Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, July 26: THE ARMOR OF LIGHT
Abigail Disney’s look at pro-life gun advocates debited at Tribeca last year. It went on to Traverse City, AFI Docs, Hamptons, Galway, Montclair, Milwaukee, St Louis, Heartland, Oxford, and SF Jewish fests.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, July 26: HELP US FIND SUNTIL TRIPATHI
Neal Broffman’s look at the consequences of social media groupthink premiered at Atlanta last year. Screenings followed at Hot Docs, New Orleans, DMZ Docs, Brooklyn, Boston Asian American, St Louis, Denver, and Oxford, among other events. FilmBuff now releases the film on VOD platforms.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival opens tomorrow, Tuesday, July 26, and runs through Sunday, July 31. The 12th edition of the event has generated headlines for championing the visibility of women filmmakers by including only female-helmed or co-helmed works in its competition sections, and cheekily naming a male-directed out-of-competition sidebar “Men Make Movies – The Struggle Continues.” In total, more than a hundred new and recent features will screen at the event, with about half representing documentaries. The well-curated event curates much of its lineup from larger festivals like Sundance, Toronto, SXSW, and Tribeca, but also includes a few world premieres or lesser-know titles, such as the films noted below:
The US documentary competition includes the debut of Kamala Lopez’s EQUAL MEANS EQUAL, which looks at the current state of gender inequality, while the international competition features the North American premiere of Yacine Brahem, Dario Cerruti, and Laurent Negre’s hybrid CONFUSION, about the extradition of a Guantanamo prisoner to Switzerland. Appearing in the Premieres section are the first screenings of Cynthia Wade and Cheryl Miller Houser’s GENERATION STARTUP (pictured), a look at several young entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it in Detroit; Jesse Nesser’s WALK WITH ME: THE TRIALS OF DAMON J KEITH, about a 94-year-old janitor-turned-federal judge; and Bob Apisa’s MEN OF SPARTA, on Michigan State University’s pioneering integrated 1960s football team. The fest’s Avant Garde section includes Alexandra Cuesta’s TERRITORIO, an immersive exploration of the filmmaker’s Ecuador. Finally, the event wraps with closing night film CONCERTO: A BEETHOVEN JOURNEY, Phil Grabsky’s chronicle of an acclaimed pianist’s three-year international quest to master several of the German composer’s concertos.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 26: HARMONTOWN
Neil Berkeley’s look at the celebrated COMMUNITY showrunner made its debut at SXSW in 2014. It went on to screen at Los Angeles, deadCENTER, Hot Docs, and Napa Valley, among other events.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, July 26: THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER
Chad Gracia’s investigation into the truth behind Chernobyl had its world premiere at Sundance last year, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize. Screenings followed at Nantucket, BAMcinemaFest, AFI Docs, Milwaukee, Zurich, and Sydney, among others.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
New to DVD and VOD today, Friday, July 22: SONS OF BEN
Jeffrey C Bell’s chronicle of the ardent fans of a nonexistent sports team debuted at the Tokyo Intl Football Film Festival last year. The doc screened at several other sports fests, including Thinking Football, Off-Side, Kicking + Screening, Berlin’s Fussballfilmfestival, and CineFoot, as well as the Chesapeake film fest. It now comes to DVD and to VOD platforms including iTines, Amazon, and Google Play.
