ALL THAT BREATHES
Against the darkening backdrop of Delhi’s apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protect one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the Black Kite.
Director:
Shaunak Sen
Producers:
Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann, Teddy Leifer
Festival Section:
World Cinema Documentary Competition
Country of Origin:
India/USA/UK
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
TIKTOK, BOOM.
With TikTok now crowned the world’s most downloaded app, these are the personal stories of a cultural phenomenon, told through an ensemble cast of Gen-Z natives, journalists, and experts alike. Why is an app, best known for people dancing, the target of so much controversy?
Director:
Shalini Kantayya
Producers:
Ross M. Dinerstein, Shalini Kantayya, Danni Mynard
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
JIHAD REHAB
A group of men trained by Al-Qaeda are transferred from Guantanamo to a rehabilitation center for extremists.
Director:
Meg Smaker
Producers:
Meg Smaker, Bryan Storkel
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
THE JANES
In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Seven women were arrested. The accused were part of a clandestine network. Using code names, blindfolds and safe houses, they built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves Jane.
Directors:
Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes
Producers:
Emma Pildes, Daniel Arcana, Jessica Levin
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, January 5:
MAURICE HINES: BRING THEM BACK
Director:
John Carluccio
World Premiere:
DOC NYC 2019
Select Festivals:
American Black, Barcelona LGBT
About:
A portrait of the Broadway song-and-dance man.
The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
John Carluccio’s film is a portrait of the charismatic song-and-dance man from his tap-dancing childhood to today. Maurice and friends—Chita Rivera, Mercedes Ellington, and Debbie Allen—tell tales from his seven-decade career, including Broadway shows, Hollywood films like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club, and about his loving yet difficult relationship with superstar brother Gregory Hines. Ever battling the challenges of being a gay, black man in showbiz, Maurice shares his story with humor and grace.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE
Spurred by the spectacle of a circus tent that goes up outside his Oakland apartment, a disabled filmmaker launches into an unflinching meditation on freakdom, (in)visibility, and the pursuit of individual agency.
Director:
Reid Davenport
Producer:
Keith Wilson
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
FREE CHOL SOO LEE
After a Korean immigrant is wrongly convicted of a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gang murder, Asian Americans unite as never before to free Chol Soo Lee. A former street hustler becomes the symbol for a landmark movement. But once out, he self-destructs, threatening the movement’s legacy and the man himself.
Directors:
Julie Ha, Eugene Yi
Producers:
Su Kim, Jean Tsien, Sona Jo, Julie Ha, Eugene Yi
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
FIRE OF LOVE
Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unraveling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing the most explosive imagery ever recorded. A doomed love triangle between Katia, Maurice, and volcanoes, told through their archival footage.
Director:
Sara Dosa
Producers:
Shane Boris, Ina Fichman, Sara Dosa
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
THE EXILES
Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
Directors:
Ben Klein, Violet Columbus
Producers:
Maria Chiu, Ben Klein, Violet Columbus
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
DESCENDANT
Clotilda, the last known ship carrying enslaved Africans to the United States, arrived in Alabama 40 years after African slave trading became a capital offense. It was promptly burned, and its existence denied. After a century shrouded in secrecy and speculation, descendants of the Clotilda’s survivors are reclaiming their story.
Director:
Margaret Brown
Producers:
Essie Chambers, Kyle Martin, Margaret Brown
Festival Section:
US Documentary Competition
More Info:
Check out the Sundance website for more details by clicking on the film title above.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
what (not) to doc 