Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 29:
THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST

Director:
Miranda Bailey

Premiere:
Manhattan Film Festival 2017

About:
A portrait of Andrew Wakefield, vilified by the media and by the medical community for his now discredited stance about linkages between vaccines and autism.

Wakefield was at the center of a controversy at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival when an uproar over the inclusion of VAXXED, a film he directed, ultimately resulted in its being pulled from the lineup because of dubious medical claims. While Wakefield’s supporters classified the move as censorship, his detractors instead held the opinion that the film was a work of propaganda that should never have been programmed in the first place. Bailey’s film begins long before this episode, following the now unlicensed doctor as he reckons with the aftermath of his debunked vaccine claims by filing an anti-defamation suit against the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer in Texas, funded largely be a loyal fanbase of anti-vaxxers, who view Wakefield as a hero who gives them hope. Through the well-made film, which focuses almost exclusively on Wakefield and his wife Carmel – positioned here as some sort of default expert, given how much screen time she is allotted – the frankly unlikeable couple defend each charge against Wakefield and play the martyr, blaming a collusion of Big Pharma and a corrupt media for all their ills. Bailey, for her part, never explicitly takes a side, but in providing such controversial subjects as the Wakefields with a platform to continue to espouse their, at best, misunderstood, at worst, deliberately misleading, views, without any real challenge from medical professionals, she treads on ethically troubling terrain.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, September 29:
COPWATCH

Director:
Camilla Hall

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

About:
A profile of members of a citizen’s rights group dedicated to exposing police abuses.

Hall’s film focuses on We Copwatch, a loosely organized network of concerned individuals who have made it their mission to bear witness to police activity – and abuses – by exercising their legal right to film them. Not surprisingly, law enforcement doesn’t seem particularly responsive to this idea, particularly when We Copwatch activists capture such disturbing footage like the chokehold arrest of Eric Garner which then goes viral. The film checks in with Ramsey Orta, who witnessed that galvanizing incident, and ended up in jail for his trouble, as well as Kevin Moore, who filmed the arrest of Freddie Gray. Hall struggles to find the proper balance between telling the personal stories of her subjects and chronicling their copwatching activities, making for a not wholly satisfying project compared to other recent films addressing similar themes.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, September 27:
BUGS

Director:
Andreas Johnsen

Premiere:
Tribeca 2016

Select Festivals:
Edinburgh, Seattle, Docaviv, Docs Against Gravity, Melbourne, Reykjavik, Denver, Vlnius

About:
A global insect-eating expedition seeks new sources of food for the world.

Motivated by predictions of the need for ramped up food production to sustain an estimated world population of nine billion people by 2050, the Nordic Food Labs are on a quest to make insects palatable to Western audiences. Its head chef, Ben Reade, and lead researcher, Josh Evans, travel around the world to source sustainable, fair, and tasty bugs. Johnsen follows them as they dig up all manner of larvae, termites, and bees and serve as guides to the likely squirming viewer. While largely an informative but somewhat food adventure television-stylized survey for most of its run time, the film becomes more intriguing as Reade and Evans grow somewhat disillusioned, recognizing the market forces which seem sure to undercut their hopes for economic fairness and sustainability.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, September 27:
I AM ANOTHER YOU

Director:
Nanfu Wang

Premiere:
SXSW 2017

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, BAMcinemaFest, Ashland, Cleveland

About:
What begins as a portrait of a seemingly carefree young drifter becomes something more complex.

Finding a kindred spirit in their mutual love of travel, Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang befriends Dylan, a charismatic homeless 22-year-old, during a trip to Florida. Intrigued by the handsome young man’s free spirit, Wang starts filming him, all the while trying to make sense of his decision to leave behind a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle to live on the streets and beg for food. Even after they have a falling out, Wang seeks the truth, and what she finds out – through Dylan’s father – forces her, and her audience, to re-evaluate their initial impressions of Dylan. While it’s debatable whether Wang herself needed to insert herself into the film’s storytelling approach, she deftly upends expectations in the film’s stronger second part.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, September 26:
WE BREATHE AGAIN

Director:
Marsh Chamberlain

Premiere:
Alaska (May 2017)

About:
An exploration of the epidemic of suicide among Alaskan Native peoples.

Chamberlain’s film profiles four individuals personally impacted by suicide, a once rare occurrence among the Native people of Alaska, but which now is a leading cause of death, appearing nearly four times the national average. The experiences of an elder like Keggulluk address the consequences of colonial and racist policies like boarding schools intended to split up Native families and destroy culture and language, while the pervasiveness of intergenerational trauma is reflected in younger figures like Eddie, a young father determined to break cyclical patterns of abuse and pain. In speaking out about the taboo topic of suicide, they and the other subjects demonstrate the resilience and hope needed to help curb its devastating toll on their people.