After a previous national soccer league failed, Major League Soccer was formed as a condition of the US’s hosting of the 1994 World Cup, with ten initial teams beginning in 1996. A Philadelphia-based team was not among them, which rankled the city’s passionate soccer fans. Bell’s film reveals the unorthodox steps they took to remedy that situation, as the titular supporters’ club was formed – for a team that did not yet exist. Named after Ben Franklin, and chosen for the appropriate acronym formed, the Sons of Ben began as a desperate, grassroots effort to demonstrate the fanbase for a division one professional soccer team to come to Philadelphia. Founders and early converts detail their promotional activity and unexpected success in paving the way for the Philadelphia Union to join the ranks of MLS. What seems initially likely to become a hopelessly padded, insider-focused talking heads fest ends up changing course to include the intriguing wrinkles of a plan for economic revitalization of the forgotten, largely African-American town of Chester PA as the host of the soccer stadium, and the eleventh-hour arrival of the Great Recession, which threatens to derail all plans. These elements help broaden the film’s appeal into an underdog story that should resonate beyond a small subset of sports fans.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New York City’s Asian American International Film Festival returns for its 39th edition starting tonight, Thursday, July 21. By the time the event wraps on Saturday, July 30, it will present approximately 30 new features, including a dozen documentaries, in addition to shorts, panels, and special retrospective screenings.
Among the nonfiction programming are the international premiere of Ng Xi Jie’s SINGAPORE MINSTREL, a portrait of a street busker and his environment; as well as the NYC debuts of Siyan Liu and Danni Wang’s JOLIN (pictured), about a young Chinese country girl turned factory worker turned sex worker; Pamela Tom’s TYRUS, a profile of a centenarian Chinese-born visual artist; Michael Siv’s DAZE OF JUSTICE, a personal film about the Khmer Rouge trials; and Ben Wang’s BREATHIN’: THE EDDY ZHENG STORY, about a former convict turned prison reformer. Also screening at the festival is Haito Guo’s BRIGHT SUN MANSION, which follows a Peking Opera master as he tries to keep his art form’s tradition alive in New York City.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, July 22: THE BLACKOUT EXPERIMENTS
Rich Fox’s exploration of an infamous horror experience made its debut at Sundance this year. It has screened at genre/horror events since, and now becomes available through Gravitas.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to theatres this Friday, July 22: THE SEVENTH FIRE
Jack Pettibone Riccobono’s intimate exploration of Native American gang life made its bow at Berlin last year. Additional screenings have included New Orleans, Palm Springs, Documenta Madrid, Mar del Plata, Stockholm, Minneapolis-St Paul, Big Sky, Hawaii, Iran’s Cinema Vérité, and East End.
Riccobono’s artfully filmed portrait is set on the White Earth Reservation in Pine Point MN, and focuses on two men: Rob Brown, a longtime gang leader facing his fifth stint in prison, and Kevin, a teenager who’s on the same path in their impoverished, dead-end community. Urging the boy not to accept that drugs and criminality are inevitable, Brown also faces the consequences of his own actions, including being separated from his young daughter. Offering a candid, and often bleak, look at the continuing cycles of poverty, neglect, and abuse present in Native communities, the film nevertheless does offer room for hope as its young protagonists try to find a path forward.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to DVD and VOD this week: OUTATIME: SAVING THE DELOREAN TIME MACHINE
Steve Concotelli’s behind-the-scenes look at the restoration of the famed BACK TO THE FUTURE car premiered at last October’s fan celebration We’re Going Back. The doc also screened at Dances With Films, while a short version appears as an extra for the trilogy’s 30th anniversary Blu-ray release.
Concotelli’s project offers a brief account of the history of the three DeLoreans used in the classic films before diving into painstaking detail about the reasons why and process by which a restoration of the main, surviving car was needed and attempted. Seeing the value of obsessive fandom, Universal turned to fans to lead the restoration efforts, while film co-creator/co-writer Bob Gale helped appeal to the overeager souvenir-seekers to return the original parts pilfered from the vehicle over the past 25 years while it was on display as an attraction. At just over an hour, the project feels padded, with extensive talking heads sequences feeling disjunctive and anecdotal, and restoration footage becoming over-detailed to the point of feeling repetitive. While the cast of restorers show genuine enthusiasm for their roles in bringing back an iconic part of popular movie history, the approach taken is fairly paint-by-numbers, making it more geared toward fans of the franchise than a broader audience – the shorter version’s inclusion as a Blu-ray extra seems like the appropriate place to reach its intended, and likely most appreciative, audience.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
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