Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, October 29:
WILDLAND

Directors:
Alex Jablonski and Kahlil Hudson

Premiere:
Camden 2018

Select Festivals:
Ashland

About:
An immersion into the training and work of a group of firefighters.

Set in Grants Pass OR, Jablonski and Hudson’s film follows the personal stories of a few men who have elected to take on the challenge and duty of fighting wildfires. Embedding themselves within the training program, the filmmakers capture the rigor and boredom of preparation, but it all leads to the important – and dangerous – work. Some recruits have signed up for adventure, others for duty, and a few as a means to turn their lives around from addiction and crime. At its core, the beautifully shot film explores conceptions of masculinity, more obviously denoted by its original title, YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, and poetically captured here through excerpts of Ray Bradbury’s DANDELION WINE.

Coming to PBS’s Doc World this Sunday, October 28:
THE GUARDIANS

Directors:
Ben Crosbie, Tessa Moran

Premiere:
Washington DC Environmental 2018

Select Festivals:
RiverRun, DocLands, Mountainfilm, SF Green, Banff Mountain, Margaret Mead

About:
An indigenous community in Mexico tries to protect an ancestral forest important to the migration of the monarch butterfly.

In Donaciano Ojeda, the local indigenous community, recognizing the dangerous impact of logging on their forest, have collectively agreed to serve as stewards of the land, protecting it for generations to come. The traditional home to the monarch butterfly as it migrates south, saving the forest is essential to their survival, helping to curtail the dramatic population reduction the species has seen in the past twenty years. In their well-constructed film, Crosbie and Moran reveal the conflicting forces at play as the community, made up of former loggers, attempts to balance sustainable conservation with economic reality.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, October 26:
MONROVIA, INDIANA

Directors:
Frederick Wiseman

Premiere:
Venice 2018

Select Festivals:
Toronto, New York, Hamptons, London

About:
A wide-ranging portrait of a small midwestern town.

Wiseman’s latest focuses on the titular community, with a population less than 2000, roving around various activities and locations, from a local diner to a farm, an auction to a far-too-long funeral. The master filmmaker isn’t concerned with establishing characters, but in providing an impressionistic look at the daily life of rural America. It’s a largely apolitical portrait, with the most contentious issue debated by a planning board being a vague reference to concerns of a demographic change to the town. Otherwise, an impassioned discussion about whether the Lion’s Club should donate one or two benches to the local library is more the film’s speed. Though not one of Wiseman’s more notable efforts, the film nevertheless retains interest on the whole.