make the audience consider what products they have brought into their home.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens this Monday, November 25: YOUNG LAKOTA

Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt’s portrait of political awakening on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation has screened at festivals including New Orleans, Big Sky, Cine Las Americas, imagineNative, Red Nation, SF American Indian, London’s Native Spirit, and Cucalorus, as well as community screenings around the country. Now PBS broadcasts the doc as part of Native American Heritage Month.

Like their previous THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX, Lipschutz and Rosenblatt’s new film focuses on the political engagement of young people in the face of restrictive, reactionary politics. When South Dakota proposes a far-reaching statewide anti-abortion ban – even in the case of rape or incest – Cecilia Fire Thunder, the first female president of the Oglala Lakota Nation, pledges to build a women’s clinic on the rez to provide reproductive rights. This costs Fire Thunder her position and splits the community in the process. Falling on different sides of the controversy are the film’s protagonists – college student Sunny, who has returned home to Pine Ridge, where her twin sister has abandoned her education due to pregnancy, following in the footsteps of their mother, and their friend Brandon, a young father, who also has returned to the rez to reconnect with his Native roots. Lipschutz and Rosenblatt have found engaging and evolving characters to explore a different, complex view of Native American experience and its intersection with the country’s larger culture wars.