Category Archives: Overviews

Tomorrow, Thursday, July 7, sees the start of the 33rd Jerusalem Film Festival, which will present more than 100 new feature films before its closing night on Sunday, July 17. With more than 40 documentaries, the festival demonstrates an increase from last year’s nonfiction numbers, though still fewer than it has shown in past editions. The following offers some highlights, focused primarily on new Israeli offerings:

This year’s Documentary Competition once again presents seven titles: Michael Alalu’s PEPE’S LAST BATTLE (pictured), which follows the director’s secular father in his longshot Jerusalem mayoral run; Yariv Mozar’s BEN-GURION, EPILOGUE, constructed from a long-lost interview conducted with the Israeli pioneer late in his life; Michal Aviad’s DIMONA TWIST, about the experiences of women who immigrated to a small Israeli desert community in the 1950s and ’60s; Maya Zinshtein’s FOREVER PURE, which chronicles the racist backlash that followed the inclusion of Muslim players on a Jerusalem soccer team; Kobi Faraj’s PHOTO FARAJ, a personal excavation of the director’s family’s photography business; Yonatan Nir’s MY HERO BROTHER, about a group of Down syndrome youth trekking through the Himalayas with their siblings; and Era Lapid and Haim Lapid’s KINDERGARTEN, which re-examines an accusation of abuse against a schoolteacher.

Among the Israeli work appearing outside of competition are Maayan Schwartz’s MY FRIEND, YANIV, about a man who longs to finally find his independence; and Neta Shoshani and David Ofek’s HOUSE CALL (pictured), an intimate look at home hospice care for the terminally ill. Additional newer, non-Israeli, titles appearing at the festival and focused on Middle Eastern concerns include Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young’s DISTURBING THE PEACE, on former enemies turned peacemakers; and David Schisgall’s THEO WHO LIVED, about an American journalist kidnapped and later freed by Al-Qaeda forces in Syria.

Tonight, Friday, July 1 sees the start of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The 51st edition of the Czech Republic’s most notable film event offers audiences approximately 150 new and recent features, including just under 40 works of nonfiction, before it wraps on Saturday, July 9. In contrast to last year’s program, which included standalone competitive and non-competitive documentary strands, this year’s features only the former, with the latter parceled out amongst various other non-competitive sections. Some of the highlights include the following.

Among the dozen titles included in this year’s Documentary Film Competition are: Manuel Abramovich’s SOLAR, in which the director struggles to control his portrait of a New Age author; Leire Apellaniz’s THE LAST SUMMER (pictured), on a traveling film projectionist’s final season; Vitaly Mansky’s CLOSE RELATIONS, the Ukrainian filmmaker’s personal meditation on the complex case of his homeland; Tomáš Bojar and Rozálie Kohoutová’s FC ROMA, about the chilly reception received by an all-Roma Czech soccer team; Alice Diop’s ON CALL, an observational portrait of a French doctor who tends to immigrants for free; and Miroslav Janek’s NORMAL AUTISTIC FILM, an attempt to reframe autism not as a condition but as a different way of seeing the world.

Nonfiction appearing out of competition includes: Helena Třeštíková and Jakub Hejna’s DOOMED BEAUTY (pictured), about a Czech actress whose career suffered after an affair with Nazi Joseph Goebbels; and Pavel Štingl’s COURAGE, which captures a celebrated Czech sculptor as he works on his latest high-profile commission; Christophe Bisson’s SFUMATO, a portrait of French artist Bernard Legay; and the hybrids BROTHERHOOD, Pepe Diokno’s inside look at the secret social mores that govern the Philippines; and HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!, Žiga Virc’s speculative exposé of Yugoslavia’s secret 1960s space program.

The 14th edition of AFI Docs comes a week later this year, opening tomorrow, Wednesday, June 22 and running through the end of the weekend. The Washington DC event opens with Alex Gibney’s cyber-warfare investigation, ZERO DAYS, and closes with Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s tribute to a television pioneer, NORMAN LEAR: JUST ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU, while LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD screens as part of this year’s Guggenheim Symposium with director Werner Herzog.

