Category Archives: Documentary

New to DVD this week:
FREE LUNCH SOCIETY

Director:
Christian Tod

Premiere:
CPH:DOX 2017

Select Festivals:
Docaviv, Docs Against Gravity, Zurich, Docville, United Nations Association, ZagrebDox, Rio

About:
An essay exploring the concept of guaranteed universal basic income.

What if people didn’t have to worry about earning enough money for their basic survival? A universal basic income would remove this fundamental obstacle, one that keeps poor people struggling to merely subsist, and, the Utopian argument goes, would free up individuals to actually be more productive and devote themselves to things that mattered more to them, free of the anxiety of making basic ends meet. While viewed by many as the stuff of impossible fantasy, the concept of universal basic income has been implemented in test cases, though results seem inconclusive. Tod, an economist, explores this fascinating idea and its radical potential, though he stumbles in his storytelling, incorporating an intrusive narration, dour score, and erratic montage that prove more distracting than not.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
1 BILLION ORGASMS

Directors:
Brent Kinetz and Terence Mickey

Premiere:
Golden Door 2018

About:
A man is on a mission to help women have intense orgasms.

Inspired by a less than satisfying sexual history, Aaron Headley, an engineer, has invented a device that he is certain will revolutionize women’s sexual pleasure: the crassly named “Squirt Watch” somehow helps the wearer assist his/her female companion in achieving female ejaculation. Kinetz and Mickey profile Headley for some time, though omit key information that would make the invention more understandable, then follow him as he attends the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo to promote the watch. It’s in this second half of the film that Headley emerges as a fairly unsettling and borderline creepy subject, particularly in his interactions with his booth assistant, which arguably cross serious ethical lines. The film doesn’t adequately address these issues, unfortunately, resulting in a less than satisfying final impression.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
LONG TIME COMING: A 1955 BASEBALL STORY

Director:
Jon Strong

Premiere:
Florida 2018

Select Festivals:
Mill Valley, Austin, Oxford, Capital City Black, Global Peace

About:
The story of the controversial first interracial Little League game to take place in the South.

In 1955, the Pensacola Jaycees, an all-black squad, and the Orlando Kiwanis, an all-white team, faced each other in the Little League State Championship in Florida. This was a controversial face-off, as up to this point, black and white teams would not compete against one another, some states even going so far as to have white teams forfeit games or start their own all-white leagues. While other Florida teams similarly forfeited, the Kiwanis finally agreed to the match, though one of their coaches quit in protest. Ultimately, the Orlando team won, but both teams helped make a small step forward for civil rights, though this is little remembered today. Strong’s film is framed by the captains of both teams, plus several surviving members, reminiscing about the experience, then both teams meeting up together after 60 years to finally speak to one another and address their memories and experiences of segregation and privilege, respectively. While a likeable idea for a doc, the historic game at its core was not filmed, putting Strong’s project at a disadvantage from which it’s not able to recover, resulting in a overly talky, repetitive, and visually lackluster film only really suited for baseball history fanatics.

New to VOD this week:
JAHA’S PROMISE

Directors:
Kate O’Callaghan and Patrick Farrelly

Premiere:
CPH:DOX 2017

Select Festivals:
Sheffield, Mill Valley, Human Rights Watch, Movies That Matter, Bergen

About:
A Gambian woman becomes an activist against female genital mutilation.

As a newborn in Gambia, Jaha Dukureh was subjected to FGM. She didn’t understand its impact on her body for several years, until she was forced by her father to move to NYC to marry a violent man three decades her senior. It was only after she escaped this abusive relationship, remarried in Atlanta, and had a daughter herself that Jaha began to reckon with FGM and become an activist, eventually returning to her homeland to organize a campaign to ban its practice. While O’Callaghan and Farrelly have found a strong, determined protagonist to confront a challenging issue, their storytelling approach is overly basic, with a surfeit of narration from Jaha that makes the project’s message feel spoonfed, weakening its overall impact.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
THE SUNDAY SESSIONS

Director:
Richard Yeagley

Premiere:
Various cities on National Coming Out Day (October 11, 2017)

About:
An intimate look at gay conversion therapy.

Filmed over two years, Yeagley’s project follows Nathan, a 20something Christian, who undergoes voluntary counseling sessions to overcome his homosexuality. Though long decried as harmful and ineffective, this gay conversion therapy is still promoted by close-minded religious leaders, often overseen by counselors who claim to have successfully renounced their gay desires. Here, that role is taken by Chris, who leads Nathan through discussions that manipulate the young man to delude himself again and again, never offering an option of true self-acceptance. Yeagley gains impressive access to these candid sessions, and refrains from editorializing, allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions. Despite this, and the strange and uncomfortable sense of voyeurism the project affords, the film as a whole is excessively slow, frustrating, and often uninvolving, with some technical deficiencies that prevent it from being wholly successful.

New to DVD this week:
HOT TO TROT

Director:
Gail Freedman

Premiere:
Frameline 2017

Select Festivals:
NewFest, Documentary Edge, LGBT fests in Boston, Atlanta, and London

About:
A profile of same-sex competitive ballroom dancers.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week:
AFTER AUSCHWITZ

Director:
Jon Kean

Premiere:
Chapman University (September 2016)

Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Los Angeles Jewish, Warsaw Jewish

About:
Six Holocaust survivors share stories of life after the death camp.

I previously wrote about the film AFTER AUSCHWITZ.