Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, April 1: FRANCOFONIA

Alexander Sokurov’s hybrid meditation on art through the lens of a Nazi-controlled Louvre made its debut at Venice last year, where it won two awards. The film went on to screen at Toronto, London, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, Reykjavik, Haifa, and Vancouver, among several other events.

Resistant to easy classification, Sokurov’s latest combines elements of essay film, archival documentary, and fiction to explore the intersections of culture, history, and politics through the museum. While the bulk of the film is concerned with the Louvre under the Nazi Occupation, and focuses on the complex relationship between museum director Jacques Jaujard and Nazi Kunstschutz officer Franzikus Wolff-Metternich – portrayed by actors here – Sokurov expands beyond a conventional fictional retelling, inserting his authorial voice via a running essay commentary and, far less successfully, aborted Skype communications with a sea captain transporting valuable works of art in a storm and intermittent explorations of the museum’s holdings via the spirits of Napoleon and Marianne, the female representation of the nation of France, who just repeats “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” If these esoteric trappings don’t quite cohere, the director, allowed seemingly unfettered access to the museum, nevertheless captures the Louvre – and a particularly fraught period in its history – from a decidedly unique perspective, making for an often engaging curio.

New to iTunes this week: BIKES VS CARS

Fredrik Gertten’s exploration of the environmental impact of personal transportation premiered at Tempo Documentary Festival last year. Screenings followed at SXSW, Docs Against Gravity, Sydney, Melbourne, Transilvania, Big Sky, Sedona, SF Green, and DC’s Environmental fest. While the film has previously been available on Vimeo on Demand, Kino Lorber now expands its VOD to include iTunes.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week: CODEGIRL

Lesley Chilcott’s look at a competition that encourages teenage girls to enter the tech space premiered at CPH:DOX last year. The doc has also screened at Athena and the Los Angeles Women’s International fests.

Noting the lack of women in the otherwise burgeoning tech field, the Technovation Challenge aims to kickstart girls’ involvement, ultimately awarding a $10,000 prize to a winning smartphone app pitch developed by teams of high school girls around the world. Chilcott follows a number of teams as they prepare their entries, which are meant to focus on identifying and solving local problems via technology, and learn of their standing in the overall competition. Once a team fails to advance, the film moves on to profile a new set of contenders from scratch, ultimately resulting in an oddly cursory sense of eleven teams and their hit-or-miss projects, and very little individuation for its members. In contrast to other films in the competition doc sub-genre, the focus seems less about who wins and more about the empowerment gained through involvement in Technovation. Still, what’s missing is a personal or driving force to the narrative, aside from the mechanics of the challenge process. The audience doesn’t have a chance to connect with any particular team or individual personality, making the presentations by the finalists drag, and the announcement of the winning group lack impact.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, March 29: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING

David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s chronicle of creativity in the face of mortality debuted at Tribeca last year. The film’s fest circuit also included New Orleans, Hot Docs, IDFA, Bentonville, Woods Hole, Melbourne, Camden, Antenna, United Nations Association, and Rio. FilmBuff now releases the doc on VOD platforms following a limited theatrical release earlier this month.

I previously wrote about the film here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 29: A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON

Les Blank’s long unreleased 1974 Leon Russell film finally made its debut at SXSW last year. The film went on to screen at AFI Docs, BAMcinemaFest, New Zealand, Melbourne, IDFA, London, and Goteborg, in addition to a theatrical release this past Summer.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its release here.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, March 29: DOG DAYS

Laura Waters Hinson and Kasey Kirby’s look at street food vending in Washington DC debuted at the Austin Film Festival in 2013. It also screened at the Santa Barbara fest as well as at special events in DC.

After Coite, a newly-married industrial engineer, loses his job, he takes a gamble by starting an entrepreneurial venture: Providing more creative, healthier food options for DC’s street vendors to sell – despite having no kitchen experience or skill. Taking a crash culinary course thanks to his visiting aunt, Coite seeks out vendors who will test market his idea, and finds an early client in Eritrean immigrant Siyone, a divorced mother of four who has run her struggling hot dog stand for 22 years. While the film reveals how vendors like Siyone are subject to both stringent regulation and a suppliers monopoly, it stumbles in placing most of its focus on Coite. While affable enough, he’s far less compelling than Siyone, and, despite his unemployment woes, he awkwardly comes from a position of privilege as a white male seeking to enter a field he knows nothing about, hawking appropriated cuisine (Jamaican jerk chicken) he doesn’t even know how to make through the vehicle of still-beleaguered vendors who, at least as its represented here, are primarily female people of color. Still, Waters Hinson and Kirby succeed in demonstrating the bureaucracy, and the lack of advocacy, that has made it difficult for small business owners like Siyone to realize their American Dream.