Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to NYC’s JCC Manhattan for several screenings beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, December 25:
CHICHINETTE: THE ACCIDENTAL SPY

Director:
Nicola Hens

World Premiere:
Haifa 2019

Select Festivals:
Hof, UK Jewish, Kasseler Dokfest

About:
A nonagenarian French Jewish woman reveals her unlikely WWII espionage activities.

For nearly six decades, until she finally wrote a memoir, Marthe Cohn kept her wartime exploits to herself. Now, she travels around the US and beyond from her home in Los Angeles to speak about her experiences – most notably, how, in the last days of WWII, she became a spy behind enemy lines to gather key information about Germany’s activities for French Intelligence. It’s the latter that gave Cohn her the nickname that serves as the film’s title, translated as “little pain in the neck.” Cohn is a charming and fun older woman, a welcome figure to spend time with, but Nicola Hens’ film has structural issues, taking a too strictly chronological approach which robs it of any real drama – Cohn’s spy experiences are crammed into the last half hour of the film, with the bulk of the doc instead spending an outsize amount of time on the otherwise generally uneventful life of its subject.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
PREY

Director:
Matt Gallagher

World Premiere:
Hot Docs 2019

Select Festivals:
Calgary, Cinéfest Sudbury

About:
A survivor of sexual abuse sues the Catholic Church.

More than 50 years ago, as a young teen, Rod MacLeod was sexually abused by Father Hodson Marshall, a priest who was permitted to serve in various parishes despite numerous complaints about his pedophilic behavior. Upset with the continued lack of accountability – or even a willingness to apologize for its role in enabling such crimes – MacLeod engages legendary “priest hunter” attorney Rob Talach, to take on the Basilian order of the Catholic Church in Ontario in a civil suit. Director Matt Gallagher is able to draw from a deposition with Marshall before the priest’s death, and interviews Father David Katulski, the primary voice for the Church, both providing disturbingly dismissive answers to the serious charges being considered, reflective of the insidious denial and obstruction that the institution has fostered for generations. Beyond this, however, Gallagher is unable to film within the courtroom itself, a limitation that results in some clunkiness, such as the awkward and excessive inclusion of survivor Patrick McMahon and his protests in front of churches. Ultimately, however, the project is a worthwhile one – an earnest and somewhat hopeful look at an attempt to overcome institutional abuse and combat impunity.

New to digital download via HBO this week:
WIG

Director:
Chris Moukarbel

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2019

Select Festivals:
NewFest OutCinema, Fringe! Queer

About:
On the past and present of the legendary Wigstock festival.

Beginning in 1984 and running for 20 years, Wigstock was an outdoor drag festival originally taking place in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Organized by drag queen Lady Bunny and several friends who were part of NYC’s nightlife scene, the event grew in popularity but faced pushback by the Giuliani administration, being forced to move to the Hudson River Piers until 2001. Though Bunny restarted the event in Tompkins Square after a year’s hiatus, its final incarnation was in 2005 – until she revived it once again in 2018. Director Chris Moukarbel chronicles Wigstock’s history against a backdrop of changing perceptions of queer culture and drag’s place in it, while also showcasing performers in the lead-up to last Summer’s event. Like 1995’s WIGSTOCK: THE MOVIE before it, the film draws from a rich if rough archive of early East Village footage shot within the queens’ nightlife milieu, accompanied by the musings of Bunny and other iconic figures like Kevin Aviance, Flotilla DeBarge, and Linda Simpson, some of whom seem to take particular issue with the popularization, appropriation, and commodification of drag through avenues like RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE. As a counterpoint, Moukarbel also focuses on Charlene Incarnate, an outspoken trans-identified draq performer who has gained a following and won the smaller Bushwig festival, and who participates in the 2018 Wigstock revival, among other representatives of the new generation of drag. The 2018 performances fill the final section of the doc, but, as a whole, the subversive history of Wigstock’s first incarnation is its most compelling element.

Coming to HBO tonight, Wednesday, December 18:
FINDING THE WAY HOME

Directors:
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

World Premiere:
NYC (December 2019)

About:
The stories of several formerly institutionalized children who were given a second chance.

I previously wrote about the doc here.