Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres today, Friday, January 6: ACCIDENTAL COURTESY: DARYL DAVIS, RACE & AMERICA

Director:
Matt Ornstein

Premiere:
SXSW 2016, special jury award

Select Festivals:
Cleveland, Atlanta, Nashville, Montclair, Bergen

About:
A portrait of an African-American man who befriends KKK members.

Daryl Davis is a long-time professional musician, but it’s his avocation that makes him more distinct: Unable to understand how someone who didn’t know him could hate him, the middle-aged African-American man has regularly contacted and eventually befriended dozens of members of the Ku Klux Klan for decades. While often initially finding resistance, his perseverance, and, critically, his willingness to listen, has led to unlikely friendships and understanding, and, in several cases, contributed to diehard KKK members leaving the organization and renouncing their racist worldview. Ornstein follows Davis around the country as he speaks with current and past members of hate groups, in addition to being confronted by Black Lives Matter activists who find his form of activism ineffective and inappropriate. While Davis is able to hold his own, and recognizes the slow nature of the kinds of relationships he has built, he still sees the value in maintaining dialogue with opponents in our polarized, echo-chamber society. Although Ornstein captures some thought-provoking interactions and effectively conveys Davis’ mission, he stumbles in devoting too much of the film to his subject’s frankly much less interesting music background.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, January 6: A DIFFERENT AMERICAN DREAM

Director:
Simon Brook

Premiere:
Thessaloniki Doc 2016

Select Festivals:
Margaret Mead, Reykjavik, American Indian Film Festival, Red Nation

About:
Native Americans reflect on the impact of the oil industry on their land.

The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is located in the Badlands of North Dakota, site of the largest shale oil field on the continent. In the wake of its discovery, the oil industry descended on the community, enriching a handful in the short-term but harming thousands more, in the view of several tribe members featured in Brook’s doc. While it’s clear that the filmmakers are earnest about giving voice to and defending the rights of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes that call Fort Berthold home, the film is workmanlike at best in its construction, and lacks a compelling, forward momentum, choosing instead to introduce talking head after talking head voicing their sad but familiar complaints about the environmental and cultural damage being done by the oil industry.