Coming to Al Jazeera America in two parts on Sunday, March 1 and Sunday, March 8: FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM
Marc Levin’s look at the rise and fall of a crack kingpin debuted at Los Angeles’ Pan African Film Festival. It was also shown in a sneak preview earlier this month in NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series.
I previously wrote about the program here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, February 25: FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD
Henry Corra and Regina Nicholson’s collaborative chronicle of death and the love of film debuted at IDFA in 2013. Screenings followed at Planete+ Doc, Thessaloniki Doc, Biografilm, Documentary Edge, and Dokufest Kosovo, among others.
After Corra, an established documentarian, meets Nicholson, an aspiring teenage filmmaker who has been diagnosed with bone cancer, the pair agree to work together to realize the latter’s dream of making a documentary feature about her life with cancer. While her parents are initially encouraging, they eventually grow uncomfortable with the rapport that develops between the cross-generational partners, even intimating that there’s an untoward sexual relationship between them. As Nicholson rebels, asserting her desire for independence and freedom as a young adult facing a ticking clock, Corra allows himself to be drawn into the family drama even as he continues to document his filmmaking partner as she grows sicker by the day. Never disguising the reality of Nicholson’s impending mortality, the film is a tough watch on an emotional level – as brash, and even bratty, as she can be, the viewer can’t help but form an attachment to the young protagonist, even if it’s not really evident that she has any particularly impressive filmmaking talent to justify Corra’s belief in her ability or his commitment to her aspirations. Corra himself is a much more difficult subject to reconcile. While he denies any improper relationship took place, their connection remains unsettling on multiple levels which have engendered controversy since the film’s debut – ethical concerns about the filmmaker/subject connection, about filming this very vulnerable young woman during an emotionally and physically fragile period, and placing himself in the middle of a nasty family argument that goes to very ugly places. Ultimately, the film can’t bear the weight of these unresolved and uncomfortable aspects, making it unsatisfying as a whole.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, March 3: WEB JUNKIE
Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia’s behind-the-scenes look at Internet addiction rehab debuted at Sundance last year. It went on to screen at Miami, Dallas, Melbourne, Traverse City, One World, Hong Kong, ZagrebDox, Göteborg, and DOXA.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD and VOD next Tuesday, March 3: ALGORITHMS
Ian McDonald’s profile of visually impaired chess debuted at the International Film Festival of India in 2012. Its screening circuit included Moscow’s Sports Films festival, Mumbai’s Shorts and Docs fest, the World Chess Championship, Kathmandu’s Film South Asia, Durban, and Sydney, among others.
I previously wrote about the film upon its theatrical release here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tonight, Tuesday, February 24: OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
Ian Olds and Garrett Scott’s portrait of US soldiers stationed in Fallujah debuted at Rotterdam in 2005. It went on to screen at SXSW, Full Frame, Palm Springs, Vienna, New Zealand, Atlanta, and Portland Doc, among others. It also won the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirits. Scott sadly passed away just days before the Spirit Awards. The Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant was established at Full Frame after his death to help emerging filmmakers receive mentorship as they work on their debut nonfiction features.
Embedded within the US Army’s 82nd Airborne during the Winter of 2004, Olds and Scott record the daily grind faced by the young soldiers as tensions continue to mount in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Though set up in a once-luxurious elite resort locally nicknamed “Dreamland,” the squad’s vocalized frustrations and thankless missions reveal it to be more of a nightmare. Tasked with the seemingly contradictory jobs of both maintaining security and trying to improve US/Iraqi relations – in essence, scaring the locals with aggressive raids by night, then trying to gladhand the understandably suspicious residents by day – the soldiers are surprisingly frank about their views of the quagmire the war has quickly become. While the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the experiences of various soldiers, have been amply documented over the past decade plus, the film retains an understated power and poignancy as it draws the audience in to empathize with the troops on the ground, even if neither the viewer, nor the soldiers themselves, necessarily understand the ultimate point of the war they’re waging.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, February 24: CODE BLACK
Ryan McGarry’s inside look into America’s health care crisis made its debut at Los Angeles in 2013, where it won the Best Documentary Award. Other fest appearances include the Hamptons, Vancouver, Heartland, Denver, Santa Barbara, Portland, and Cleveland. In addition to a theatrical release, the film has screened at numerous medical schools around the US and in several other countries.
