Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, July 21:
MISTER UNIVERSO

Directors:
Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel

Premiere:
Locarno 2016

Select Festivals:
Toronto, Reykjavik, Rio, Vienna, BAFICI, AFI Fest, Rotterdam, Mar del Plata, CPH:DOX, San Francisco, Jeonju, Sydney, Moscow

About:
A doc/fiction hybrid following a circus lion tamer in search of a lost magical talisman.

Covi and Frimmel return to one of the subjects of their 2009 film, LA PIVELLINA, to focus on Tairo, a handsome lion tamer with a circus in decline. As the film opens, he is tending to his aging big cats, having recently lost one. The nonfiction elements to this slight but charming project offer a portrait of this disappearing milieu, as the camera follows the workaday lives of Tairo and some of his fellow performers, persisting despite a sense that this entertainment is not likely long for this world. This would be sufficient to base a film around, but the directors instead add a somewhat silly fictional overlay: As a result of some petty arguments over electricity with the trailer next door, Tairo’s bent horseshoe good luck charm is stolen. Superstition leads the young man to seek out the man who bent it for him when Tairo was just a boy, Arthur Robin, the first black Mister Universe. The remainder of the film follows Tairo as he visits with family members on a leisurely search for Robin’s present whereabouts. As with most hybrid projects, it’s questionable what benefit there is in mixing fact and fiction.

New to VOD this week:
IN SEARCH OF ISRAELI CUISINE

Director:
Roger Sherman

Premiere:
Palm Springs 2016

Select Festivals:
Jewish fests in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, Palm Beach, Atlanta, Seattle, and Toronto

About:
A James Beard Award-winning chef takes viewers on a tour through the tastes of Israel.

As noted by the film’s title, chef Michael Solomonov, born in Israel and raised in Pennsylvania, embarks on the prickly question of whether his relatively young homeland can truly be said to have its own cuisine. Some of his interview subjects emphatically argue that of course it does, while others are more dismissive, noting that in a country formed by immigrants from around the world, Israel’s food culture is more of an extensive borrowing. This debate, and the complicated history it reveals, is the most interesting element of Sherman’s film, which otherwise wouldn’t be too out of place if it were on the Food Network. Solomonov is a nice enough but fairly bland host, and while his visits with various chefs, cooks, winemakers, and the like offer a nice amount of exotic food porn to viewers, this survey just isn’t distinctive enough to be memorable when compared with more pointed comments from, for example, a Palestinian chef who reveals the difficulty in attracting Jewish clientele or who bitterly notes how Israel’s staple dish, hummus, is an appropriation of a Palestinian mainstay.

Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 18:
INSATIABLE: THE HOMARO CANTU STORY

Director:
Brett A Schwartz

Premiere:
SXSW 2016

Select Festivals:
Seattle, Chicago, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Tallgrass, Newburyport Doc, Napa Valley

About:
A celebration of the acclaimed Chicago chef and innovative molecular gastronomist.

Homaro Cantu emerged from humble roots to become one of the leading figures of Chicago’s culinary scene, working first for the legendary Charlie Trotter and then establishing his own restaurant, Moto, which earned a Michelin star. The young chef’s rise included two additional eateries, where he was able to implement creative experiments in molecular gastronomy while also devoting time to social entrepreneurial causes to combat the obesity epidemic. Despite his success, he committed suicide in 2015. Not likely a household name outside of Chicago or die-hard foodies, Cantu’s passing would be a surprise for most viewers, something Schwartz attempts to take advantage of in the structure of his documentary. At the same time, it becomes obvious fairly quickly that Cantu is no longer alive from the way several interview subjects refer to him, undercutting this strategy and instead leading to an unnecessarily convoluted storytelling chronology. Additionally the focus on Cantu’s personal life results in somewhat shortshrift being paid to his culinary accomplishments, ultimately lessening the project’s appeal.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, July 14:
BIRTHRIGHT: A WAR STORY

Director:
Civia Tamarkin

Premiere:
theatrical (July 2017)

About:
A wide-ranging look at the impact on women of restrictive abortion laws, religious hospital mergers, and fetal personhood laws.

Tamarkin’s film offers an expansive historical and contemporary look at how women’s rights have been trampled by anti-abortion forces, who have moved beyond simply picketing clinics to infiltrating legislatures and passing increasingly restrictive laws, shifting somewhat from overturning Roe vs Wade to simply bypassing it. Beyond the TRAP laws that films like TRAPPED and JACKSON have already effectively documented, this project also focuses on the history and consequences of the personhood movement – attempts to assign rights to embryos, often at the cost of maternal health, safety, or choice. The influence of anti-abortion forces on sex education, the availability of contraception, and the access of poor women to health care, are also covered, while another thread includes the conversion of secular medical institutions to Catholic hospitals, subject to religious beliefs rather than medical facts, with women not being offered tubal ligation, contraceptive advice, or any assistance when it involves fetal termination. While clearly taking a pro-choice stance, the film notably includes voices from both sides of the abortion debate, and shares often very affecting personal stories. Unfortunately, in addition to casting its net just a bit too wide, the film is also marred by subpar, uncinematic production values that favor a parade of talking heads and manipulative music, making this more geared to small screens.