Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres this Friday, May 30: BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

PJ Raval’s affecting portrait of gays growing older debuted at SXSW last year. Its fest circuit has included IFF Boston, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Lone Star, Cucalorus, Cleveland, Florida, and several LGBT fests, including Inside Out, Outfest, Image Out, Reeling, Image + Nation, and Polari.

Noting the particular challenges often faced by LGBT seniors – which can include isolation, a return to the closet within homophobic nursing home facilities, and lack of access to relevant social and health services – Raval set out to share the stories of three elders. Dennis came out only after he became a widower, but not to his family, feeling comfortable expressing his true self only in the controlled environments of an LGBT retirement home or on a gay cruise; Ty is an advocate for LGBT seniors, and faces a big decision when New York State legalizes gay marriage; and Robert, the owner of a gay bar, faces health problems that exacerbate his financial and legal struggles to keep his business open. Sometimes bittersweet, their experiences speak to a certain generation of gay men who grew up in a far less open and accepting society, but also to a more universal reckoning with age, health, mortality, and regret – factors that we all too often try to ignore or avoid.

Coming to NYC’s Film Forum this Wednesday, May 28: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE

Matthew Pond and Kirk Marcolina’s portrait of a charismatic jewel thief had its world premiere at Hot Docs last year. It went on to screen at IDFA, Woodstock, Tallgrass, Antenna, Hot Springs, Cleveland, Docaviv, and the ArcLight Hollywood Doc fests, among others.

I previously wrote about the film out of Hot Docs here.

Coming to VOD today, Friday, May 23: HANNA RANCH

Mitch Dickman’s profile of a noted environmentally-focused Coloradan rancher had its world premiere at Starz Denver last year. In addition to community screenings and the Durango film fest, it recently opened theatrically. Gravitas now releases the doc on VOD platforms including iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, PlayStation, Vudu, Amazon Instant Video, XBOX, and various cable on demand providers.

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

Coming to NYC’s IFC Center tomorrow, Friday, May 23: A WORLD NOT OURS

Mahdi Fleifel’s personal reflection on life in a Palestinian refugee camp debuted at Toronto in 2012. It went on to screen at Berlin, Abu Dhabi, CPH:DOX, BAFICI, Reykjavik Shorts & Docs, and DOC NYC, where it won a jury award.

Infused with surprising humor and nostalgia in equal parts, Fleifel’s film follows the director as he returns to Ain el-Helweh, the refugee camp in southern Lebanon where he grew up. Though his immediate family left this setting long ago for Europe, other relatives remain, providing Fleifel with a contemporary link that balances out his memories. The latter are aided by the cogent use of an archive of family home video footage shot by his father, providing a clear sense of the simultaneous passage of time yet a paradoxical stasis, reflecting the limbo of Ain el-Helweh – a camp which, when established in 1948, was surely not meant to become its inhabitants permanent homes – not to mention that of their descendants, generations later. Fleifel’s film succeeds in humanizing the refugee experience, while it reminds the viewer that the political is also personal in a way that is too rarely seen in works related to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Coming to theatres this Friday, May 23: GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

Nicholas Wrathall’s profile of the late author and thinker had its world premiere last year at Tribeca. It went on to screen at IFF Boston, Ptown, Frameline, Outfest, Melbourne, Vancouver, London, Rio, Hot Springs Doc, Traverse City, Aspen, Milan, New Zealand, Big Sky, and Bergen, picking up awards at Palm Springs and the United Nations Association fests, among others.

I previously included the doc in my Tribeca coverage here.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, May 20: KIDS FOR CASH

Robert May’s in-depth analysis of a juvenile justice system scandal made its debut last year at DOC NYC. It enjoyed a limited theatrical release this past Winter, and now comes to VOD platforms via FilmBuff.

In 2008, two Pennsylvanian judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, known for their tough stances on juvenile crime, were embroiled in what was dubbed the “kids for cash” scandal. Following an FBI investigation, the two men were accused of receiving kickbacks from two for-profit juvenile detention facilities, imposing harsh sentences allegedly to keep a steady flow of new inmates – or at least that’s the way the media reported the circumstances of their misconduct. While initially working out a plea agreement, Ciavarella’s continued denial of wrongdoing in regards to sentencing offenders resulted in a criminal trial for Ciavarella, a revised plea bargain for Conahan, and the reversal of thousands of verdicts made by them in their time on the bench. Using this scandal as a vehicle to explore America’s shameful, profit-driven, and fear-mongering approach to juvenile justice, May’s engaging film profiles several of the individuals and families indelibly affected by their harsh sentencing, enabled by zero tolerance policies instituted post-Columbine, while also gaining the cooperation of both Ciavarella and Conahan so that they can tell their own, more nuanced, but still infuriating version of wrongdoing.