Category Archives: Recommendations

Festival:
The 69th Berlinale

Dates:
February 7-17

About:
Germany’s premier film festival showcases 85 new documentaries among its nearly 230 feature offerings. Continue reading →

SXSW has announced the remainder of its feature film line-up today, for a total of 131 projects. Following is the list of documentary features just revealed, broken down by section:

Festival Favorites:

APOLLO 11
Director: Todd Douglas Miller
A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.

AQUARELA
Director:Victor Kossakovsky
A deeply cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power of water. Filmed at 96 frames per second, it’s a visceral wake-up call that humans are no match for the sheer force and will of Earth’s most precious element.

THE HOTTEST AUGUST
Director: Brett Story
A film about climate change, disguised as a portrait of collective anxiety.

THE INVENTOR: OUT FOR BLOOD IN SILICON VALLEY
Director: Alex Gibney
Elizabeth Holmes was once the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her $10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.

KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE
Director: Rachel Lears
Four women run for Congress, overcoming personal adversity to battle powerful political machines across the country. One of their races will change the country forever.

MAIDEN
Director: Alex Holmes
In a moving portrait of resilience, Alex Holmes chronicles the unprecedented journey of 24-year-old Tracy Edwards and the first all-female sailing crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race.

PAHOKEE
Directors: Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan
In a small agricultural town in the Florida Everglades, hopes for the future are concentrated on the youth. Four teens face heartbreak and celebrate in the rituals of an extraordinary senior year.

RAISE HELL: THE LIFE & TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS
Director: Janice Engel
Six-feet of Texas trouble, Molly Ivins, a legendary journalist and a warrior for the Bill of Rights, fought Good Old Boy corruption with razor-sharp wit that left both sides of the aisle laughing and craving ink in her columns. Raise Hell y’all!

Documentary Spotlight:

I AM RICHARD PRYOR
Director: Jesse James Miller
The life story of the legendary performer and iconic social satirist, who transcended race and social barriers by delivering his honest irreverent and biting humor to America’s stages and living rooms until his death at 65.

SALVAGE
Director: Amy C Elliott
The Yellowknife dump, and its massive, unrestricted salvage area, has long played a central role in this remote Canadian city’s civic and social life. Can a colorful group of thrifty locals save it from city bureaucrats determined to close it down?

STATE OF PRIDE
Directors: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Fifty years after the Stonewall uprising, Oscar winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman travel to three diverse communities – Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama – for an unflinching look at LGBTQ Pride.

24 Beats Per Second:

IRIS: A SPACE OPERA BY JUSTICE
Directors: Andre Chemetoff, Armand Beraud
Iris is a film adaptation of Justice’s Woman World Wide live show from 2017-2018, which is widely regarded as the greatest live electronic concert created. Recorded in an empty and invisible space, Iris focuses on the impressive production and music.

Festival:
The 19th Film Comment Selects

Dates:
February 6-10

About:
The editors of Film Comment curate an eclectic mix of new and retrospective films, including five recent works of nonfiction.

The two North American doc premieres are two IDFA debuts: Yang Zhang’s UP THE MOUNTAIN, about life in a remote Chinese mountain village, centered around a master artist; and Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff’s LOS REYES, about two stray dogs living in a Chilean skatepark.

The event also presents the US premieres of Ekta Mittal’s hybrid ABSENCE, on loss felt by women whose husbands and sons have left as part of economic migration; and of Victor Moreno’s THE HIDDEN CITY, a city symphony set in Madrid’s underground. Rounding out the nonfiction offerings is Beata Bubenec’s FLIGHT OF A BULLET, which follows combat in Ukraine in a single-take.