Festival:
The 61st BFI London Film Festival
Dates:
October 4-15
About:
Among the more than 200 new feature offerings of the respected UK event are nearly 60 documentaries. Continue reading
Category Archives: Film
London 2017: Documentary Overview
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
On VOD: RAT FILM
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
RAT FILM
Director:
Theo Anthony
Premiere:
Locarno 2016
Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, True/False, SXSW, Florida, Maryland, Art of the Real, Docaviv, Doclisboa, Vancouver, Mar del Plata, Torino
About:
A provocative essay about Baltimore’s rodents emerges as a simultaneous cultural anthropology of race and class.
I previously wrote about the film here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On DVD: TOKYO IDOLS
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
TOKYO IDOLS
Director:
Kyoko Miyake
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Nashville, Docville, Hot Docs, DOXA, Documentary Edge
About:
An examination of sexuality and social media popularity via a distinctly Japanese popular culture phenomenon.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
On DVD: HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3: HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY
Director:
Daniel Raim
Premiere:
Cannes 2015
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, RiverRun, Jerusalem, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Ashland, Vancouver, various Jewish film fests
About:
A portrait of an unheralded couple and their behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood history.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On VOD: WOMAN ON FIRE
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
WOMAN ON FIRE
Director:
Julie Sokolow
Premiere:
DOC NYC 2016
Select Festivals:
Thessaloniki Doc, Atlanta, Bentonville, Kansas City, Oxford, Florida, Workers Unite, Frameline, LGBT fests in Boston, Toronto, Austin, Seattle, Memphis, Fresno, Chicago
About:
A profile of a pioneering transgender woman.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
This portrait of courage under fire celebrates NYC’s first openly transgender firefighter. For Brooke Guinan, fighting fires runs in her blood – both her father and grandfather served in the FDNY. But as a transgender woman, her path to service has not been without obstacles. Transitioning from male to female in what is still an overwhelmingly macho profession proves a challenge for her coworkers and her family, while her boyfriend reckons with the impact on his parents of Brooke’s newly public profile.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On DVD/VOD: THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
Director:
Errol Morris
Premiere:
Telluride 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Toronto, New York, Chicago, IDFA, Hong Kong, Provincetown, Moscow, IFF Boston
About:
A large-scale Polaroid photographer reflects on her work on the eve of her retirement.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On TV: SWIM TEAM
Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, October 2:
SWIM TEAM
Director:
Lara Stolman
Premiere:
Hot Springs Doc 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Napa Valley, Oxford, Glasgow, Big Sky Doc, Boulder, Reel Abilities, SXSWedu, San Diego Latino, Sarasota, RiverRun, Nashville, Montclair, Berkshire, Greenwich, SF Docfest
About:
A portrait of three teenage swimmers, all on the autism spectrum.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 29:
THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
Director:
Jennifer M Kroot
Co-Director:
Bill Weber
Premiere:
SXSW 2017
Select Festivals:
Cleveland, DOXA, Ashland, Nashville, Montclair, Martha’s Vineyard, Oxford, Provicnetown, Galway, Frameline, Outfest, LGBT fests in Boston, Tel Aviv, San Diego, Vancouver, Hong Kong
About:
On the life and work of the acclaimed author of the TALES OF THE CITY series.
In this enjoyable biographical portrait, Kroot and Weber pen a documentary love letter to Maupin, whose beloved TALES began as a serial in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and other papers in the mid 1970s and spawned books and a groundbreaking television adaptation in the 1990s. More than creating indelible characters like Anna Madrigal, Mary Ann Singleton, and Michael Tolliver, the long-running series chronicled San Francisco’s gay community as it moved from liberation through the trauma of the AIDS epidemic and beyond. In addition to detailing the creation and inspiration of the series, the film recounts Maupin’s own coming out process, as he bucked Southern family pressure and a tour of duty in Vietnam to relocate to San Francisco and embrace his sexual and political identity more fully. Although buoyed by the presence of friends and collaborators like TALES adaptation stars Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney, and authors Neil Gaiman and Amy Tan, Kroot and Weber’s enjoyable film shines in putting its spotlight on its affable subject to take the storytelling reins.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST
Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 29:
THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST
Director:
Miranda Bailey
Premiere:
Manhattan Film Festival 2017
About:
A portrait of Andrew Wakefield, vilified by the media and by the medical community for his now discredited stance about linkages between vaccines and autism.
Wakefield was at the center of a controversy at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival when an uproar over the inclusion of VAXXED, a film he directed, ultimately resulted in its being pulled from the lineup because of dubious medical claims. While Wakefield’s supporters classified the move as censorship, his detractors instead held the opinion that the film was a work of propaganda that should never have been programmed in the first place. Bailey’s film begins long before this episode, following the now unlicensed doctor as he reckons with the aftermath of his debunked vaccine claims by filing an anti-defamation suit against the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer in Texas, funded largely be a loyal fanbase of anti-vaxxers, who view Wakefield as a hero who gives them hope. Through the well-made film, which focuses almost exclusively on Wakefield and his wife Carmel – positioned here as some sort of default expert, given how much screen time she is allotted – the frankly unlikeable couple defend each charge against Wakefield and play the martyr, blaming a collusion of Big Pharma and a corrupt media for all their ills. Bailey, for her part, never explicitly takes a side, but in providing such controversial subjects as the Wakefields with a platform to continue to espouse their, at best, misunderstood, at worst, deliberately misleading, views, without any real challenge from medical professionals, she treads on ethically troubling terrain.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
On VOD: COPWATCH
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, September 29:
COPWATCH
Director:
Camilla Hall
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
About:
A profile of members of a citizen’s rights group dedicated to exposing police abuses.
Hall’s film focuses on We Copwatch, a loosely organized network of concerned individuals who have made it their mission to bear witness to police activity – and abuses – by exercising their legal right to film them. Not surprisingly, law enforcement doesn’t seem particularly responsive to this idea, particularly when We Copwatch activists capture such disturbing footage like the chokehold arrest of Eric Garner which then goes viral. The film checks in with Ramsey Orta, who witnessed that galvanizing incident, and ended up in jail for his trouble, as well as Kevin Moore, who filmed the arrest of Freddie Gray. Hall struggles to find the proper balance between telling the personal stories of her subjects and chronicling their copwatching activities, making for a not wholly satisfying project compared to other recent films addressing similar themes.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
