Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, September 19: KINGDOM OF SHADOWS

Bernardo Ruiz’s look at the consequences of the war on drugs on the border of Mexico and the US made its world premiere at SXSW last year. Screenings followed at DOC NYC, Full Frame, Ambulante, San Francisco Latino, Ambulante California, Sedona, and IDFA.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, September 19: THREE DAYS OF TERROR: THE CHARLIE HEBDO ATTACKS

Dan Reed’s in-the-moment retelling of the January 2015 Paris terrorist actions debuted on the BBC on the anniversary of the attacks. It now makes its debut as part of HBO’s long-running Monday night doc programming.

On January 7, 2015, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed through the building housing the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine that had published cartoons controversially depicting the prophet Muhammad, to avenge the perceived slight to Islam. These French-born Yemeni Al-Qaeda members murdered eleven people, injured another eleven, and then killed a police officer as they made their temporary escape. Within two days, they were killed by police after a hostage situation. Elsewhere in the city, a former prison friend of the brothers, another French-born man, Amedy Coulibaly, shot a policewoman before himself taking hostages at a kosher supermarket, killing four of them before police stopped him. Reed powerfully relates these harrowing incidents through eye-witness testimony and chilling cameraphone footage, drawing viewers into the experiences as they took place, with disturbing clarity.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 16: A FAMILY AFFAIR

Tom Fassaert’s investigation into family estrangement made its debut at IDFA last year, where it won a special jury award. Screenings have followed at Thessaloniki Doc, It’s All True, Documentary Edge, DOK.fest Munich, Taiwan Doc, Ambulante, Encounters, Sheffield, Biografilm, Docs Against Gravity, AFI Docs, Moscow, and the upcoming Zurich and Doclisboa fests, among others.

When Fassaert’s father Rob was three, his mother Marianne abruptly left Rob and his older brother Rene at an orphanage. Two years later, and just as inexplicably, she returned to reclaim them, never explaining what happened. To say that their relationship became strained would be an understatement. Marianne eventually emigrated to South Africa, leaving her children behind. Rene never recovered, while Rob considered himself an orphan. After Rob started his own family, Marianne reconnected, coaxing Rob and his own family to relocate to South Africa with the promise of a job, only to renege once they arrived. While his father has since cut off contact, the now-95-year-old Marianne reaches out to invite the filmmaker to visit her, setting this fascinating, oblique family history into motion. Enraptured by being filmed, she indulges in selective, revisionist history which casts her as the victim. When pressed, she refuses to addresses difficult topics – until she reveals, in a truly disturbing sequence, that she is in love with her grandson and is convinced he reciprocates. Even as she takes a final return trip to the Netherlands to see her family for the last time, she never proves less than an intriguing enigma – underlined by the unexplained title of the memoir she’s engaged a ghostwriter to work on: MY DOUBLE LIFE.

Coming to theatres and to VOD today, Friday, September 16: DANCER

Steven Cantor’s portrait of ballet’s bad boy made its theatrical debut in LA last week. It will also screen at the upcoming Zurich, BFI London, and Calgary film fests.

Showing immense potential, Ukrainian Sergei Polunin was transitioned from gymnastics to ballet at an early age. When faced with high tuition for his dance training, his father and grandmother moved abroad to earn money. Their sacrifice paid off, as Polunin earned a spot in London’s Royal Ballet School at the age of 13. Six years later, he was named its youngest ever principal dancer, with critics proclaiming him the next Nureyev. Confronted with fame and success while still a teenager, the dancer lived a life of excess, earning him a wild reputation, and, just a few years later, burn out. Gaining intimate access to Polunin, his family, friends, and dance world associates, Cantor offers a behind-the-scenes look at the trajectory of the dancer’s meteoric rise and fall, the hidden costs of success, and how the viral response to his performance in Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” helped reignite his passion for the art form.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, September 16: SOUTHWEST OF SALEM: THE STORY OF THE SAN ANTONIO FOUR

Deborah S Esquenazi’s look at a case of wrongful conviction debuted at Tribeca earlier this year. The doc also screened at Hot Docs, Sheffield, DocuWest, AFI Docs, Frameline, Outfest, and Inside Out.

As signaled by its somewhat too-reminiscent title, Esquenazi’s film looks at the tragic fallout of 1990s Satanic panic that also claimed the West Memphis Three, as documented in Joe Berlinger’s PARADISE LOST trilogy and Amy Berg’s WEST OF MEMPHIS. In this particular instance, the supposed perpetrators, known by their supporters as the San Antonio Four, faced a quadruple whammy while facing the justice system – not only where they accused of Satanism, but they were women, Latina, and lesbians. Looking back, the accusations against them are so ludicrous it would be laughable, except that these charges put four innocent women behind bars for decades. Lesbian couple Anna and Liz, along with two friends, were accused of gang raping Liz’s two young nieces while babysitting. While there is no physical evidence, and the nieces’ father clearly had it out for Liz, prosecutors trumpeted up outlandish theories and considered the defendants’ sexuality as de facto guilt. After languishing in prison for years, their story eventually comes to the attention of the Innocence Project of Texas, which eventually leads to a more clear-eyed re-examination of the case. Esquenazi’s film is largely compelling, if fairly conventionally constructed, and while it eschews the sensationalism that dogged the women in their trials, it displays a strange lack of urgency that undercuts the women’s desire for a full exoneration. Still, the injustice done to the sympathetic San Antonio Four is clearly conveyed.

Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, September 16: SILICON COWBOYS

Jason Cohen’s look at personal computing history made its bow at SXSW. Screenings followed at Nantucket, Montclair, SF Doc, and Sidewalk, among other events.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program, saying:
In the early 1980s, at the dawn of personal computing, three Houston mavericks dared to take on seemingly unstoppable industry leader IBM with a new company. Compaq saw a future in portability and compatibility – though in those early years, a portable computer was closer in size to a piece of luggage than to a briefcase. Through determination and a memorable marketing campaign featuring Monty Python’s John Cleese, Compaq became a success, at least for a time. Jason Cohen’s film is a nostalgic and entertaining David-and-Goliath tale about entrepreneurs whose revolutionary innovations helped pave the way for today’s modern digital world.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, September 14: COMMAND AND CONTROL

Robert Kenner’s chronicle of a near nuclear catastrophe on American soil premiered at Tribeca this Spring. Other fest screenings have included Sheffield, AFI Docs, Traverse City, deadCENTER, and the upcoming Camden and GlobeDocs.

Damascus, Arkansas might have ended up as infamous a location as Chernobyl or Fukushima on September 18-19, 1980 had events played out only slightly differently. During those dates, in an underground silo, a dropped wrench socket nearly led to the detonation of a potent Titan II missile warhead during a routine maintenance. Using re-enactments filmed in a decommissioned Arizona Titan II missile silo for added verisimilitude, together with the recollections of the teams on the ground who reacted to avert disaster, plus various others who intersected with the events of that evening, Kenner draws the viewer in to experience just how close the country came to facing the reality of a nuclear detonation. While the film remains unconvincing about the inevitability of such an accident happening again in the future, with more dire consequences, Kenner nevertheless constructs an engrossing retelling of a disturbing near-miss.