Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to iTunes today, Tuesday, July 5: JALANAN

Daniel Ziv’s portrait of Indonesian amateur musicians premiered at Busan in 2013, where it won best documentary. Other fest berths have included DocAviv, Biografilm, Melbourne, Vancouver, Reykjavik, Zanzibar, Margaret Mead, ZagrebDox, and DOK Leipzig. The doc was released on VOD via Vimeo last Fall and now expands to iTunes.

Over the course of five years, Ziv profiles three impoverished young buskers on the buses of Jakarta, subsisting through their music while trying to deal with a rapidly developing city. When not riding the buses, Boni is a tunnel dweller, but a city beautification and infrastructure improvement project threatens his makeshift home. Ho, whose dreadlocks announce his rebel status, is a politically-minded womanizer who runs afoul of the police. Young mother Titi can’t afford to care for her three children, leaving them with relatives as she tries to complete her education. Weaving these three stories together – with the first two offering the more compelling arcs – Ziv offers a street-level look at modern Indonesia through the lenses of class, politics, education, and, of course, music.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, July 6: UNDER THE SUN

Vitaly Mansky’s subversive portrait of North Korea debuted at DOK.Leipzig last year. Screenings followed at Nantucket, IDFA, Hot Docs, Tallinn Black Nights, Jihlava, DocPoint, SXSW, DOXA, San Francisco, and Seattle, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program guide, saying:
To gain permission to shoot a documentary in Pyongyang, Russian director Vitaly Mansky works closely with the North Korean government. Functionaries handpick his subjects: 8-year-old Zin-mi, who has just joined a party youth group, and her parents, workers at impressively productive factories. What starts as an authorized portrait of a typical family, however, soon proves to be a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda. Beyond simply dictating parameters for the supposed documentary shoot, government handlers have written a script to present a utopian version of life inside North Korea. Turning the tables, Mansky instead crafts a wry exposé of Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 5: MAD TIGER

Jonathan Yi and Michael Haertlein’s candid look at the personalities behind an eclectic music group made its bow at DOC NYC last year. Other fest berths have included CAAMFest, Minneapolis-St Paul, Salem, and Osaka.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week: DREAM/KILLER

Andrew Jenks’ exploration of a strange case of wrongful conviction made its bow at Tribeca last year. Screenings followed at Montclair, Sidewalk, Kansas, Hot Springs Doc, Heartland, Hamptons, and CPH:DOX, among other events.

In 2003, two years after the body of a newspaper editor was found in a parking lot, a young man named Charles Erickson stepped forward claiming responsibility for the murder. Offering a full confession, he was convicted, and implicated an accomplice, his childhood friend Ryan Ferguson. What makes this unusual is that Erickson couldn’t remember committing the crime, claiming a blackout from drugs, and instead credited a dream for jostling his memory. Despite an absence of any physical evidence, and Ferguson’s vehement denial of any connection to the murder, he too was convicted. With his son facing forty years in prison for a crime he swore he did not commit, Ferguson’s father, Bill, began his own investigation, and, as recounted in Jenks’ engaging film, uncovers a shocking series of breaches by the prosecution that provide his son with a fighting chance to win his freedom. At its best when it keeps focused on Bill and defense attorney Kathleen Zellner’s efforts, rather than on odd semi-animated interstitials offering Ryan’s reflections on his prison experience, the film offers a damning critique of a justice system more concerned with getting and maintaining convictions than on seeing crimes actually solved.