Category Archives: Film Festivals

Florida’s Sarasota Film Festival opens its 17th edition today, Friday, April 10, and runs through Sunday, April 19. While the festival lost longtime director Tom Hall to Montclair this year, the event has maintained its scope, presenting nearly 150 features, with about a third of those nonfiction, including Centerpiece selection BRAND: A SECOND COMING, Ondi Timoner’s portrait of UK comedian/provocateur Russell Brand which recently opened SXSW. What follows are highlights of some of the event’s other documentary programming, reflecting newer or less familiar work not previously covered on this site. Continue reading →

The second edition of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real series begins tomorrow, Friday, April 10, and runs through Sunday, April 26. Dennis Lim and Rachael Rakes’ program continues its mission to broaden standard conceptions of nonfiction, giving viewers the opportunity to sample an eclectic, and sometimes, esoteric, assemblage of offerings. This year’s event opens with a shorts program and closes with Jenni Olson’s Sundance essay, THE ROYAL ROAD (pictured), with other special programming including an Agnès Varda tribute and a spotlight on the use of reenactment in film.

The remaining main program consists of sixteen new and retrospective feature films, as well as some additional short form programming. Some of the highlights among the newer feature work include the North American premieres of: Gustavo Vinagre’s NOVA DUBAI (pictured), a rumination on gay desire in an urban landscape; Alain Cavalier’s LE PARADIS, an essay film about encroaching mortality; and Luisa Homem and Pedro Pinho’s TRADING CITIES, an observational profile of the impact of development on Cape Verde.

Some of the US premieres screening during the two week series are: Daniel Hui’s speculative portrait of Singapore, SNAKESKIN; René Frölke’s experimental biography of an exiled Romanian writer, LE BEAU DANGER (pictured); and Ion de Sosa’s hybrid, future-set exploration of Spain, ANDROIDS DREAM.

Brazil’s It’s All True International Documentary Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary beginning tomorrow, Thursday, April 9 with a screening of the late Eduardo Coutinho’s LAST CONVERSATIONS. The festival will run through Sunday, April 19 in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, while tours will continue in other cities into May and June. More than 40 new features will screen, with shorts and retrospectives bringing the total lineup to over 100 films. Continue reading →

This Thursday, April 9 kicks off year 18 for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, which will present over 60 new doc features, plus shorts, retrospective programming, and several conversations before it wraps up on Sunday, April 12. In addition to a smartly curated lineup culling some of the best work from Sundance, IDFA, SXSW, and other previous events, the Durham NC fest also introduces its audiences to several notable premieres: Continue reading →

Cinéma du Reél, the documentary festival of Paris, opens its 37th edition tonight, Thursday, March 19, and continues through Sunday, March 30. While programming remains geared to visual anthropology, this year’s event also has stated an openness to flexible considerations of nonfiction forms, represented by opening night selection AUSTERLITZ, a hybrid by Stan Neumann which draws inspiration from a novel by WG Sebald. The event’s various special screenings, retrospectives, and tributes – covering a range of creators from Haskell Wexler to Amit Dutta, and exploring nonfiction from China to Greece – also attempt to bridge the past with the future. The focus below, however, remains on the newer films in the fest’s lineup, as represented in its three feature competition sections: Continue reading →