Shot between 2008 and 2012 by McGarry while he was a resident at LA Country General, this film presents a candid, doctor’s-eye-view of the state of emergency medicine from within the trenches. Beginning in the legendary, cramped C-Booth, the ward where many of the tenets of emergency medicine were originated, the film soon follows its young physician subjects as they adjust to the new demands of a state-of-the-art facility, which basically results in a stifling amount of bureaucratic paperwork that takes time away from actual interactions with patients who need them the most. As waiting times to seek medical attention continue to grow, the residents and staff grow frustrated, turning to unorthodox solutions to try to alleviate the problem, with varying levels of success. In focusing his attention on his experiences as a young physician, McGarry offers an unexpected, compelling perspective on the problems plaguing American health care, and, moreso, a provocation that a solution needs to be found, even if he doesn’t pretend to have an all-encompassing panacea himself.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Indocumentales series this Wednesday, February 25: CESAR’S LAST FAST
Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee’s chronicle of Cesar Chavez’s 1988 hunger protest debuted at Sundance last year. Its festival circuit has also included Atlanta, Chicago Latino, San Diego Latino, Minneapolis St Paul, San Francisco, DOXA, and Ambulante California, among others.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Coming to theatres today, Friday, February 20: KUNG FU ELLIOT
Matthew Bauckman and Jaret Belliveau portrait of an inept provincial would-be action hero debuted at Slamdance last year, winning the award for best doc. Since then, it has screened at Sarasota, Hot Docs, Awesome Fest, Fantasia, and Fantastic, among other festivals.
The titular subject is an immature aspiring filmmaker who has two very bad homemade action films to his name that may or may not have won awards at local Canadian festivals. He ropes in his put-upon girlfriend and several friends to participate in his endeavors, filmed on the cheap on weekends in parks and featuring hokey martial arts and bargain basement stunts and FX. The film ostensibly follows him as he tries to up the ante in making his third film, BLOOD FIGHT, which gets delayed by technical issues, a trip to China, and, unconvincingly, domestic issues involving him lying about his supposed partial Japanese heritage, a dead ex, and several cases of infidelity. Despite Bauckman and Belleveau’s claims to the contrary, much of this reads as inauthentic, suggesting that Elliot and his girlfriend worked with the film team at least partially to stage some of what’s here – notably, very dubious captured-on-screen infidelity and over-the-top arguments – to make a semi-mockumentary played straight. At the very least, if the filmmakers weren’t a party to manufacturing the hard to believe elements, they instead may have been played by their subjects. Regardless, the film is never as funny or as provocative as it’s meant to be, though I’ll grant that it has clearly resonated with audiences much more than I’d have expected.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed series this coming Tuesday, February 24: A WILL FOR THE WOODS
Amy Browne, Jeremy Kaplan, Tony Hale, and Brian Wilson’s look at the intersection of environmentalism and the mortuary industry made its debut at Full Frame in 2013. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, New Orleans, AFI Docs, Sidewalk, Camden, Big Sky, Cleveland, and Atlanta, among other events.
I included the film in my AFI Docs coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The 11th edition of Croatia’s premier nonfiction event, ZagrebDox, begins this Sunday, February 22, and continues through Sunday, March 1. The festival annually showcases nearly one hundred new and retrospective feature documentaries, in addition to shorts, masterclasses, panels, and a pitching forum. Its programming lineup includes a healthy mix of international work that has already debuted on the festival circuit, and has been covered here previously, as well new regional work, which makes up the bulk of the following overview:
Of the fest’s two competitions, Regional and International, there are more new titles that catch my eye in the former, including: Goran Stanković’s meditation on the lives of Serbian miners, IN THE DARK; Damir Ibrahimović and Eldar Emrić’s hybrid psychological profile of a Russian mafioso, RUSSIAN (pictured); Hrvoje Mabić’s look at a lesbian couple’s attempts to deal with past trauma, SICK; and Eva Kraljević’s portrait of her sister with Down’s syndrome, I LIKE THAT SUPER MOST THE BEST.
The non-competitive Official Programme consists of nine thematic sections, including Biography Dox, which features films like Marcus Vetter and Karin Steinberger’s THE FORECASTER, on a prescient American economic analyst, and Lorenzo Cioffi and Alessandro De Toni’s RUSTAM CASANOVA – LIFE OF AN ARTIST, about a chameleon-like opera singer; Controversial Dox, featuring work like Aleksandar Nikolić’s THE SERBIAN LAWYER, which focuses on an attorney struggling to defend former enemies, and Karim B Haroun’s MYSTIC MASS, detailing a massive Shia Muslim ritual; Happy Dox, such as Oscar Pérez’s THE FINAL STRETCH, about a small Spanish village facing crisis; Teen Dox, which includes August Baugstø Hanssen’s profile of a borderline personality disorder sufferer, IDA’S DIARY, Alexandra Likhacheva’s look at modern Russia through the eyes of two disaffected young people, LONG.BLACK.CLOUD IS COMING DOWN, and Linda Hakeboom’s portrait of a Dutch rockstar poised for international celebrity, WHO THE FUCK IS JETT REBEL (pictured); as well as strands on global music, current affairs, documentary auteurs’ latest work, and factual programming.
ZagrebDox’s Special Programme this year consists of two focus areas, the Middle East, which features such work as Firouzeh Khosrovani’s FEST OF DUTY
(pictured), a look at a traditional Muslim ceremony for girls, and Søren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farah’s WARRIORS FROM THE NORTH, on the radicalization of young Somali men; and Thriller Dox, which includes Andreas Koefoed’s THE ARMS DROP, about a 1995 weapons deal that went wrong, and Pekka Lehto’s EMERGENCY CALL – A MURDER MYSTERY, on an unsolved 2006 crime in small Finnish town.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
what (not) to doc 