Prague’s One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival celebrates its 15th anniversary with ten days of screenings beginning this Monday, March 4 and running through Wednesday, March 13. Recognized as the largest human rights fest in the world, this year’s edition screens over 100 films, including 80 feature-length documentaries, and hosts special panels and discussions, as well as the Institute of Documentary Film’s East Doc Platform for non-fiction industry professionals. After the ten-day festival wraps in Prague, the organizers tour selections to forty towns throughout the Czech Republic, and hold a satellite festival in May in Brussels. While I’m not attending, the following thematic section-by-section breakdown includes titles that I’d want to check out: Continue reading
Author Archives: basiltsiokos
One World 2013 Overview
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
In Theatres: A FIERCE GREEN FIRE
Coming to theatres this Friday, March 1: A FIERCE GREEN FIRE
Mark Kitchell’s galvanizing register of key moments in the environmental activist movement debuted at last year’s Sundance. Its festival circuit since then has included Sheffield, Palm Springs, Washington DC’s Environmental Film Festival, and Boulder. The film begins its theatrical run at NYC’s Cinema Village this weekend, expanding to Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans, and elsewhere later in March and beyond.
I wrote about the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres & On VOD: A PLACE AT THE TABLE
Coming to theatres and VOD this Friday, March 1: A PLACE AT THE TABLE
Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s affecting look at the hunger crisis in America made its world premiere at Sundance last year under its original title FINDING NORTH. The film has gone on to screen at a number of other festivals, including Seattle, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Savannah, and Palm Springs. Simultaneous with its theatrical release, the doc will be available via iTunes and On Demand via Magnolia Pictures.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres: LEVIATHAN
Coming to NYC’s IFC Center this Friday, March 1: LEVIATHAN
Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel’s stunning immersion into seafaring made its world premiere at Locarno last year. It followed with Toronto, New York, Chicago, CPH: DOX, Göteborg, Portland, RIDM, and True/False, among others.
I previously included the film in my New York Film Festival roundup here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On DVD: ESCAPE FIRE
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, February 26: ESCAPE FIRE: THE FIGHT TO RESCUE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE
Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke’s analysis of the problems with our healthcare system debuted at last year’s Sundance. Since then, the doc has screened at Full Frame, Silverdocs, Hot Springs, Dallas, Heartland, Rehoboth Beach, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Woods Hole, among others.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
On TV: STOLEN
Coming to PBS’s AfroPoP on WORLD tomorrow, Tuesday, February 26: STOLEN
Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw’s controversial exposé of modern day slavery had its official world premiere at the 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival after an earlier work-in-progress screening at Sydney. It has screened extensively since, with berths at Toronto, IDFA, DocPoint, Pan African, Documentary Edge, One World, It’s All True, DocAviv, and Seattle, among others.
Originally setting out to document a UN-sponsored program that reunited separated family members in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in North Africa, filmmakers Ayala and Fallshaw instead become privy to an open secret: a form of slavery is still practiced among the Sahwari people, with black people kept in subservience by white Arabs. Learning that their subject, Fetim, was handed over to the much older Deido by Fetim’s mother, the filmmaking duo set out to learn more. Becoming part of their story, they find their safety threatened and are forced to flee the country, but before they do, they bury their footage to prevent it from falling into the hands of the hostile authorities. As they engineer a plan to smuggle the tapes out of the country and expose the barbaric practice, they face unexpected twists and turns, including witnesses recanting. In many ways a meta documentary, the filmmakers are ultimately too present in their own film, heavily narrating in addition to being the protagonists of the second half, which attempts to play out like a spy thriller of sorts. That said, what they’re aiming to expose, and the complex ethical issues involved, both from filmmaking and human standpoints, are legitimately shocking and deserve widespread attention. With Ayala and Fallshaw’s credibility questioned by the governing body of the Sahrawi, the Polisario – representatives from which have protested the film at screenings – AfroPoP is airing the doc with an accompanying special that explores the allegations made in more detail.
Filed under Documentary, Film
Special Screening: AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction as its winter season closing film tomorrow, Tuesday, February 26: AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY
Terence Nance’s audacious exploration of the fine line between friend and lover had its world premiere last year at Sundance. Its extensive festival circuit has included, among others, Rotterdam, San Francisco, New Directors/New Films, Urbanworld, Sundance London, Cleveland, Traverse City, Montclair, and New Orleans.
Nance’s debut had its origins as a documentary project but ends up as something that’s neither fiction nor non-fiction. Remarkably personal and universal at once, the film is a record of a young man’s growing, but seemingly unrequited, love for his close woman friend. Laying his heart bare, Nance wildly blends verité footage of conversations with the object of his (or his character’s) desire, the charming Namik, with introspective voice over, various animation techniques, re-enactments, confessional interviews, and music to approximate what it means to be head over heels infatuated with someone just out of reach. It’s a daring, original, and deeply satisfying approach to storytelling – its blurring of documentary and narrative mirroring the obsessive close reading – and rewriting – of reality we all engage in when we’re completely crushed out.
Note: Director Nance will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Call for Submissions: 2013 Wallabout Film Festival
Since 2011, I’ve taught an undergraduate course at Pratt Institute on film festivals. Each year, my interdisciplinary class is responsible for organizing the Wallabout Film Festival, a student-run event that showcases student film from around the world. This year’s Wallabout, the 5th anniversary, will take place on Thursday, April 18 at indieScreen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Wallabout is currently seeking submissions of shorts of any genre, preferably 15 minutes or under, provided they are made by students – current or within one year of graduation, any level, from junior high to graduate school. The deadline is March 18, and, recognizing students’ limited budgets, there is no submission fee!
For an online submission form and more information, click here.
Please spread the word to students and educators – I’d love for my students to have a wide range of projects to consider, both American and international.
Filed under Film, Film Festivals, Submission Deadlines
In the Works: IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE
The maker of THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS and LA SOURCE investigates quiet in a world of noise.
Taking a fittingly meditative approach, director Patrick Shen examines the nature of sound and the necessity of silence to human existence and wellbeing. Noting the increasing cacophony of modern life, and its corresponding hectic pace, not to mention physical damage to our hearing, Shen attempts to lead viewers in a rediscovery of the value of quiet, long privileged in spiritual practice and in memorial traditions. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
ZagrebDox 2013 Overview
Starting this Sunday, February 24 and running through next Sunday, March 3, Croatia’s documentary festival, ZagrebDox, holds its ninth edition. The event screens over 180 films, of which more than half are new or recent feature-length docs, with the balance consisting of shorts and retrospective programming. The festival balances a lineup representing a selection of familiar titles that have screened at higher-profile festivals such as IDFA, Sundance, and CPH:DOX, with lesser-known fare, including an impressive number of films from Croatia and its neighboring countries in the region. If I were to attend, the latter would be my priority, as noted in my brief highlights below: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
