Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres today, Friday, August 21: THE IRON MINISTRY

JP Sniadecki’s immersion into China’s railway system made its debut at Locarno last year. Since then, it has screened at the NYFF, Rotterdam, Vancouver, Edinburgh, Camden, Chicago, DocLisboa, Viennale, CPH:DOX, San Deigo Asian, RIDM, Cork, Ambulante, and Vilnius, among several others.

Though filmed between 2011 and 2013, Sniadecki erases any indications of specific time or place in his presentation, suggesting instead a singular, if non-contiguous, journey to and from unidentified stations, but which nevertheless offers quiet commentary on contemporary China. After an extended introduction in which the audience only hears mechanical noises against a blackness, the filmmaker offers disorienting close-ups of the connectors between train cars before widening out to showcase the far-from delectable wares of a butcher who’s set up an improvised stall. From there, Sniadecki traverses the expanse of the locomotive, lingering occasionally to record conversations between passengers, including some surprisingly outspoken thoughts on politics and the economy. Welcome moments of humor, notably an early scene in which a precocious young boy performs a scathing satirical impression of a conductor’s welcome, contrast with longer, drawn out sequences, as when a snack car vendor sells his items through car after car, answering the same question over and over. Like the work of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab with which the director is associated, this is spectatorship as experience, and while not for every viewer, it offers an immediacy that is both memorable and fleeting at the same time.

Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, August 24: POINT AND SHOOT

Marshall Curry’s look at an unlikely freedom fighter in Libya debuted at Tribeca last year, where it won the Best Documentary Award. Its fest circuit has also included Hot Docs, AFI Docs, IFF Boston, Nashville, Traverse City, New Zealand, and Melbourne.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to LA theatres tomorrow, Friday, August 21 and to VOD next Tuesday, August 25: MATEO

Aaron I Naar’s portrait of a gringo mariachi singer made its bow at SXSW last year. Screenings followed at Hot Docs, Martha’s Vineyard, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound+Vision series, Camden, Hot Springs Doc, In-Edit, Cork, and Rotterdam.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS this Friday, August 21: NATIONAL GALLERY

Frederick Wiseman’s tour of the London institution made its bow at Cannes last year. Other fest screenings included Toronto, NYFF, Deauville, Biografilm, London, Chicago, Vancouver, Sydney, and Busan, among others.

I previously wrote about the film upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 18: SOUND AND CHAOS: THE STORY OF BC STUDIO

Ryan Douglass and Sara Leavitt’s surprising history of a nondescript Brooklyn music studio debuted in the Netherlands last Summer. In addition to one-off engagements around Europe and the US, the doc has screened at Sound Unseen, Noise Pop, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound + Vision. It now comes to iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, VHX, and more via FilmBuff.

Revealing the underground music history of a singular place, Douglass and Leavitt explore Martin Bisi’s titular recording studio, which has been in operation since the 1970s and has hosted a diverse range of musicians, from Brian Eno and Debbie Harry to Sonic Youth and Africa Bambaataa. As much a look back at a changing New York City as it is about its vibrant music culture, this modest film’s interviewees paint a vivid picture of a pre-gentrified Brooklyn full of gangs and stray dogs, and the kind of ramshackle old industrial buildings that provided Bisi’s studio with its unique sound.