New to DVD this week:
HILLEMAN: A PERILOUS QUEST TO SAVE THE WORLD’S CHILDREN
Director:
Donald Rayne Mitchell
Premiere:
Scinema 2016
Select Festivals:
American Documentary, New Hope
About:
A profile of Dr Maurice Hilleman, credited with developing most childhood vaccines.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 8:
SEA GYPSIES: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Director:
Nico Edwards
Premiere:
Telluride Mountainfilm 2016
Select Festivals:
Napa Valley, Banff Mountain, Lone Star, Wild and Scenic, Washington DC Environmental, Oxford, Newport Beach, BendFilm
About:
A ragtag group of adventurers set sail from Australia to Patagonia.
Edwards joins the international crew of the Infinity, a refurbished 1977 yacht captained by Clemens, a German who has traveled the open seas for years with his young family. The latter sit out this particular voyage, which is intended to last for a couple of months through the rough, icy waters of the Ross Sea, conducted without permission or insurance and just for the sheer fun of it all. Although Edwards uses an excess of narration and includes some fairly extraneous footage at times, he does convey the warmth and camaraderie of the handsome crew as they enjoy their time on the water, while also facing dangerous weather and even assisting the efforts of radical environmentalists, the Sea Shepherd, in frustrating an illegal Japanese whaling expedition.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, August 9:
MACHINES
Director:
Rahul Jain
Premiere:
IDFA 2016
Select Festivals:
Sundance, Thessaloniki Doc, Hot Docs, DocsBarcelona, Docaviv, Beldocs, Documenta Madrid, Docs Against Gravity
About:
On the lives of Indian textile factory workers.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, August 8:
NOTES ON BLINDNESS
Directors:
Peter Middleton and James Spinney
Premiere:
Sundance 2016
Select Festivals:
Karlovy Vary, Sheffield, Tribeca, Cleveland, Sydney, Melbourne, New Zealand, Jerusalem, San Francisco
About:
An immersive recreation of a man’s experience of losing his sight.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Tuesday, August 8:
MONKEY BUSINESS: THE ADVENTURES OF CURIOUS GEORGE’S CREATORS
Director:
Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Premiere:
Los Angeles 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket
About:
The secret origin of Curious George.
The mischievous monkey Curious George made his first appearance more than 75 years ago and has been entertaining readers young and old ever since. If not for a pair of handmade bicycles, however, the beloved children’s book character might never have made it out of Nazi-occupied Europe. Brought to life with whimsical animation, Yamazaki’s film celebrates the power of storytelling as it recounts how refugee couple Hans and Margret Rey created an enduring classic.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tonight, Friday, August 4:
CALIFORNIA DREAMS
Director:
Mike Ott
Premiere:
Berlin Critics Week 2017
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Docville, Sarasota, San Francisco, Champs Élysées
About:
Five people pursue unlikely aspirations of Hollywood fame in this hybrid.
Mike Ott’s unusual hybrid documentary comedy features several hopeless would-be actors, as well as one aspiring screenwriter, ostensibly auditioning their talents, and then later briefly interviewed – sometimes about their entertainment dreams, but also awkwardly about personal matters, from virginity to homelessness to mental health issues. While some of their scenes appear to be staged – particular conversations in cars conducted by the film’s fifth ostensible subject, Cory Zachariah – they otherwise seem to be genuine. Zachariah, on the other hand, is a real working actor who has appeared in Ott’s previous films, but here has supposedly never held down a job and struggles with basic literacy and math, making his narrative the most obviously fictional, and the one that takes up the majority of the screen time. Apparently sending himself up, the attractive, lanky Zachariah is a loveable loser of sorts, but his dominance of the project has the effect of drowning out the other subjects and whatever truths that they might have teased out. Ott intentionally means to upend expectations of what is real and what is not here, but as with most hybrid projects, it seems unclear what benefit that lack of clarity ultimately serves. He and his collaborators are talented filmmakers, but this project decidedly won’t be to everyone’s taste.
Filed under Documentary, Film
Festival:
The 16th Dokufest
Dates:
August 4-12
About:
The well-respected Prizren, Kosovo festival features a curated collection of approximately 80 international nonfiction feature standouts as well as new regional work, noted below. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to theatres today, Friday, August 4:
IT’S NOT YET DARK
Director:
Frankie Fenton
Premiere:
Galway 2016
Select Festivals:
Sundance, Edinburgh, Thessaloniki Doc, Docs Against Gravity, Sydney, Biografilm
About:
A chronicle of a filmmaker’s determination to complete his first feature, despite a diagnosis of ALS.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, August 4:
STEP
Director:
Amanda Lipitz
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, True/False, Seattle, San Francisco, Wisconsin, Montclair
About:
Members of an African-American Baltimore high school stepping team pursue their goals of higher education.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Friday, August 4:
THE GLAMOUR & THE SQUALOR
Director:
Marq Evans
Premiere:
Seattle 2015
Select Festivals:
NewFest, Outfest, Seattle LGBT, Spokane, Portland, Milwaukee, Sidewalk, Palm Springs, Calgary, Aruba
About:
A profile of an influential grunge-era DJ.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
