Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to NYC’s Film Forum this Wednesday, August 1:
THE ATOMIC CAFE

Directors:
Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty

Premiere:
Film Forum (March 1982)

Select Festivals:
SXSW 2018 (restoration premiere)

About:
A compilation of clips from the first decades of the nuclear era reveal an undercurrent of denial and anxiety.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 31:
LARGER THAN LIFE: THE KEVYN AUCOIN STORY

Director:
Tiffany Bartok

Premiere:
Hamptons 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Full Frame, Cleveland, Edinburgh

About:
A portrait of a too-soon-departed fashion world pioneer.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC, saying:
Moving to New York City from small town Louisiana in the early 1980s, Kevyn Aucoin found acceptance as a gay man and success in the fashion world. Developing an often overlooked profession into an influential art form, Aucoin became the go-to makeup artist for – and fast friends with – supermodels and celebrities until his tragic death at the age of 40. Tiffany Bartok offers an intimate look at a legendary figure who made people beautiful.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, July 27:
FAR FROM THE TREE

Director:
Rachel Dretzin

Premiere:
DOC NYC 2017

Select Festivals:
Montclair, RiverRun, GlobeDocs, Documentary Edge, IFF Boston, Hawaii

About:
A film essay and career retrospective examining society’s preoccupation with materialism.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to Netflix tomorrow, Friday, July 27:
THE BLEEDING EDGE

Director:
Kirby Dick

Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festivals:
Seattle

About:
An exposé about the largely unregulated, untested medical device industry and the harmful effects of its products on patients.

Dick, joined by his longtime producer Amy Ziering as well as producer Amy Herdy, presents a jaw-dropping look at the dark side of the $400 billion medical device industry. While acknowledging the many benefits technology has brought to medicine, the film focuses on several devices that have had a disastrous impact on their recipients, including birth control device Essure; vaginal mesh, commonly used in gynecological surgery; the hysterectomy-performing da Vinci robot; and cobalt orthopedic replacements. The project is particularly effective in its use of archival and medical films, but otherwise follows the fairly conventional approach that Dick’s films typically take, with patient profiles and expert talking heads dominating. While not likely to have the same incendiary potential of his most recent films, it serves as an effective – and disturbing – awareness-building tool to expose dangerous devices and shady practices enabled by the regulatory capture of the FDA, which works to benefit the medical device industry rather than safeguard the hgelth of patients.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, July 25:
93QUEEN

Director:
Paula Eiselt

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
San Francisco Jewish, Marfa, Charlotte Jewish

About:
A driven woman faces controversy when she sets out to form the first all-female Hasidic EMT corps.

NYC’s Borough Park is home to one of the country’s largest Orthodox Jewish communities. When faced with medical emergencies, they turn to Hatzolah, a volunteer EMS corps made up of members of the community and sensitive to the religious laws that govern them. Hatzolah will not accept female volunteers, however, and that doesn’t sit well with Rachel “Ruchie” Freier and other Hasidic women. Aside from rankling their sense of fairness – there is no religious justification for keeping women out of the service, in their view – their primary concern is with female patients. They feel that women, forbidden by religious laws of modesty from being exposed to or touching any man other than their husband except in emergency cases, should be given a choice to be treated by other women. As a result, Freier and her followers found Ezras Nashim, an all-female EMT alternate. Eiselt’s film chronicles the David vs Goliath (or even Israel vs the rest of the Middle East) struggle for the fledgling group’s very existence, from accusations of a secular feminism plot to disrupt Hasidism to consequences for their families’ reputations. The focus stays largely on Freier, who already bucked tradition by becoming a full-time lawyer at the age of 40 in addition to being a wife and mother of six, as she navigates the cultural and religious minefield of her latest social activism. As a result, the film gives short shrift to other compelling Ezras Nashim members and to the corps as a whole when Eiselt follows Freier’s election campaign to become a civil court judge. While not entirely unrelated, the latter steals some of the thunder from the story of the pioneering EMT corps, whose FDNY radio designation lends the still-appealing project its title.