Category Archives: Film

Coming to NYC’S IFC Center this Friday, August 24: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN

Linda Goldstein Knowlton’s profile of cross-cultural adoption premiered at Hot Docs last year, picking up an audience award. Additional screenings included Vancouver, Aspen, Portland, and Los Angeles Film Festival.

My take on the film out of Hot Docs is included here.

Coming to VOD next Tuesday, August 21: SURVIVING PROGRESS

Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ exploration of “progress traps” premiered at Toronto last year. Its festival circuit has included Vancouver, IDFA, Dubai, and Big Sky, among others.

I wrote about the film upon its theatrical release here.

Released on DVD this week: LOVE ADDICT

Pernille Rose Grønkjaer’s look at love junkies premiered at IDFA last year. It went on to screen at Thessaloniki Doc and Planete Doc Review, among other fests.

I included the film in my IDFA roundup here.

Coming to LA’s Noho 7 tomorrow, Friday, August 17 and NYC’s Quad Cinema on Friday, August 31, as well as VOD nationwide on Wednesday, August 22: SIDE BY SIDE

Chris Kenneally’s exploration of the development, debate, and impact of digital cinema made its world premiere earlier this year at Berlin. Screenings since then have included Hong Kong, Tribeca, deadCENTER, Sydney, and Galway, among others.

I included the film in my Tribeca roundup here.

Coming to theatres (as part of the International Documentary Association’s Oscar-qualifying DocuWeeks) at NYC’s IFC Center this Friday, August 17 and at LA’s Laemmle NoHo 7 next Friday, August 24: WORDS OF WITNESS

Mai Iskander’s story of Egypt after Mubarak through the eyes of a young female journalist premiered this year at the Berlin Film Festival. Screenings since then have included DocAviv, Munich’s DocFest, Planete Doc Review, Los Angeles, and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Beginning in the immediate aftermath of last year’s Egyptian Revolution, which saw the end of Hosni Mubarak’s thirty year reign, Iskander’s film profiles Heba, a modern thinking 22-year-old with a budding career writing for an English-language online newspaper, using her story to explore the growing uncertainty and frustrations after the euphoria of dramatic change begins to fade for Egypt’s citizens. The film is most compelling and human when Heba is in the forefront, attempting to balance the demands of her newfound career with her scene-stealing mother’s protectiveness and Egyptian society’s expectations of what women can and can’t do. Scenes showing Heba’s relationship with her mother, including the latter’s embrace of social media, provide much-needed lighter moments, while latter sections about the debate over Egypt’s elections sometimes push Heba a bit into the background as the film gets swept up in these larger issues. Ultimately, Iskander’s film documents essential history in the making, as a nation, and especially its young people like Heba, tastes democracy but faces disillusionment over the speed and possibility of true change.

Coming to theatres (as part of the International Documentary Association’s Oscar-qualifying DocuWeeks) at NYC’s IFC Center this Friday, August 17 and at LA’s Laemmle NoHo 7 next Friday, August 24: OF TWO MINDS

Doug Blush and Lisa Klein’s portrait of bipolar disorder made its world premiere at this year’s Cleveland International Film Festival. It went on to screen at Newport Beach and both the Los Angeles and New York editions of the United Film Festival.

Inspired by the struggles with bipolar faced by her late sister, Klein and husband Blush set out to humanize a disorder that is still misunderstood and to demonstrate the realities for those living with it. To that end, rather than focus on the diagnosis and its treatment, the film instead spotlights a diverse range of otherwise ordinary individuals who share their lives, the challenges, and, for some, the benefits, bipolar disorder has brought them. Threaded through these brief profiles and vignettes, a small handful emerge as primary characters, their stories presented more fully and successfully than the latter, including Liz, a journalist who unexpectedly found freedom in coming out as bipolar in print, launching an unlikely career as a mental health advocate; Carlton, who channeled his condition into his artwork, but simultaneously has succumbed to troubling, self-destructive behavior; and Cheri, a stylist who struggles with stability, is drowning in health care costs, and tries to make a new relationship work with Petey, a musician with his own issues. As these characters deal with daily life, the literal highs and lows of their disorder, and the common concerns faced by most who suffer from mental illness, such as side effects and societal stigma, Klein and Blush succeed in intimately confronting the audience with well-rounded characters rather than case studies.