Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, May 19: DESPITE THE GODS
Penny Vozniak’s behind-the-scenes look at a film director’s seemingly doomed comeback had its world premiere at Hot Docs in 2012. It also screened at Sydney, Fantasia, Raindance, Stockholm, Sitges, Chicago, Atlanta DocuFest, and Minneapolis St Paul, among others.
I previously wrote about the film out of Hot Docs here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, May 19 and to theatres this Friday, May 22: SUNSHINE SUPERMAN
Marah Strauch’s portrait of a pioneering extreme sports figure took off at Toronto last Fall. It went on to screen at the New York Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard, Sarasota, Montclair, Atlanta, Cleveland, Vancouver, and Florida, among several others.
Strauch’s subject is Carl Boenish, an energetic engineer who gave up his career to devote himself to the activity he termed BASE jumping – an awkward acronym denoting the fixed point from which the jump would originate: Building, Antenna, Span (bridges), and Earth (cliffs). Notably, and to the film’s great benefit, Boenish also became obsessed with filming his activities, rigging small cameras to the helmets of jumpers to create nonfiction adventure shorts that Strauch draws from extensively, and which in turn draw in the viewer into an immersive experience of the thrill-seeking sport. This footage, while sometimes crude, most successfully conveys Boenish’s extroverted personality, and the lengths he goes to challenge himself, sneaking into construction sites and making retrospectively ridiculous deals with park rangers to allow him to cultivate his passion. Present-day interviews with old colleagues and especially his widow, Jean, who became as enamored with BASE jumping as her much more excitable spouse, are far more conventional, while re-enactments add slickness to the proceeding but not much else, and instead diminish the impact of Boenish’s own footage and existing archival records. Strauch understandably structures her narrative to build up to Boenish’s strange 1984 death, where, just one day after he set a record, he appeared to attempt a reckless jump from a mountain peak that had explicitly been deemed far too dangerous, and did so without telling anyone, leading to armchair psychologizing and speculations about suicide. Despite its protagonist’s demise, and the the inherent danger of the activity he popularized, however, somehow the film manages to maintain a feeling of celebration and exploration.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, May 18: 1971
Johanna Hamilton’s look at an early group’s efforts to expose federal surveillance debuted at Tribeca last year. Other fest play included IDFA, Sheffield, AFI Docs, Traverse City, and CPH:DOX, before its release this past Winter.
I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, May 18: SOUTHERN RITES
Gillian Laub’s investigation into the complexity of race relations in the American South made its debut at Hot Docs last month. The film now has its broadcast premiere on HBO.
Six years ago, Laub, a noted photographer, published a series of photographs in The New York Times Magazine on the shameful continued practice of racially segregated high school proms in Montgomery County, Georgia. Bowing to the public pressure that ensued, the school district decided to integrate the prom the following year, but when Laub returned to document the event, it was made very clear that she was not welcome, as shown in the opening scene of her film. Instead, she switched her attention to two separate, only tangentially related stories, both reflecting the region’s still troubling relationship to race: the nearby murder of 22-year-old African American Justin Patterson by Norman Neesmith, an old white man, and the efforts of Calvin Burns, the county’s first African American chief of police, to seek the seat of sheriff. The bulk of Laub’s film details the circumstances and the aftermath of the first of these, which turns out to be more complicated than one might initially imagine, but nevertheless hinges on ingrained, even unconscious, assumptions about race that lead to tragic, unnecessary violence. The second thread, which finds the supremely qualified Burns facing off against an opponent with zero law enforcement experience, speaks to the same racial politics still in play in the county that enabled the Patterson/Neesmith case. Despite the welcome presence of Burns’ outspoken, frustrated daughter Keyke, this storyline, like the forestalled prom coverage, never quite comes together here, and feels underdeveloped compared to the more compelling primary story that Laub explores. Nevertheless, the film, like Laub’s original prom portraits, sheds much needed light on a powder keg issue.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 15: DARK STAR: HR GIGER’S WORLD
Belinda Sallin’s tribute to the Swiss surrealist debuted at Zurich last year. Other fest engagements have included Hong Kong, BAFICI, and Sitges, among others.
