Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction next Tuesday, April 30: STORIES WE TELL
Sarah Polley’s exploration of family secrets made its premiere last year at Venice. It went on to screen at Telluride, Toronto, Sundance, True/False, and New Directors/New Films, among other fests.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.
Note: A Q&A is expected following the screening. Check the STF link above for updates about the participant.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
After a particularly challenging week, some normalcy returns to the Hub city with the start of the Independent Film Festival Boston tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24. Running through next Tuesday, April 30, this year marks the eleventh edition of what has been called the city’s premier film event, and the largest film festival in the whole of New England. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, April 23: THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE
Sarah Burns, David McMahon, and Ken Burns’ exploration of the miscarriage of justice around a horrific crime had its world premiere at Cannes last year. The film’s festival circuit also included Telluride, Toronto, and DOC NYC, among others. In addition to a theatrical and VOD release, the doc was broadcast on PBS last week.
I previously wrote about the film out of Toronto here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
The longest-running film festival in both North and South America, San Francisco International Film Festival, kicks off its 56th edition this Thursday evening and runs through Thursday, May 9. This is the first festival with new Executive Director Ted Hope at the helm, bringing a welcome and familiar leadership to the organization after the tragic back-to-back deaths of his respected predecessors Graham Leggat and Bingham Ray. He’s brought with him Colin Stanfield as Managing Director, with longtime Director of Programming Rachel Rosen providing continuity and her regular keen curatorial eye. This year’s lineup includes over 150 films, including nearly thirty documentary features. I’ll be in town for the festival’s first weekend and may try to catch a few titles I haven’t already seen, time and schedule permitting. Regardless, here’s a quick look at some of the selections to consider checking out if you’re in the Bay Area: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Coming to theatres via Cinedigm’s Docurama initiative and to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23: G-DOG
Freida Mock’s portrait of a changemaking Jesuit priest made its world premiere at Hot Docs last year. It went on to screen at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Aspen, and toured US embassies around the world via the US State Department’s cultural diplomacy program. The film is part of Cinedigm’s new seven-film program bringing feature documentaries to theatres weekly in up to fifteen US markets, including NYC, LA, Pasadena, Encino, San Diego, Palm Desert, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Hartford, New Haven, Ithaca, Richmond, and Helena. The films are also available for additional theatrical-on-demand screenings via Tugg. In NYC, Cinema Village will screen the doc this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Jesuit priest Father Greg Boyle, respectfully referred to by his titular nickname, is the focus of Mock’s inspirational film, which follows the efforts of his LA-based Homeboy Industries to provide an alternative to gang life. Led by Boyle’s practical philosophy that “nothing stops a bullet like a job,” Homeboy combines educational and vocational opportunities with counseling, tattoo removal, and the fostering of self-worth to interrupt the cycle of gang membership and violence and to end the demonization of gang members in favor of humanizing and genuinely rehabilitating them into society. While it has proven itself to be the most successful gang intervention program in the country, the Recession threatens to put an end to the good work Boyle and his surrogate family of colleagues have done. Mock spends a year at Homeboy, telling not only Boyle’s story, but also those of many of the former gang members who have taken on leadership positions, and the impact on them of Homeboy’s uncertain future. Though the film explores Boyle and Homeboy’s once-controversial past, it’s in broad strokes – a bit more depth here would have helped to balance the present day focus which at times nears dangerously close to an institutional show and tell. That said, Mock successfully captures her main subject’s determination, his knack for disarmingly funny storytelling, and the clear love and respect he has for his charges that has literally saved their lives.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Race, gender, sexuality, and class are implicated when African American lesbians are charged as a gang after they attempt to defend themselves from a stranger’s aggressive advances.
