Category Archives: Film

Coming to theatres this Wednesday, March 19: THE MISSING PICTURE

Rithy Panh’s memoir of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge’s regime debuted at Cannes last year, winning the Un Certain Regard. It went on to screen at Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Cleveland, Seattle, Jerusalem, and Göteborg, among several others, and was also Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

I previously wrote about the film out of Toronto here.

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, March 17: PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATRINA GILBERT

Shari Cookson and Nick Doob’s portrait of a struggling single working mother had a sneak preview at Big Sky last month before making its official debut on HBO.

A collaboration with Maria Shriver’s The Shriver Report, Cookson and Doob’s film aims to draw attention to the plight of the nation’s 42 million women who live in poverty. Rather than conducting a survey of several subjects, the filmmakers have wisely focused in on one compelling figure, Katrina Gilbert, a 30-year-old mother of three and sole breadwinner in her family. Separated from her husband, who moves back to Tennessee during the course of the film to be closer to their children and to find a job, Gilbert works as a nursing assistant at an extended-care facility for $9.49 an hour. Hard working, but barely scraping by, having to go without costly prescriptions in order to take care of more basic necessities for her young children, Gilbert still dreams of bettering her situation through education. Reminiscent in some ways to the recent KIND HEARTED WOMAN, Cookson and Doob’s film is a sympathetic and illuminating portrait of an often under-represented, if not actively misrepresented, segment of America’s working poor.

Coming to NYC’s IFC Center this Friday, March 14: EXPOSED

Beth B’s exploration of modern burlesque had its world premiere at Berlin last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, DOK.fest Munich, Planete + Doc, Transylvania, Sydney, Moscow, Revelation, Melbourne, and Pornfilmfest Berlin, among others.

I previously described the film in the DOC NYC program, saying:
The World Famous *BOB*, Dirty Martini, Tigger!, Mat Fraser, Julie Atlas Muz, Bunny Love, Bambi the Mermaid, James Habacker and Rose Wood use satire and their own bodies to send up conventional notions of body image, gender, and sexuality in their modern burlesque performances. New York underground filmmaking legend Beth B enters their subversive world, both on stage and behind-the-scenes, in this entertainingly provocative portrait of NYC artists gleefully breaking taboos as they entertain.

Coming to theatres this Friday, March 14: TEENAGE

Matt Wolf’s meditation on the emergence of the teenager debuted at Tribeca last year. It went on to screen at Hot Docs, AFI Docs, Melbourne, Traverse City, Sidewalk, BFI London, DMZ Docs, Hot Springs, CPH:DOX, Denver, Portland, and Big Sky, among others.

I included the doc in my Tribeca coverage here.