Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, October 31: MAGICAL UNIVERSE

Jeremy Workman’s portrait of an eccentric artist debuted at the Florida Film Festival last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, New Orleans, Woodstock, Big Sky, Salem, Hot Springs, and SF DocFest. In addition to select theatrical dates, the doc will be available on VOD platforms from Sundance Selects, including iTunes.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC, saying:
Step into the unique and visionary world of lifetime outsider artist Al Carbee, an 88-year old eccentric who spends his days creating outlandish works of art featuring Barbie dolls. Filmmaker Jeremy Workman has spent over a decade with his friend Carbee, compiling extensive footage and memories to provide audiences with a window into the magical universe of Carbee’s bizarre creative force and a glimpse of an otherwise unknown artist’s lifelong body of work.

Coming to NYC’s Film Forum today, Wednesday, October 29: REVENGE OF THE MEKONS

Joe Angio’s look at the surprisingly long-lived band debuted at DOC NYC last year. It’s gone on to screen at Cucalorus, Leeds, Milwaukee, DOXA, Sarasota, and In-Edit Barcelona, among others.

Angio’s entertaining film is a love-letter to the self-effacing UK band which started as something of an art school project at the University of Leeds but has somehow managed to continue for over three decades. Despite critical acclaim and an enthusiastic fanbase, they’ve never quite broken into mainstream success, with bandmates still having to hold day jobs. Angio charts their development from 1976 university students who didn’t quite know what punk was – or how to play the instruments they “borrowed” from the real punk band, The Gang of Four – through multiple reinventions – Thatcher-era folk, American honkeytonk, anti-grunge rock, and most recently art world darlings – alienating record companies along the way, but always remaining quintessentially punk.

Coming to Showtime tomorrow, Thursday, October 30: BRONX OBAMA

Ryan Murdock’s profile of a presidential impersonator bowed at True/False this Winter. Its fest circuit has included AFI Docs, Montclair, Traverse City, Hot Docs, Ambulante CA, and Bergen.

I previously wrote about the film here.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, October 29: THE GREAT INVISIBLE

Margaret Brown’s exploration of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster debuted at SXSW this Spring, where it won the doc grand jury prize. It’s gone on to screen at New Orleans, Hot Docs, London, Camden, Abu Dhabi, Zurich, Full Frame, Philadelphia, and the upcoming DOC NYC in the Short List section.

Brown, a native of the Alabama coast that, like other Gulf coastal communities still deeply feels the impact of the oil spill, revisits the accident to which, as signaled by her film’s title, the rest of the world – and the government in particular – has too soon and too conveniently turned a blind eye. Less interested in detailing a comprehensive analysis of blame, Brown instead offers a kaleidoscopic – and sobering – view of the interconnectedness of the oil industry, Southern culture, local economies, and the natural world upon which they’re all dependent. Listening in on good ol’ boy talk from oil company execs one minute, the heartbreaking tales of depression and trauma from survivors the next, followed by the skeptical and wronged fishermen and oystermen whose livelihood has been jeopardized, the film constructs an indelible portrait of just how far-ranging Deepwater continues to be, more than four years later.