HR Giger, best known as the designer for ALIEN, allows filmmaker Sallin to enter his Zurich home, a hoarder’s paradise crammed to the rafters with books, artwork, and skulls, in the months before his death last May. Foregoing a traditional biographical approach, Sallin instead primarily records the goings on in the space, with the majority of the interviews handled not by Giger himself but his wife, mother-in-law, assistant, and other members of his coterie. Anecdotes abound, many relating to Giger’s fascination with death and sex, as represented by his biomechanical spraypainted illustrations, while others get into more personal territory, such as extended consideration of his deceased first wife – though there seems to be an assumption that viewers know who she was. Some footage of the artist in his prime offers stark contrast with his present state, with his elocution particularly difficult now, its cause not explained here. While the film attempts to cover some interesting terrain – including longstanding friction between his popular work and the art world, only recently smoothed over – Sallin seems so convinced that Giger’s history is already public knowledge that she barely makes an effort to make her subject accessible to a viewer who has very limited familiarity with the man and his work. As a result, the film ultimately feels too insular to successfully connect with broader audiences, but will likely be embraced by the artist’s pre-existing fanbase.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 15: OUR MAN IN TEHRAN
Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein’s corrective to ARGO’s factual looseness debuted at Toronto in 2013. It went on to screen at Thessaloniki Doc, Full Frame, Newport Beach, and Galway, among others.
I previously included the doc in my Toronto coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
One of the world’s lengthiest film events, the Seattle International Film Festival kicks off three weeks of programming tonight, Thursday, May 14. More than 72 new and recent documentary features will screen through the wrap up of the festival’s 41st edition on Sunday, June 7. While the bulk of these represents standout selections culled from the recent line-ups of other notable events, from Toronto and Berlin to Sundance and SXSW, Seattle also showcases a number of less familiar and some brand new titles as well. The following primarily focuses on these: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, May 13: ONE CUT, ONE LIFE
Lucia Small and Ed Pincus’ personal meditation on mortality and collaboration made its bow at Full Frame last year. Its fest circuit has included IFF Boston, Woods Hole, Torino, and the New York Film Festival, among others.
Within a short span of time, two of filmmaker Lucia Small’s close friends die violent, unexpected deaths, and she learns that her one-time filmmaking partner, Ed Pincus, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Pincus, a pioneering figure in American nonfiction, had long ago retired from the craft to a quiet life with his wife Jane and his flower farm in Vermont. His previous collaboration with Small, 2007’s THE AXE IN THE ATTIC, brought him back to filmmaking, but put a strain on their friendship. Faced with his mortality and her friends’ recent deaths – and Jane’s objections – the duo decides to reunite on a new first-person project that instead celebrates life. Doubling as an examination of their fraught partnership and the tensions of the documentary/subject relationship, their intimate, sometimes (purposely) uncomfortable, film becomes a way for both participants to take charge of their respective traumas, and, if not heal them, at least make their peace.
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Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, May 12: A YEAR IN CHAMPAGNE
David Kennard’s made its world premiere at Santa Barbara last year. Other fests included Palm Beach, Minneapolis-St Paul, Newport Beach, Hawaii, and Portland. The film was released theatrically and on VOD in March.
The second in a proposed trilogy on wines, Kennard’s film brings viewers to France’s Champagne region to present a cursory look at wine-making over the course of four seasons, beginning in Spring 2012. Of primary concern to the different families of vintners profiled here is the weather, which can wreak havoc with the grape harvest and potentially ruin an entire vintage. While the season starts off warm, rain and cold soon take hold, calling into question the grapevines ability to produce, and necessitating extreme measures like crop spraying to fend off mildew, insects, and rot. While a significant portion of the crop has been lost, the remaining grapes, while small, prove of excellent quality, allowing the workmanlike film to move on to demonstrate the next basic steps in the wine-making process, checking in with different Champagne producers to get a glimpse of the harvest, the pressing, the fermentation, and the careful consideration of how to blend the different grapes to produce the next vintage. Throughout, Kennard narrates in a cheeky, irritating manner which matches the superficiality of the film and makes it far better suited to small screens.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 13, sees the launch of the 68th edition of Cannes, the most prestigious film festival in the world – at least for fiction films. Once again, the event’s organizers, as well as those of the concurrent independently-run events, Directors’ Fortnight and International Critics’ Week, barely acknowledge that nonfiction is capable of more than just inside baseball film biographies. Out of 54 features in the Official Selection, there are merely two documentaries, both out of competition. None are in Un Certain Regard or the Special Screenings sections, and instead, as usual, shore up the retrospective and cinephilic Cannes Classics sidebar. Between the independent events, there is only one doc, in Directors’ Fortnight, with none appearing in International Critics’ Week. A rundown of all of these follows: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
what (not) to doc 