Festival:
The 6th Art of the Real
Dates:
April 18-28
About:
The Film Society of Lincoln Center includes 20 new features in this annual showcase of innovative nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. Continue reading
Category Archives: Film
Art of the Real 2019 Overview
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
On DVD/VOD: STANDING UP
New to DVD and VOD this week:
STANDING UP
Director:
Jonathan Miller
Premiere:
DOC NYC 2017
Select Festivals:
Galway, DocuWest, AmDocs, Jewish fests in Toronto, Silicon Valley, Vancouver, and Washington
About:
A profile of three aspiring stand-up comics in NYC.
The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
So an Egyptian lawyer, a couch-surfing custodian, and an Orthodox Jew walk into a comedy club… and end up in a documentary. This appealing film follows these three unlikely aspiring stand-up comics, willing to risk everything in pursuit of their dreams of making it in comedy. Director Jonathan Miller tells their story with warmth and humor, taking us into the heart of New York City’s downtown open-mic scene, where would-be comics put it all on the line for laughs.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: HAIL SATAN?
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, April 17:
HAIL SATAN?
Director:
Penny Lane
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, CPH:DOX, Full Frame, San Francisco, What The Fest!?, Salem, Boston Underground, Freep, Sidewalk
About:
A provocative exploration of the separation of church and state through the unlikely rise of the Satanic Temple religious movement.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
On DVD/VOD: ANOTE’S ARK
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, April 16:
ANOTE’S ARK
Director:
Matthieu Rytz
Premiere:
Sundance 2018
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Vision du Reel, Docs MX, Black Nights Tallinn, Human Rights Watch, Big Sky Doc, Thin Line Doc, Washington DC Environmental, Movies That Matter, Cleveland, Minneapolis, LA Asian Pacific, DocLands, DOXA, Docs Against Gravity, Doc Edge, Mountainfilm
About:
An intimate chronicle of the consequences of climate change on a disappearing island nation.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
On DVD: SEALAB
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, April 16:
SEALAB
Director:
Stephen Ives
Premiere:
American Experience (February 2019)
About:
The story of the pioneering US Navy project which expanded the limits of deep sea diving.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
On TV: EXIT MUSIC
Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tonight, Tuesday, April 16:
EXIT MUSIC
Director:
Cameron Mullenneaux
Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018
Select Festivals:
Full Frame, Camden, Big Sky Doc, Bergen, Rooftop, SF Indie, GlobeDocs
About:
A portrait of a young artist facing his impending death after a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Special Screening: MOVING STORIES
Coming to NYC’s JCC Manhattan tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16:
MOVING STORIES
Director:
Rob Fruchtman
Premiere:
MoMA Doc Fortnight 2018
Select Festivals:
Mill Valley, Berkshire, Chagrin Falls Doc, Kansas, Heartland, Milwaukee, Cinequest, Sebastopol Doc, SF Dance, Transilvania
About:
A profile of an international dance program for at-risk youth.
Recognizing the power of art to bridge divides, NYC’s Battery Dance Company has developed Dancing to Connect, a program that uses modern dance to help youth around the world express themselves while working collaboratively with others, under the direction of professional dancers. With just a week between initial dance workshop and public performance, the program can be high-stress, but also transformative for both students and teachers alike. Fruchtman’s film follows six instructors in four countries working with marginalized students: slum-dwelling girls who have experienced violence and sex trafficking in India, North Korean refugees living in South Korea, together with South Korean orphans, the perpetually stigmatized Roma in Romania, and, in a departure from the typical program’s focus, a solo Muslim hip-hop dancer in Iraq, who faces severe repercussions were he to dance in public. Working with at-risk and troubled youth, the dance teachers face their fare share of disruption and resistance, not to mention culture clash, but the overwhelming majority of the participants are shown to benefit enormously from the program. While the film takes on a bit too much in its expansive focus, lending it a too cursory, survey-like feel at times, the overall message is a welcome one of hope, interconnection, and growth through art.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Special Screening: THIS IS PERSONAL
Coming to NYC’s Pure Nonfiction at IFC Center series tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16:
THIS IS PERSONAL
Director:
Amy Berg
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Athena
About:
A candid look at the work and challenges of modern day feminist activism.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
On TV: MARCOS DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Photo by Kimmer Olesak
MARCOS DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Director:
David Sutherland
Premiere:
San Diego Latino 2019
Select Festivals:
Salem, Garden State, Ft Myers
About:
A Marine Corps vet struggles to reunite her family after her husband is deported to Mexico.
Elizabeth Perez was a ten-year decorated veteran of the US Marines when she met and married her husband, Marcos, in 2009. A year later, when their first child was six months old and she was pregnant with their second, Marcos was detained after a traffic stop and deported back to Mexico. Having been previously deported and having re-entered the US illegally, Marcos was now subject to a minimum ten-year bar before he could even apply for a visa to return, regardless of his marriage to a US citizen or parentage of multiple children. As shown in Sutherland’s sobering chronicle, the entire family suffers gravely by this forced separation. While Elizabeth raises their children alone – whose number grows after Elizabeth visits Marcos in Mexico – and leads a seemingly Sisyphean campaign to bring her husband home, Marcos struggles with depression and loneliness, only able to watch his kids grow up via Skype calls and the rare in-person reunion. With Marcos urged by their lawyer not to attempt to re-enter the US via illegal means, the family tries to rally whatever support they can, partnering with a local Cleveland area Latinx organization, meeting with elected officials on both sides of the political divide, and attempting to use Elizabeth’s past military service to cut through bureaucratic red tape. As Elizabeth faces heartbreaking rejection after rejection, she must ponder giving up and relocating to Mexico with her children to live in exile with Marcos until his ban runs its course, or risk losing her marriage while Marcos misses out on his kids’ entire childhood. Sutherland’s film, while disarmingly intimate, feels epic in scope. Coming at a time of particular politicization of the issue of the US’s broken immigration system and its deleterious impact on families, the film is also notable in its resistance to easy partisanship or demonization of either side, instead using the story of the Perez family to humanize and universalize the immigration issue in the hopes of finding a better way forward.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: SATAN & ADAM
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 12:
SATAN & ADAM
Director:
V Scott Balcerek
Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festivals:
Nashville, Mountainfilm, Thin Line, Boulder, St Louis, Heartland, Calgary, Martha’s Vineyard, SF Jewish, Salem
About:
The story of an unlikely musical duo.
Filmed on and off over the course of 20 years, this musical portrait explores the parallel stories of two musicians -one black, one white – who met on the streets of a pre-gentrification Harlem in 1986, a time of especially deep racial division in NYC. The older, black man, Mr Satan – once known as Sterling Magee, a musician who had been exploited by the record industry in the past – had long been a fixture of the neighborhood, while the younger, white man, Adam Gussow, was an Ivy League novice who chanced upon the former’s street performance and asked to join in. From there, the pair partnered up, performing together regularly, going on tour, getting a record deal, and even appearing on a U2 album. But, as recounted here, their 12 years together were not all smooth sailing, as Satan and his ever-present wife apparently struggled with mental illness, which eventually led to the dissolution of the musical partnership. Gussow pursued a career in academia, while Mr Satan vanished for a time, resurfacing in a senior care facility in Florida, where he reclaimed his Sterling Magee name and ended up having a surprising third act with music, eventually reuniting with Gussow. While the odd couple pairing, and Balcerek’s extensive longitudinal footage, makes the project compelling, its framing almost entirely from Gussow’s perspective is a strange and disconcerting choice, serving in many ways to “other” Magee, even if this wasn’t the filmmaker’s, or Gussow’s, intent.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
