Coming to NYC’s Pure Nonfiction at IFC Center series tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16:
THIS IS PERSONAL
Director:
Amy Berg
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Athena
About:
A candid look at the work and challenges of modern day feminist activism.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Photo by Kimmer Olesak
Director:
David Sutherland
Premiere:
San Diego Latino 2019
Select Festivals:
Salem, Garden State, Ft Myers
About:
A Marine Corps vet struggles to reunite her family after her husband is deported to Mexico.
Elizabeth Perez was a ten-year decorated veteran of the US Marines when she met and married her husband, Marcos, in 2009. A year later, when their first child was six months old and she was pregnant with their second, Marcos was detained after a traffic stop and deported back to Mexico. Having been previously deported and having re-entered the US illegally, Marcos was now subject to a minimum ten-year bar before he could even apply for a visa to return, regardless of his marriage to a US citizen or parentage of multiple children. As shown in Sutherland’s sobering chronicle, the entire family suffers gravely by this forced separation. While Elizabeth raises their children alone – whose number grows after Elizabeth visits Marcos in Mexico – and leads a seemingly Sisyphean campaign to bring her husband home, Marcos struggles with depression and loneliness, only able to watch his kids grow up via Skype calls and the rare in-person reunion. With Marcos urged by their lawyer not to attempt to re-enter the US via illegal means, the family tries to rally whatever support they can, partnering with a local Cleveland area Latinx organization, meeting with elected officials on both sides of the political divide, and attempting to use Elizabeth’s past military service to cut through bureaucratic red tape. As Elizabeth faces heartbreaking rejection after rejection, she must ponder giving up and relocating to Mexico with her children to live in exile with Marcos until his ban runs its course, or risk losing her marriage while Marcos misses out on his kids’ entire childhood. Sutherland’s film, while disarmingly intimate, feels epic in scope. Coming at a time of particular politicization of the issue of the US’s broken immigration system and its deleterious impact on families, the film is also notable in its resistance to easy partisanship or demonization of either side, instead using the story of the Perez family to humanize and universalize the immigration issue in the hopes of finding a better way forward.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 12:
SATAN & ADAM
Director:
V Scott Balcerek
Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festivals:
Nashville, Mountainfilm, Thin Line, Boulder, St Louis, Heartland, Calgary, Martha’s Vineyard, SF Jewish, Salem
About:
The story of an unlikely musical duo.
Filmed on and off over the course of 20 years, this musical portrait explores the parallel stories of two musicians -one black, one white – who met on the streets of a pre-gentrification Harlem in 1986, a time of especially deep racial division in NYC. The older, black man, Mr Satan – once known as Sterling Magee, a musician who had been exploited by the record industry in the past – had long been a fixture of the neighborhood, while the younger, white man, Adam Gussow, was an Ivy League novice who chanced upon the former’s street performance and asked to join in. From there, the pair partnered up, performing together regularly, going on tour, getting a record deal, and even appearing on a U2 album. But, as recounted here, their 12 years together were not all smooth sailing, as Satan and his ever-present wife apparently struggled with mental illness, which eventually led to the dissolution of the musical partnership. Gussow pursued a career in academia, while Mr Satan vanished for a time, resurfacing in a senior care facility in Florida, where he reclaimed his Sterling Magee name and ended up having a surprising third act with music, eventually reuniting with Gussow. While the odd couple pairing, and Balcerek’s extensive longitudinal footage, makes the project compelling, its framing almost entirely from Gussow’s perspective is a strange and disconcerting choice, serving in many ways to “other” Magee, even if this wasn’t the filmmaker’s, or Gussow’s, intent.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 12:
MOSUL
Director:
Daniel Gabriel
Premiere:
Cleveland 2019
About:
The diverse coalition of anti-ISIS forces fighting to free Mosul is viewed through the eyes of an Iraqi journalist.
Daniel Gabriel’s film chronicles the liberation of Mosul from ISIS/Daesh in 2016-2017 as seen by journalist Ali Maula, who serves here as a too-frequent narrator, while the latter heads north along the Tigris, meeting various members of the surprisingly diverse but tenuous coalition of Iraqi fighters trying to win back their freedom, and frequent worrying about the sectarian divisions that will likely continue the violence regardless. The doc profiles several of the coalition leaders, from outspoken Sunni tribal leaders and commanders (including a female Sunni militia commander who lost her own husband to battle) to an Iraqi Army Special Ops commander, a Kurdish Pershmerga fighter, and a Christian soldier. As Maula follows the combat, bringing some sense of normalcy to cleared areas, his crew speaks to civilians and soldiers as they struggle with PTSD and the trauma of war, but perhaps the most chilling interview is with an ISIS detainee, who appears in silhouette and speaks ominously about the long-lasting impact of radical Islamic ideology which he claims will win out in the end. While addressing a complex and compelling subject, the film suffers from the approach taken, with Maula’s centrality lending the project a TV feel and the mix of profiles and ridealongs resulting in a disjointed effort as a whole.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 12:
THE MOST DANGEROUS YEAR
Director:
Vlada Knowlton
Premiere:
Seattle 2018
Select Festivals:
St Louis, Rhode Island, Newburyport Doc, Atlanta Doc, Kansas, Portland
About:
The parents of trans kids fight against discriminatory legislation in Washington State.
