Category Archives: Film

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 30:
UNITED SKATES

Directors:
Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown

Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, London, Denver, Vancouver, Urbanworld, New Zealand, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Sidewalk

About:
An exploration of skating rink culture within African American communities.

Around the country, rollerskating rinks are quickly vanishing, victims of dwindling audiences and real estate development. While many viewers may hold fond memories of childhood birthday parties held in these spaces, for many African American communities, rinks have been a social gathering site long into adulthood, with different cities developing their own style and swagger. Winkler and Brown conduct a survey of several of these communities, uncovering a vibrant subculture that has been threatened by both racist policies and harsh economic reality. While they take on far too much, sacrificing focus and a deeper appreciation of historical context to instead profile a couple of locations too many, resulting in an uneven film with multiple endings, the filmmakers do demonstrate the importance of the skating rink as a locus of celebration and self-expression, and the impact its closure has had on communities of color.

Coming to theatres for a one-night event across the US tonight, Thursday, November 29:
MEOW WOLF: ORIGIN STORY

Directors:
Morgan Capps and Jilann Spitzmiller

Premiere:
SXSW 2018

Select Festivals:
Tallgrass, BendFilm, Santa Fe, Denver

About:
The story of the inexplicably popular Santa Fe-based artist collective.

Founded in 2008 by a group of young artists decidedly outside of Santa Fe’s very mainstream arts culture, the intentionally randomly-named group emerged to create an alternative space for art and music in the community. As detailed in Capps and Spitzmiller’s project, largely an oral history by members of the collective, they achieved unlikely financial success through their large-scale, immersive installations – so much so that they have been able to expand into other cities. Skirting the line between art and entertainment – if not arguably crossing it completely – the collective seemingly has been able to tap into audience desires for a kind of perpetual adolescence or even childhood, inviting play and exploration, despite – or perhaps because – the work itself is garish, crude, and fairly one-note. The film’s subtitle, in its reference to a familiar trope of comic books and fantasy films, underscores this kind of preoccupation with pop culture/entertainment. On the whole, the film is too celebratory, never really interrogating some key questions behind the group, whose membership seems on the surface to be a fairly homogenous, white one, though interviewees do occasionally offer thoughts on Meow Wolf’s growth and the clash of art vs commerce.

New to VOD this week:
MAINELAND

Director:
Miao Wang

Premiere:
SXSW 2017

Select Festivals:
Camden, Vancouver, Maryland, IFF Boston, Durban, Hawaii, San Diego Asian American, Seattle Asian American

About:
An observational portrait of affluent Chinese teenagers in a US boarding school.

I previously wrote about the doc here.