New to VOD this past weekend:
GENERATION STARTUP
Directors:
Cynthia Wade and Cheryl Miller Houser
Premiere:
Traverse City 2016
Select Festivals:
Milwaukee
About:
An exploration of Detroit’s young entrepreneurs.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to Logo this Thursday, April 6 and to VOD this Saturday, April 8:
STRIKE A POSE
Directors:
Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan
Premiere:
Berlin 2016
Select Festivals:
Tribeca, Hot Docs, Sheffield, DocAviv, BAFICI, Chicago, Biografilm, Jeonju, Krakow, Sydney, Bogota, Helsinki, Rio, Hot Springs Doc, In-Edit, Provincetown, Outfest, Frameline, NewFest, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Austin, Vancouver, Honolulu, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Montreal
About:
Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour dancers revisit their brush with fame, 25 years later.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this past weekend:
FRACKMAN
Director:
Richard Todd
Co-Director:
Jonathon Stack
Premiere:
Byron Bay 2015
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Balinale
About:
A profile of an unlikely activist.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
When Aussie everyman Dayne Pratzky left Sydney to build a home in rural Tara, he never expected he’d find himself in a battle over one of today’s most contentious issues: fracking. After the gas companies arrive to exploit the coal seam gas trapped beneath his land, Dayne learns he has no legal recourse to stop their activity. Galvanized to take a stand, the accidental activist unites an unlikely alliance of farmers and radicals to save their community, unexpectedly becoming part of a global network in the process.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, April 4:
THE AGE OF CONSEQUENCES
Director:
Jared P Scott
Premiere:
Hot Docs 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Sheffield, Telluride Mountainfilm, Antenna Doc, Waimea Ocean Festival, Wild & Scenic
About:
Global unrest viewed through the lens of climate change.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4:
THE RUINS OF LIFTA
Directors:
Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky
Premiere:
NYC theatrical release (September 2016)
About:
An Orthodox Jewish American works with a Palestinian/Israeli coalition to try to preserve the remnants of a threatened Arab village in East Jerusalem.
Co-director Menachem Daum here serves as narrator and on-screen guide in this personal reckoning with the legacies of both the Holocaust and the Nakba (the mass displacement of Arab Palestinians in 1948). The son of Holocaust survivors and the nephew of a staunch Zionist, Daum has in more recent years struggled with the anti-Palestinian sentiments with which he was raised. When he learns about Lifta, an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem which has lain abandoned since the 1948 war, but which, for some reason, was never destroyed. When a development plan calls for Lifta to finally be destroyed to make way for luxury Israeli homes, this catalyzes former Lifta residents, other Palestinians, and progressive Jewish Israelis to band together to protest, recognizing that to destroy Lifta erases yet another vestige of the region’s Palestinian past. Daum becomes involved in the coalition, together with his Arab friend Yacoub, but soon comes to understand the deep-seated roadblocks to cooperation when Palestinian members of the cohort bristle at the idea of working with Israelis while the occupation is still ongoing. While the group scores a temporary victory, Daum ultimately realizes that the complexity of the larger conflict within the region cannot solely be understood through the lens of the Holocaust, and must consider the Palestinian narrative as well. While the story of Lifta is an intriguing one to focus the Israeli/Palestinian question, the film’s too personal approach is ultimately to its detriment, adding unnecessary threads and weak narration to what might otherwise have been more compelling.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4:
BLUE GOLD: AMERICAN JEANS
Directors:
Christian D Bruun
Premiere:
Berkshire International Film Festival 2014
Select Festivals:
Denver, Hollywood, Cebu Doc
About:
An expansive consideration of blue jeans and how they symbolize America.
Bruun takes a wide-ranging survey of denim and America, using a very loose frame of Idahoan vintage denim dealer Eric Schrader, who travels around various parts of the US and to Japan to look for vintage denim he can sell to other dealers or to collectors for up to tens of thousands of dollars. Concurrently, the film explores, among other threads: the history and popularization of blue jeans; the mythologizing of America through jeans; the development of different subcultures who took jeans as their uniforms, from workers and rockers to punks and gay men; the emergence of designer jeans as an industry; and their economic and environmental impact. While taking on a bit too much, the project nevertheless is an interesting work of popular cultural anthropology.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4:
DIVING INTO THE UNKNOWN
Director:
Juan Reina
Premiere:
DocPoint 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Visions du Reel, Hot Docs, Docs Against Gravity, Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Documentary Edge
About:
A team of divers risk their own safety on a covert mission.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
After a diving expedition in an underwater cave results in tragedy, two Finnish divers seem forever lost. Unable to recover their remains safely, authorities call off their investigation and bar further diving. Determined to honor their fallen comrades and bring closure to their families, surviving team members plan a dangerous covert operation to return to the cave and retrieve their friends. Juan Reina follows their harrowing mission as they confront their own fears in the name of brotherhood.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this past weekend:
AMONG THE BELIEVERS
Directors:
Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi
Premiere:
Tribeca 2015
Select Festivals:
IDFA, CPH:DOX, Sydney, AFI Docs, DMZ Docs, Vancouver, Stockholm, Rio, Human Rights Watch London
About:
A candid look at a radical Muslim cleric’s indoctrination of young children into jihad.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, April 3:
ABORTION: STORIES WOMEN TELL
Director:
Tracy Droz Tragos
Premiere:
Tribeca 2016
Select Festivals:
AFI Docs, San Francisco DocFest, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
About:
Women candidly share personal stories about the perennially controversial issue.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this week:
RAISING BERTIE
Director:
Margaret Byrne
Premiere:
Full Frame 2016
Select Festivals:
Sarasota, Bentonville, AFI Docs, Atlanta Docufest, Chicago, Citizen Jane, Cucalorus, Big Sky Doc
About:
An observational coming-of-age portrait of three African-American teenagers in rural North Carolina.
Set in Bertie County, one of the poorest communities in the state, Byrne’s six-year longitudinal profile centers on Reginald AKA Junior, Davonte AKA Dada, and David AKA Bud, who, initially, are part of an alternative high school called the Hive, a safe place for at-risk youth to continue their schooling. Over the course of the film, the three young men face difficult choices that often come hand-in-hand with poverty – completing their education, contending with unemployment, navigating the challenges posed by family members’ incarceration, and the adult responsibilities of young father. Through a strong verité approach, the film captures their transition from teens to young men with poignancy and surprising candor and vulnerability.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 