The titular time covered in Knowlton’s project is 2016, which the Human Rights Campaign noted due to the disturbingly regressive spate of bills put forward in state legislatures to target transgender individuals. Colloquially known as “bathroom bills,” this legislation attempted to force individuals to use public bathrooms that corresponded to their biological/birth gender, using unfounded fears of infiltration of women’s bathrooms by perverts or rapists to trigger popular support. The film focuses on such a bill proposed in Washington, and the impact it has on families with transgender children, like the director’s. Knowlton, who unfortunately chose to (over)narrate here, profiles her own daughter and the latter’s struggle to be accepted as a girl as one of the film’s featured stories. While doing an adequate enough job of highlighting the issues unfairly facing trans people, this well-meaning but very basic production struggles to stand out.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Film Forum for a special screening this Saturday, April 13:
EL DESENCANTO
Director:
Jaime Chávarri
Premiere:
Madrid’s Palace e Infants (September 1976)
About:
A portrait of a celebrated but troubled literary family which became a Spanish cult classic.
Filmed in 1974, towards the end of the Franco dictatorship, this dysfunctional family portrait was intended by director Jaime Chávarri to be a kind of Spanish GREY GARDENS, focused, like that Maysles classic, on a family with elite connections which had seen better days. In this case, the subjects represented the family of Leopoldo Panero, the so-called poet laureate of the Franco regime. Filmed 12 years after Panero’s death, and pointedly not featuring his likeness in any explicit way, the doc instead features extensive interviews with his widow, Felicidad, and three grown sons, Juan Luis, Leopoldo María, and Michi, as they alternately mythologize and debunk the family’s personal and literary legacy. Though romanticizing her courtship with Panero, Felicidad reflects on how she lost her identity following their marriage, while their dilettante youngest son, Michi, compares the literary merits of his feuding older brothers’ own attempts at writing. Through the film, Juan Luis takes on an exaggerated, performative role – the villain of the piece – but it’s the psychologically troubled Leopoldo María who leaves the strongest impact, savagely attacking both of his parents in the last section in a sort of proto-reality TV mode. Released not long after Franco’s death, after being withdrawn from its scheduled world premiere at San Sebastian, Chávarri’s film became a scandal, the family’s airing of dirty laundry implicating not just Leopoldo Panero but also holding up a mirror to the corruption of General Franco and his regime. Over the years, the film has become a cult classic within Spain, but only now comes stateside due to the efforts of Aaron Shulman, who wrote a book exploring the Paneros’ complex and notorious history, as well as the impact of the doc, THE AGE OF DISENCHANTMENTS: THE EPIC STORY OF SPAIN’S MOST NOTORIOUS LITERARY FAMILY AND THE LONG SHADOW OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR. Although viewers not familiar with Panero or with the Franco regime will no doubt find themselves somewhat confused at the film’s outset, they’ll soon be drawn in by the family dynamics on display, and will be left intrigued to learn more.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
New to VOD this week:
WRESTLE
Director:
Suzannah Herbert
Co-Director:
Lauren Belfer
Premiere:
San Francisco 2018
About:
An intimate look at a Huntsville AL high school wrestling team.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this week:
BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY
Director:
Dava Whisenant
Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, Traverse City, Nashville, Sidewalk, Mill Valley, Vancouver
About:
A comedy writer becomes obsessed with corporate musicals.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this week:
FATHERS OF FOOTBALL
Director:
Bradley Beesley
Premiere:
Austin 2018
Select Festivals:
deadCenter, SF IndieFest
About:
A portrait of an Oklahoma high school football coach as he tries to take his team back to the championships.
As in many towns across America, football is something close to a religion in Wagoner OK. The local high school team, the Bulldogs, have held the state’s longest winning streak, and many credit coach Dale Condict for this achievement. Serving as mentor and father figure to the young men on the team, Condict helps his charges succeed on the field, recognizing that football may be their best chance to further their education. The film follows the coach and his players as they set out to win their third consecutive state championship, but the year is fraught with setbacks, most notably the health of Condict’s own son, a member of the team, who faces testicular cancer. While director Bradley Beesley clearly has affection for his subjects and the community as a whole, this generally well-made film treads ground very familiar from countless other small town football docs without really distinguishing itself in any major ways.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s American Masters this Friday, April 12:
JOSEPH PULITZER: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
Director:
Oren Rudavsky
Premiere:
Mill Valley 2018
Select Festivals:
Cleveland, Hot Springs Doc, Thin Line, Sedona, Sebastopol Doc, Atlanta Jewish, New York Jewish
About:
The rags-to-riches story of the Hungarian immigrant turned American media giant.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 