While the majority of this year’s approximately 50 features offer DC audiences the chance to catch films that have generated attention at major fests like Sundance, IDFA, SXSW, and Tribeca, AFI Docs also offers a number of premieres. This year’s world premieres are: Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio’s DOC & DARRYL, on baseball legends Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry; Jamie Sisley and Miguel MiG Martinez’s FAREWELL FERRIS WHEEL, a look at the lives of Mexican migrant carnival workers; and Nicole Opper’s VISITOR’S DAY (pictured), about the efforts of a street kid to better his life.

Other films making at least US debuts at the festival include: Tamar Tal Anati’s SHALOM ITALIA, which follows Jewish brothers as they search for the Tuscan cave that sheltered their family during WWII; Martin Kollar’s 5 OCTOBER, a portrait of the director’s brother before a potentially life-threatening surgery; Maciej Adamek’s TWO WORLDS, about a hearing teenage daughter of deaf parents; Paula Heredia’s TOUCAN NATION, on an abused bird that became a rallying symbol for Costa Rican animal rights; and Trisha Ziff’s THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH (pictured), about a veteran crime scene photographer in Mexico City.

The world’s oldest LGBT film fest, San Francisco’s Frameline, celebrates its 40th anniversary beginning tomorrow, Thursday, June 16. Approximately 70 new and retrospective features will screen through the course of its eleven-night run before it wraps on Sunday, June 26. Highlights of the more than two dozen documentaries on offer follow: Continue reading →

The Edinburgh International Film Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, June 15. Before it wraps on Sunday, June 26, the event will unspool more than 125 new features, including approximately 30 docs, as well as a host of retrospective offerings. The following offers a brief look at a selection of the nonfiction being presented: Continue reading →

The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s popular BAMcinemaFest kicks off tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 15. This year’s edition, the eighth, will present nearly 30 features before it wraps on Sunday, June 26, among them eight recent documentaries from Sundance and elsewhere on the circuit and one retrospective presentation. Continue reading →

Tonight, Friday, June 10 sees the opening of the 27th New York City edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which uses the power of storytelling to expose and bear witness to human rights issues both internationally and domestically. The event is primarily a nonfiction showcase, with a smaller number of vetted, fact-based fiction features and special panels also included. This year’s lineup offers seventeen documentary features which will screen through Sunday, June 19, including the following highlights:

Several films explore human rights in the United States, such as Michael Collins’ ALMOST SUNRISE (pictured), which follows two veterans as the cross the country by foot as a way to combat the after-effects of war. Other treks are explored in films about crises and migration, including George Kurian’s THE CROSSING, about the flight of Syrian refugees to Europe.

Among the projects addressing issues of accountability and justice are Tatiana Huezo’s consideration of victims of corruption in Mexico, TEMPESTAD (pictured); and Michele Mitchell and Nick Louvel’s look at the struggle to have rape acknowledged as a war crime, THE UNCONDEMNED.

Women’s rights are the subject of a number of offerings, including Maisie Crow’s JACKSON, which looks at the battle being waged against abortion clinics in the South; while films focusing on LGBT rights include Eric Juhola’s GROWING UP COY, about a six-year-old transgender girl whose barring from using her school’s girls’ bathroom leads to a civil rights case.

Sheffield Doc/Fest‘s 23rd edition begins tomorrow, Friday, June 10. The popular six-day event draws filmmakers and industry to South Yorkshire for a lineup featuring over 100 new and recent feature docs, plus retrospective work, shorts, and industry programming. In addition to presenting the UK bows of some of the standout titles that have debuted elsewhere over the past year, the event also showcases notable new titles, such as the highlights noted below: Continue reading →

The Sydney Film Festival begins today, Wednesday, June 8, and runs through Sunday, June 19. Approximately 150 features will unspool during the event, which holds its 63rd edition this year. The following highlights a selection of the nearly 60 new and recent nonfiction features appearing in the festival: Continue reading →

Taking place in Johannesburg and Cape Town between today, Thursday, June 2 and next Sunday, June 12, South Africa’s Encounters is the continent’s largest nonfiction event. The 18th edition of the festival includes more than three dozen nonfiction features, with nearly half of that number representing African productions, including the highlights below: Continue reading →