In NYC’s West Village on a hot summer night, a man first attempted to flirt with, then homophobically accosted, a group of young women from Newark NJ. Although the women tried to walk away, he egged them on, and the situation turned violent – by the end of the altercation, the man suffered stab wounds, and some of the women bore bruises and other injuries. Only the women were arrested, with media labeling them as a “gang” and a “wolf pack,” the man was deemed their victim, and “The New Jersey 4” went on to be sentenced harshly, despite their claims of self-defense. Director blair doroshwalther attempts to make sense of the incident, and, more importantly, its aftermath, revealing how a matrix of factors contributed to the way the story was reported, and to the (in)justice that was meted out. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
In less than one week, Toronto’s Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, kicks off its twentieth edition, which will run through Sunday, May 5. An essential stop on the doc fest circuit, I’ve been fortunate to attend for the past several years, and will be covering the event for Indiewire once again. Like Amsterdam’s IDFA, what’s especially notable about Hot Docs is its ability not only to draw a huge general public audience, but to attract the participation of nonfiction industry players, especially decision makers for key international broadcasters and funds. The latter annually take meetings and hear pitches in the accompanying Hot Docs Forum, for which I was honored to serve on the selection committee this year, and which I plan to include in my coverage as I have done in the past. That said, my main focus will be on the films – as many of the 205 titles appearing in the lineup as I can see during my time there. Director of Programming Charlotte Cook and her team culled this year’s selections, representing 43 countries, from 2386 submissions, organizing them into eleven different sections. The following spotlights the feature docs I’m most looking forward to, going section-by-section: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Available on DVD this week: ETHEL
Rory Kennedy’s portrait of her mother debuted at Sundance last year. It went on to screen extensively on the festival circuit, with slots at Full Frame, Hot Docs, San Francisco, Sarasota, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Traverse City, among others. The doc was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and broadcast on HBO.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to LA’s Downtown Independent and Chicago’s Facets Cinematheque this Friday, April 19 and to NYC’s Cinema Village on Friday, May 3: UNMADE IN CHINA
Tanner King Barklow and Gil Kofman’s misadventures in Chinese filmmaking made its debut at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, where it took home an award for best doc. It received another award at Edmonton, and has played a handful of other fests since, including St Louis and Sun Valley.
American indie film director Kofman is hired by Chinese producers to adapt and direct one of his screenplays, CASE SENSITIVE, for a Chinese audience. Although he is able to use some of his own team, the majority of the crew is Chinese, and, as he finds out, his backers aren’t exactly hands off. When Barklow learned about the project, he followed along, documenting the making of the film, and, as Kofman notes at the doc’s beginning, its unmaking. Adapting the old adage that films are made three times, in the writing, the shooting, and the editing, Barklow and Kofman bemusedly demonstrate how each of these facets are undermined during their China experience – scripts are rewritten by an overzealous and distrustful translator, without informing the director; equipment is sold by the crew for a quick buck; a passionate DP is fired for being too demanding, against Kofman’s wishes; the director’s edit is recut to produce an indecipherable narrative; and contract agreements are ignored, leading to non-stop work, headaches, and unpaid salaries. Films about the making of films, and especially behind-the-scene docs about disastrous projects, are nothing new – it’s a subgenre in itself – and, in many ways, Barklow and Kofman’s film follows the expected trajectory to provide an audience with the appropriate mixture of gleeful schadenfreude and genuine sympathy. What is different here is the Communist Chinese context and the smart decision to highlight the absurdity of the situation rather than a misplaced sense of righteous outrage. Not enough of CASE SENSITIVE is shown for the viewer to really make an absolute judgement on its artistic merit, but one suspects it was probably never going to be an Oscar contender anyway. Given this, the film isn’t about how the Chinese system ruined a would-be masterpiece, but more about how the corruption unmade the American filmmakers’ expectations of how films should be made. As such, it provides a funny, engaging, and simultaneously insider and outsider look at the compromises placed on creativity and art in a traditionally controlling system that is awkwardly flirting with at least the pretense of more openness.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens next Monday, April 22: THE ISLAND PRESIDENT
Jon Shenk’s profile of a small island nation’s call to action around climate change premiered at Telluride and Toronto in 2011. It went on to screen at numerous fests, including DOC NYC, Thessaloniki Doc, RiverRun, Planete Doc, CNEX Doc, and Documentary Edge, and also enjoyed a limited theatrical release.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 