Closing out the first day of 2015 Sundance profiles: BEST OF ENEMIES, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s re-examination of an infamous series of political debates.
Category Archives: Film
2015 Sundance Docs in Focus: BEST OF ENEMIES
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2015 Sundance Docs in Focus: BEING EVEL
Next up in Sundance’s 2015 US Documentary Competition: BEING EVEL, Daniel Junge’s chronicle of the life and legend of the famed daredevil. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2015 Sundance Docs in Focus: 3 1/2 MINUTES
My annual film-by-film look at the documentaries of the Sundance Film Festival begins here with the first film of the 2015 US Documentary Competition: 3 1/2 MINUTES, Marc Silver’s exploration of a tragic, unnecessary, racially-motivated murder. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2015 Sundance Docs in Focus
The Sundance Film Festival will hold its 31st edition between January 22 and February 1, introducing audiences to many of the newest crop of films that will be making their way to theatres throughout 2015. Since 2011, I’ve profiled the feature documentaries in the lineup in advance of the festival to provide information about the films and their filmmakers and to share my excitement in their upcoming premieres. I’ll begin with the first few titles in the US Documentary Competition this coming Monday, and continue film-by-film, section-by-section, to cover the nearly 50 nonfiction offerings before the festival opens.
As a Documentary Programming Associate for Sundance, I want to make sure to note that these profiles are not reviews – instead, they simply include select background, noting past Sundance projects where applicable, and reasons why readers should seek the films out, either in Park City during the festival or at other upcoming festivals, in theatres, TV/cable, or on DVD/VOD. For a sample, check out last year’s, which began here.
I’ve also prepared a new Twitter list to give readers a look at the festival through the eyes of the Sundance filmmaking class of 2015.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations, Sundance
Special Note: Submit Your Project to w(n)td
Just a quick reminder: To have your feature-length documentary work-in-progress (in production or post) considered for a potential profile here as part of my occasional In the Works feature, use the submission form on the Submit page. Note that preference is typically given to docs that are just beginning crowdfunding campaigns, in order to give readers a chance to become more engaged with projects.
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
On TV: RICH HILL
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens on Monday, January 5: RICH HILL
Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo’s sensitive look at the lives of three rural boys premiered at Sundance, winning the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, Nantucket, True/False, Dallas, Cleveland, Sarasota, and Ashland, among others. In NYC, PBS’s abrupt change of Independent Lens’ (and POV’s) schedule away from its traditional Primetime WNET/Thirteen placement has been postponed for at least four months thanks to the concerns of independent documentary filmmakers and audience members.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Special Screening: THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO
Coming to the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan’s CineMatters series, accompanied by a Chinese meal, this Thursday, December 25: THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO
Ian Cheney’s exploration of Chinese food in America bowed at Tribeca this Spring. It has also screened at Seattle, IFF Boston, AFI Docs, Camden, and Sidewalk, among others.
General Tso’s Chicken is indisputably the most popular item on Chinese restaurant menus across the United States, but it’s likely that those who regularly order it have no idea who General Tso is – if he ever existed – or how the dish became so ubiquitous. Cheney’s film sets out to tackle those questions, in the process telling a larger story of Chinese immigration and assimilation in American society. The first puzzle is quickly solved, as the filmmaker travels to Hunan province, China, where information about the revered General Tso is very easily found, along with the curious tidbit that chicken was not among his favorite foods, and that the dish is unfamiliar in the country. That’s not really a surprise, as is borne out by the well-known history of another perennial American Chinese food favorite, chop suey, developed by Chinese immigrants to cater to Western tastes. In hunting for the origins of General Tso’s Chicken, the film makes stops in restaurants large and small, from the unlikely beginnings of cashew chicken in a Springfield MO Chinese restaurant to the upscale Shun Lee in NYC, which proves to play a major part in the dish’s popularity. Cheney’s survey is a light but crowdpleasing exploration of how a people adapted to a new country – and its consequent hardships – through their cuisine.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
On DVD: COLD WAR ROADSHOW
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, December 23: COLD WAR ROADSHOW
Robert Stone and Tim B Toidze’s reflection on Khrushchev’s 1959 tour of America Soviet leader has previously screened at Hot Docs and Hot Springs under a different title. It made its broadcast debut last month on PBS’s American Experience.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On TV: PATROLMAN P
Coming to the Audience Network on DIRECTV tomorrow, Saturday, December 20: PATROLMAN P
Ido Mizrahy’s exploration of an infamous police corruption scandal debuted at DOC NYC last year. It has also screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and now makes its broadcast debut.
In the early 1970s, then-NYC Mayor John Lindsay formed the Knapp Commission to investigate the NYPD as a response to officer Frank Serpico’s participation in a New York Times story making allegations of widespread corruption in the force. Mizrahy’s film focuses on NYPD officer Bill Phillips, who was compelled to wear a wire to record evidence of illegal police activity for the Knapp Commission after he himself was caught taking bribes. Breaking the code of police brotherhood by ratting out his fellow cops, Phillips alleges he was later set up to take the fall for a double homicide of a pimp and a prostitute, for which he was sentenced to over 30 years in prison. Working with New York magazine reporter Geoffrey Gray, who also occasionally narrates, Mizrahy follows the parallel story of the corrupt 1970s NYPD, full of fantastic archival footage of a seedy, decaying NYC, and the filmmaker’s own efforts to untangle fact from fiction in the charismatic Phillips’ claims of a police payback conspiracy that led to his present state – even resorting to the use of a lie detector. The result is a layered investigation that presents provocative questions about a case which has no simple answers.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER
Coming to NYC’s Quad Cinema tomorrow, Friday, December 19: TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER
Nick Broomfield’s investigation of an infamous South Central Los Angeles serial killer had its world premiere at Telluride this Summer. It went on to screen at Toronto, DOC NYC, NYFF, CPH:DOX, AFI Fest, and Zurich, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.
In 2010, the LAPD finally made an arrest in a serial killing case that stretches back to 1985, taking in Lonnie Franklin, Jr. The 57-year-old is suspected of being “the Grim Sleeper,” so named because it appeared that the killer took a fourteen year break between murders after 1988, resuming his work in 2002. British director Broomfield enters the African American neighborhood after Franklin’s arrest to make sense of the case: How could Franklin, a well-known figure in the community, be behind the crimes; did anyone suspect him; and why did it take the police so long to catch the serial killer? Though known for his on-screen, participatory approach, Broomfield wisely significantly tones it down here, never overtaking the film with his presence, allowing instead people within the community to take the lead, from Franklin’s friends – initially skeptical of the accusations, but then cautiously revisiting disturbing incidents that are now reframed in a new light – to the film’s standout subject, Pam Brooks, a former sex worker and addict who ends up becoming Broomfield’s guide to tracking down and interviewing other local working girls who encountered Franklin. While members of the community had organized to put pressure on the police to investigate the murders in the 1980s, many felt that the police were disinclined to spend resources on the case, since victims were all African American, and many were prostitutes. Broomfield’s surprisingly intimate interviews underscore this theory, with discrimination and devaluation of the lives of poor black women by law enforcement coming to the fore, making the film a powerful indictment of systemic institutional racism and classism that sadly has even more impact in the wake of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 