Category Archives: Documentary

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.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, May 20: THE GREAT FLOOD

Bill Morrison’s meditation on a momentous 1927 flood debuted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011 in an early form. A revised version screened at fests in Cleveland, Vancouver, Adelaide, and Vienna, while also appearing at special performance concerts at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere before its limited theatrical run at the beginning of the year.

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

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, May 20: WHOOPI GOLDBERG PRESENTS MOMS MABLEY

Whoopi Goldberg’s love letter to an all-but-forgotten pioneering African-American comedienne premiered last year at Tribeca. It went on to screen at Chicago’s Black Harvest, Mill Valley, Austin, and Provincetown, among others, before its broadcast on HBO last Fall.

I included the film in my Tribeca coverage here.

Coming to PBS’s American Masters today, Friday, May 16: PLIMPTON! STARRING GEORGE PLIMPTON AS HIMSELF

Tom Bean and Luke Poling’s portrait of the Everyman journalist premiered at Silverdocs in 2012. Its fest circuit included DOC NYC, Martha’s Vineyard, Camden, Hamptons, Hot Springs, Austin, Palm Springs, Cleveland, Oxford, and RiverRun.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, May 16: HANNA RANCH

Mitch Dickman’s chronicle of the life and legacy of an eco-rancher debuted at Denver last year and went on to screen at the Durango Film Festival earlier this year.

Eric Schlosser, who serves as executive producer, famously wrote about “eco-cowboy” Kirk Hanna in FAST FOOD NATION, a Colorado cattleman who saw the importance of holistic resource management on his family’s ranch and became the unlikely bridge between seemingly disparate constituencies – environmentalists and ranchers. Dickman’s engaging film details Hanna’s life, his prescient grasp of the dangers of urban overdevelopment, and forward-thinking drive for land conservation. Born into a ranch family, the early death of his father eventually led to the unification of two adjacent ranches via his mother’s remarriage. But with this commingled family came complicated inheritance issues, infighting, and egos – all handled, to Dickman’s credit, with finesse and relative economy. For a time, with one quarrelsome brother out of the way, Hanna began to accomplish much, not only on his own ranch, but for embattled cattlemen around the West. Personal demons surfaced, however, eventually leading the charismatic Hanna to claim his own life. While the balance between Hanna’s family dynamics and his public activities feels a bit off – the former remain far more compelling, with particularly resonant interviews with his widow and younger brother – Dickman is quite good at engendering genuine curiosity about Hanna, his family, and their story.

Coming to NYC’s Quad Cinema tomorrow, Friday, May 16: A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ROMA

Aaron Yeger’s chronicle of the long-persecuted European minority debuted at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2011. Other fests have included Heartland, Mumbai, Starz Denver, Santa Barbara, Cleveland, Full Frame, Salem, Kassel Doc, Documentary Edge, Beldocs, and St Louis, among others.

Widely misunderstood, the Roma – popularly known by the pejorative “Gypsies” – were one of several groups targeted during the Nazi era, with an estimated half a million Romani exterminated in concentration camps. Still the subject of persecution and intolerance in the modern era, scapegoated throughout Europe by the rising tide of nationalism and right-wing fascistic politics, many fear the horrors of the past may too easily be revisited upon them in the future. Yeger’s strongly lensed and well-constructed film advocates for a culture that, as suggested by its title, has been too often neglected, revealing past injustices and the reality of Roma life today, drawing on the testimony of Holocaust survivors, academics, and others standing up for justice for this people.