Author Archives: basiltsiokos

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16: DRESSED

David Swajeski’s profile of an aspiring fashion designer made its world premiere at the 2009 Big Apple Film Festival. It went on to screen at additional fests, including Cleveland, Columbus, and Sonoma, and to a limited theatrical release. FilmBuff now makes the doc available on iTunes, Amazon, Movies on Demand, PlayStation, XBOX, Vudu, and CinemaNow.

The doc focuses on a young Laotian-American designer, Nary Manivong, as he attempts to put together a collection for New York Fashion Week. After years of sacrifice, including crashing at a friend’s apartment and converting it into his daytime studio/office while she’s at work, he’s managed to save a fraction of what most designers need to show their work, but he’s proceeding with his plan, hoping it will let him launch his brand and finally make it. As Swajeski follows Manivong through accumulating trials and tribulations as the clock counts down to Fashion Week – from his booked space cancelling on him to costs unexpectedly skyrocketing – an impressive assemblage of fashion insiders opine about just how difficult their industry is. Pulling no punches, the likes of Fern Mallis, Lynn Yaeger, Simon Doonan, and Nanette Lepore provide just the right level of reality check to Manivong’s hopeful, if at times defeated, character. Swajeski chose well with Manivong, an appealing dreamer with a very difficult (though often overemphasized) past involving parental abandonment and homelessness, who engenders sympathy and cheerleading from the viewer. Where the film goes wrong is in its hyperkinetic editing and unnecessary camera tricks, switching haphazardly from B&W to color and back for no discernible reason. Still, as an antidote to the unrealistic dreams encouraged by guilty pleasure TV shows like PROJECT RUNWAY or FASHION STAR, the film as a whole is worthwhile viewing.

Coming to NYC’s Quad Cinema this Friday, April 12: THE REVOLUTIONARY

Irv Drasnin, Lucy Ostrander, and Don Sellars’ profile of the life of a formerly imprisoned American member of the Chinese Communist Party made its world premiere at Seattle last year. Its fest circuit has included Hot Springs, Heartland, Cucalorus, and Sedona, among others.

Sidney Rittenberg, now in his 90s, offers a first-hand perspective on Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Once a member of the US Communist Party, he later joined the US Army during WWII and learned Chinese. Falling in love with the language, he opted to stay in the country after the war to serve with the UN while China was experiencing the civil war which would soon see Mao Zedong’s Communist Party come into power. Seeing an opportunity to serve as a bridge between the two nations, Rittenberg joined Mao’s party, working closely with the leader as a translator as well as with Radio Beijing. Despite his dedication, as a foreigner he was viewed with suspicion, resulting in imprisonment twice on espionage charges – once for six years before the Cultural Revolution, and then again for nearly a decade after. The filmmakers have incredible access to a wholly fascinating subject, which makes up for the workmanlike, overnarrated History Channel style approach taken here. Luckily, Rittenberg’s unique recollections and insight about China, and his own complex beliefs and motivations, more than carry the film, and should prove engaging to viewers.