Category Archives: Film

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, March 12: KUMARÉ

Vikram Gandhi’s experiential exposé of false gurus premiered at SXSW in 2011, where it won an audience award. Its extensive fest run included Denver, Hot Docs, Traverse City, Florida, and Montclair, among others.

I included the doc in my SXSW roundup here.

Coming to DVD next Tuesday, March 12: THE FLAT

Arnon Goldfinger’s investigation of unexpected ties between his Jewish grandparents and Nazi Germany made its debut at the 2011 Jerusalem Film Festival. It came stateside at last year’s Tribeca, followed by berths at notable fests around the world including Traverse City, Documentary Edge, San Francisco Jewish, and Krakow.

I previously wrote about the film out of Tribeca here.

Coming to VOD next Tuesday, March 12: TPB AFK: THE PIRATE BAY – AWAY FROM KEYBOARD

Simon Klose’s intimate look at the three men behind the popular firesharing site had its world premiere at Berlin last month. It comes stateside later this week at SXSW, but has already been made available for free on YouTube and for download at its website. FilmBuff releases the film on all VOD platforms next week.

Klose’s film focuses on Gottfrid, Peter, and Fredrik, three young men facing off in Swedish court against the gaming and film industries’ claims of massive copyright infringement. With the Pirate Bay handling more than half of the torrenting done worldwide, it’s never a question that their site’s users are engaging in peer-to-peer sharing, but the three men are adamant that they just provide a forum for an exchange of ideas and information. When questioned on the stand, they each adopt a dismissive, if not actively antagonist, attitude, steadfast in their belief that they’ve done nothing wrong. Outside of the courtroom, they briefly discuss past, unsuccessful, efforts to shut them down, nerdily mock the technical mistakes the prosecutors make between bits and bytes, and show off the secret site of the Pirate Bay’s new servers. Neither the initial verdict, nor the result of the appeal, should be a surprise to any viewer with even a passing familiarity with the site, and Klose recognizes that. As signaled by the film’s title – an acronym for the men’s offline antics (preferable to the outdated IRL, since they view online time as real life) – Klose’s film can be seen as more of a portrait of these men, somewhat over their heads, but not overly concerned, and not really an indepth consideration of the questions of Internet freedom vs copyright as one might expect. While the underlying philosophy of openness and sharing is present – even down to the end credits instructing viewers to share the film – it’s presented in the most basic terms, and unlikely to sway opponents. Still, viewers sympathetic to this basic tenet should be expected to appreciate this glimpse behind-the-scenes – less as a sobering cautionary tale, and more like an absurdist collision of old and new ideas, with these three ordinary guys caught in the middle.

Coming to theatres this Friday, March 8: DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’: EVERYMAN’S JOURNEY

Ramona S Diaz’s look at an unknown Filipino’s first year on tour with an iconic US rock band had its world premiere at Tribeca last year. Other stops on the festival circuit have included San Francisco, Silverdocs, Dubai, Göteborg, and Palm Springs, picking up the audience award at the latter.

I included the doc in my Tribeca roundup here.