Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, February 18: HOMEGOINGS
Christine Turner’s exploration of African American funeral practices premiered last year at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight. It went on to screen at Full Frame, Blackstar, Sebastopol Doc, the American Black Film Festival, and BAMcinematek, and was broadcast on POV. The doc now becomes available on Vimeo on Demand, accessible across desktop, mobile, web-enabled TVs.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The story of a notorious art forger who feels compelled to donate his work to museums across the country.
Over thirty years, Mark Landis has honed his painting skills to enable him to make remarkable copies of a wide range of artwork. Unusually, rather than profit financially from his forgeries, Landis instead began contacting small museums and other institutions under assumed identities to donate his work, passing them off as rare originals. When Matthew Leininger, a museum registrar, grew suspicious of one instance of Landis’ “philanthropy,” his investigation uncovered Landis’ deception, involving more than 45 museums in nearly twenty cities, and ultimately resulted in a museum exhibition of the forgeries. Filmmakers Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker began telling Landis’ tale when he was exposed, and have followed him for the past several years, learning of the mental illness that drives his unorthodox behavior. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
Montana’s largest film festival, Missoula’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, kicks off its 11th edition tomorrow, Saturday, February 15, and running through Sunday, February 23. Presenting a mix of new films, recent festival favorites, and a healthy dose of retrospective selections, the event has carved a distinctive space for nonfiction in the American West. This year, in addition to its annual Made in Montana sidebar, showcasing local productions like Daniel T Skaggs’ FREELOAD, about modern-day train hoppers; music doc section Sights and Sounds; indigenous showcase; and past fest participants, Encore; the event offers sidebars on comedy docs, wilderness films, and a retrospective on Robert B Weide. Other selections are highlighted below. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, February 18: 1964
Stephen Ives and Callie T Wiser’s sprawling look at a pivotal year in American history debuted on American Experience last month.
I previously wrote about the doc upon its broadcast here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
With the Sochi Olympics in full-swing, my latest curated selections for Hulu’s Documentaries page, explores modern-day Russia. Watch these docs now for free!
For more information about the selections, see my Indiewire article.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Indiewire @ Hulu Docs
Now available on VOD and coming to DVD next Tuesday, February 18: SICK BIRDS DIE EASY
Nik Fackler’s hopeless – and partly fictional – journey into the heart of darkness made its debut at Hot Docs last year. It went on to screen at Lone Star, Woodstock, and Poland’s New Horizon fests. It’s now available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, Vudu, and PlayStation.
I included the film in my Hot Docs coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, February 14: FUREVER
Amy Finkel’s survey of the lasting bond between people and their animals made its debut at Cleveland last year. It went on to screen at New Orleans, Seattle, Hot Docs, St Louis, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Napa Valley, Warsaw, and Brooklyn, among others. FilmBuff now releases the doc on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, Sony PlayStation, and Vudu.
I previously wrote about the doc out of Hot Docs here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The 13th edition of MoMA’s annual intersection of nonfiction film and art, Documentary Fortnight, begins this Friday, February 14 and runs through Friday, February 28. Twenty new or recent features screen, in addition to shorts, retrospective programming, and an installation, representing twenty countries.
Kicking off the series is Gonçalo Tocha’s THE MOTHER AND THE SEA (pictured), an ethnographic study of Portuguese fisherwomen. Also explicitly focused on women is Xu Huijing’s MOTHERS, about the personal impact of China’s one-child policy on a small rural community, while another coastal setting is the subject of Kelvin Kyung Kun Park’s A DREAM OF IRON, an exploration of Korean industrialization and the divine in the seaside city of Ulsan. Korea also figures in Kim Dong-ryung and Park Kyoung-tae’s TOUR OF DUTY, which revisits an abandoned US military outpost and its notorious red light district.
Expressly political subject matter may be found in Kazuhiro Soda’s CAMPAIGN 2 (pictured), which follows an anti-nuclear Japanese city council election campaign in the aftermath of Fukushima; Victor Kossakovsky and students’ DEMONSTRATION, chronicling the 2012 anti-austerity mass protests in Spain; Peter Snowdon’s THE UPRISING, which imagines a pan-Arab revolution using footage from six Arab Spring nations; and the world premiere of Naeem Mohaiemen’s short AFSAN’S LONG DAY (THE YOUNG MAN WAS, PART 2), an exploration of the connections between German and Bangladesh political activism.
Other films screening include Vitaly Mansky’s PIPELINE (pictured), tracing the communities connected along an oil pipeline between Siberia and Europe; Duncan Campbell’s IT FOR OTHERS, a rumination on cultural commodification; and Amit Dutta’s THE SEVENTH WALK, a study of the work of an Indian abstract painter.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations
Coming to NYC’s Film Forum today, Wednesday, February 12: THE NEW BLACK
Yoruba Richen’s exploration of African American communities’ responses to LGBT equality made its debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival last year. Its extensive fest run has included Human Rights Watch, AFI Docs, Frameline, Urbanworld, Citizen Jane, Hot Springs, Polari, and New Orleans, among others.
I covered the doc out of AFI Docs in Indiewire this past Summer, noting:
Yoruba Richen’s new film is a candid, and often eye-opening, look at the complex truth behind the idea that “Gay is the New Black” when it comes to equal rights. The doc uses the 2012 marriage equality fight in Maryland to explore the contributing influence of religion on homophobia in the African-American community, at the same time examining the rhetorical linking of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s with the struggle for LGBT equality. Richen and her team have had a busy few weeks, debuting the doc at LAFF, bringing it home to NYC for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and on to AFI Docs, close to the film’s Maryland setting. With the winds shifting on same-sex marriage, this topical film will be making the fest rounds for the next several months.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, February 11: BALLROOM CONFIDENTIAL
Brian Lilla’s look at ballroom dancing amongst a group of Florida retirees has held screenings in San Francisco and Ormond Beach, Florida, where it was shot. It now comes to DVD as well as to VOD via Amazon and Vimeo, expanding later to iTunes and Hulu.
Inspired by his mother’s experiences taking up ballroom dancing – earning her first-time producer credit here – filmmaker Lilla trained his camera on Caleb Young’s dance studio, and on several of the senior women who have found renewed vitality by working with the significantly junior instructor. Young, a NYC transplant to Florida, offers a safe space for his charges to let loose, maybe harmlessly flirt a little, cope in an active way with aging, and gain a sense of efficacy in mastering dance moves. Structured around an impending spy-themed one-night-only dance performance, Lilla’s film is fairly conventional but often entertaining. While it tries to juggle a character or two too many, sacrificing more indepth focus as a result, the film ultimately is able to convey the quiet but affecting impact the subjects’ involvement in Young’s studio has had on their lives.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 