Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to The WORLD Channel’s AfroPoP tonight, Monday, February 17:
TWELVE DISCIPLES OF NELSON MANDELA

Director:
Thomas Allen Harris

World Premiere:
Toronto 2005

Select Festivals:
Thessaloniki Doc, Africa in the Picture, Pan African, Bermuda

About:
The story of the first wave of black South Africans who fought for freedom in exile.

After the death of his stepfather, Benjamin Pule Leinaeng, filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris sets out to tell not only Leinaeng’s story, but that of his close friends and fellow freedom fighters, in total a dozen young men who grew up under apartheid, supported the African National Congress, and, eventually, had to leave their homeland to try to garner support for their cause in the international community. For his part, Leinaeng resettled in New York City, where he met Harris’ mother, and, together, created a central hub of sorts for the movement. Reflections from the surviving Mandela “disciples,” as well as Harris and his family, are combined with dramatic re-enactments and film shot by Leinaeng to trace the freedom fighters’ often surprising and sometimes dangerous activities, intimately revealing both the costs and joys of their three decades of work conducted in exile.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, February 17:
WE BELIEVE IN DINOSAURS

Directors:
Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross

World Premiere:
San Francisco 2019

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, AFI Docs, St Louis, Hot Springs Doc, Woods Hole, Sidewalk, Southern Circuit, Rocky Mountain Women’s, Virginia

About:
An exploration of the influence of American creationism through Kentucky’s contentious Ark Encounter museum.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
In rural Kentucky, a creationist group builds a life-size, $120 million Noah’s Ark museum – replete with animal, human, and dinosaur models – in an attempt to affirm the factuality of the Biblical story. Standing against this attempt to co-opt history and science are a local geologist, an atheist activist, and a former creationist. Throw in a tax scheme that funnels public funds into the Ark at the expense of local economic sustainability, and the result is an outlandish tale that must be seen to be believed.

New to DVD this week:
MCCARTHY

Director:
Sharon Grimberg

World Premiere:
American Experience (January 2020)

About:
A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of notorious Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to OVID.tv last week:
RAW HERRING

Directors:
Leonard Retel Helmrich and Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2013

Select Festivals:
Hamburg, Nederlands

About:
A look at a peculiarly Dutch fishing tradition.

I previously wrote about the doc out of Tribeca here.

New to OVID.tv last week: THE PEARL BUTTON

Director:
Patricio Guzmán

World Premiere:
Berlin 2015

Select Festivals:
Toronto, BAFICI, Biografilm, Sydney, Jerusalem, Melbourne, San Sebastian, Bergen, Vancouver, London, Yamagata

About:
A personal excavation of Chile’s dark legacy.

I previously wrote about the film here.

New to OVID.tv last week:
BOYS WHO LIKE GIRLS

Director:
Inka Achté

World Premiere:
Sheffield 2018

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Bergen, Sao Paulo, Nordisk Panorama, Helsinki

About:
Indian men and boys seek to break the cycle of gendered violence.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
In the aftermath of the infamous Delhi gang rape, one man works to change the way Indian boys view females. Harish and his nonprofit are devoted to educating impoverished male youth like Ved to respect women and girls. Despite the progress the activist makes in combating toxic masculinity, Harish struggles to find funding because his work is focused on males. Provoking and thoughtful, Inka Achté’s film is a tender tale of activism in the midst of a furious global discussion on gendered violence.

New to VOD this week:
DON’T BE A DICK ABOUT IT

Director:
Ben Mullinkosson

World Premiere:
IDFA 2018

Select Festivals:
Sheffield, Göteborg, DocPoint Helsinki, Docs Against Gravity, Maryland, DocPoint Tallinn

About:
An affectionate portrait of a pair of bickering teenage brothers.

The duo at the center of Ben Mullinkosson’s unassuming but often very entertaining film are his cousins, Peter and Matthew, who he follows over the course of a summer vacation. Their ginger hair may be all the brothers have in common; Peter, on the autism spectrum, is outgoing, loud, and immature, while Matthew is quieter, awkward, and has an irrational fear of dogs. Obsessed with the reality competition show SURVIVOR, Peter generates frequent humor here as he “votes off” family members from his presence when they irritate him, something Matthew barely tolerates, generating universally familiar moments of sibling antagonism. Mullinkosson’s camera – often acknowledged by the boys – captures these and other mundane moments over the course of the slight, barely feature-length running time, and while the results may not be earth-shattering, they’re certainly both pleasurable and memorable.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, February 12:
THE CORDILLERA OF DREAMS

Director:
Patricio Guzmán

World Premiere:
Cannes 2019

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Biografilm, San Sebastian, Busan, Chicago

About:
The continuation of the master documentarian’s exploration of Chile’s fraught history.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
An exploration of identity, history, and landscape by acclaimed Chilean director Patricio Guzmán. In his latest philosophical act of cinematic self-reflection, the Andean Cordillera mountain range becomes an ark where the most important poetic laws are stored, containing the ruins of the director’s childhood memories and the acts of police brutality and civil resistance that happened under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Spectacular aerial images bring us into the Cordillera and the troubled history it continues to witness.