Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 10:
WALKING ON WATER

Director:
Andrey Paounov

Premiere:
Locarno 2018

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Toronto, Docudays UA

About:
A behind the scenes look at Christo’s long-gestating Floating Piers project.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 10:
ECHO IN THE CANYON

Director:
Andrew Slater

Premiere:
Los Angeles 2018

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Berkshire, Santa Barbara

About:
A look back at the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s American Experience tonight, Tuesday, September 10:
THE FEUD

Director:
Randall MacLowry

World Premiere:
American Experience (September 2019)

About:
An in-depth look at the legendary conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The feud between the rural West Virginia/Kentucky clans long ago entered into the popular consciousness, so much so that the families’ names are now synonymous with long-lasting rivalries. At the same time, the way their story has been told has had a lasting, deleterious impact on stereotypical perceptions of Appalachian mountain residents as uneducated, violent, and vengeful people. Director Randall MacLowry’s informative, if somewhat staid, profile, stands as a corrective, contextualizing the feud within the far more complex backdrop in which it developed – a story of industrialization and corporate landgrabbing that threatened the Appalachian way of life.

Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, September 9:
GRIT

Directors:
Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander

World Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Full Frame, Hamptons, Big Sky Doc, Bergen, One World, Mill Valley, GlobeDocs, Hawaii, Movies That Matter, Ashland, Doc Edge, Salem, Atlanta, Environmental fests in Washington DC, Princeton, and Yale

About:
In East Java, Indonesia, a mother and daughter battle a corporation over a man-made catastrophe.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
In 2006 a rush of molten mud exploded in East Java, Indonesia, flooding 16 villages and displacing more than 60,000 people; 12 years later the hot sludge is still flowing. Grit profiles one girl’s awakening to activism as her family campaigns against the corporation responsible for the man-made catastrophe. Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander spent six years capturing the unworldly reality of East Java’s ecological disaster with breathtaking cinematography and a patient eye for the youth coming of age amid the mudflow.

Coming to Starz and to DVD/VOD today, Monday, September 9:
OUT OF OMAHA

Director:
Clay Tweel

Premiere:
DOC NYC 2018

Select Festivals:
Big Sky Doc, IFF Boston, Omaha

About:
An intimate coming of ager about twin brothers in North Omaha.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 6:
I’M LEAVING NOW (YA ME VOY)

Directors:
Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, DocsMx, Morelia

About:
An undocumented Mexican immigrant faces the limits of self-sacrifice.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD and VOD today, Friday, September 6:
93QUEEN

Director:
Paula Eiselt

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
San Francisco Jewish, Marfa, Charlotte Jewish

About:
A driven woman faces controversy when she sets out to form the first all-female Hasidic EMT corps.

I previously wrote about the doc here.