Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to HBO tonight, Tuesday, May 7 and to theatres this Friday, May 10:
FOSTER

Director:
Mark Jonathan Harris

Premiere:
AFI Docs 2018

About:
An inside look at America’s foster care system.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 3:
DECADE OF FIRE

Directors:
Vivian Vazquez and Gretchen Hildebran

Premiere:
DOC NYC 2018

Select Festivals:
Full Frame, Cleveland, Chicago Latino, Harlem, Maryland

About:
A Bronx native revisits the truth behind the boroughs rash of arson in the 1970s.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Left unprotected by the city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multiethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Latino residents bore the blame. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx native Vivian Vazquez exposes the truth about the borough’s sordid history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain, and rebuild.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 3:
MEETING GORBACHEV

Directors:
Werner Herzog and Andre Singer

Premiere:
Telluride 2018

Select Festivals:
Toronto, CPH:DOX, Tribeca, DocPoint, Dok Leipzig

About:
The German auteur has a meeting of the minds with the legendary final leader of the Soviet Union.

Over the course of six months, Werner Herzog sat down with Mikhail Gorbachev for three surprisingly affectionate meetings to discuss the politician’s history and pivotal role in bringing the Cold War to an end. As may be expected, their discussions are less formal and more idiosyncratic, but nevertheless cover the key points in the fraught relationship between the US and USSR, the struggles within the Soviet politburo, and Gorbachev’s pragmatic reformist approach during a time of geopolitical turmoil. Herzog displays a genuine, and infectious, fondness for the world leader and his diplomacy, particularly in these fractious times.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, April 30:
DEATH OF A CHILD

Directors:
Frida Barkfors and Lasse Barkfors

Premiere:
Göteborg 2017

Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Docudays, Giffoni

About:
A thoughtful portrait of parents who have inadvertently caused their own children’s deaths.

Parents are genetically hardwired to care for their offspring, making child abuse, filicide, or neglect so incomprehensible to many, despite their unfortunate frequency. Having become parents themselves, the Barkfors explore a parental nightmare that is surprisingly commonplace but subject to social stigma and harsh judgement: causing the death of a child by heatstroke after forgetting it in one’s car. Through the stories of several individuals who experienced this tragic, inadvertent memory lapse, the film seeks to make sense of the senseless and challenge society’s quickness to condemn them as monsters or bad parents. The Barkfors approach a difficult topic, which is typically sensationalized, with sensitivity and compassion.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 26:
BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ

Director:
Pamela B Green

Premiere:
Cannes 2018

Select Festivals:
Telluride, New York, London, Deauville, Rio, Göteborg

About:
Unearthing the largely forgotten story of the world’s first female film director.

In 1894, at the dawn of film, Alice Guy began to work at Gaumont, where she soon became head of production, and the first woman to direct – and, by some accounts, the first person to focus on narrative storytelling rather than simply creating reels that demonstrated the new technology. After a decade at Gaumont, she relocated to America, and married, forming her own studio, Solax. Though she was responsible for over 1000 films, she was eventually written out of the history books, her work often credited to male subordinates by skeptical male film historians. While cinema studies scholars and silent film aficionados might know about her, to the rest of the world, she is basically forgotten. Pamela B Green’s documentary aims to rectify that injustice, serving as a comprehensive biography of Guy-Blaché and an appreciation of her films and achievements. At the same time, Green uses a personal quest structure, charting her research, including the fortuitous discoveries she made, perhaps as a way to liven the proceedings up a bit, or maybe just to show how much Guy-Blaché had fallen into obscurity. To be frank, this isn’t really necessary or particularly compelling, but thankfully doesn’t derail the project as a whole, which remains a worthwhile corrective to the pioneering filmmaker’s legacy.