Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 21:
CALL HER GANDA

Director:
PJ Raval

Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Doc Edge, Frameline, Outfest, Inside Out, Cínemalayà, LA Asian Pacific, DMZ Docs, Sidewalk, New Orleans

About:
The murder of a transgender woman by a US Marine exposes the legacy of imperialism in the Philippines.

While on shore leave, PFC Joseph Scott Pemberton, a 19-year-old US Marine, met Jennifer Laude while out on the town in Olongapo City, Philippines, and took her to a hotel room. She was later found brutally murdered, and Pemberton was arrested for the crime, based on the theory that he panicked after learning that she was transgender. Immediately, family, friends, and activists are concerned that Pemberton will escape justice by invoking the Visiting Forces Agreement that exists between the US and the Philippines, allowing a great deal of latitude for American servicemen to avoid local prosecution for crimes committed, prompting a surprising public outcry about the unfairness of the VFA as well as the disregard paid to transgender lives. Raval follows several individuals invested in seeking justice for Laude, including her supportive mother and other family members, their lawyer, and a trans journalist covering the story. Despite the film’s title – Laude was called “Ganda” by her mother, Tagalog for “beauty” – Jennifer remains something of a cypher, never quite fleshed out and only seen in brief video and stills, but the film’s focus on the simmering tension between Philippine sovereignty and US military involvement in its former proves thought-provoking.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 21:
95 AND 6 TO GO

Director:
Kimi Takesue

Premiere:
Doclisboa 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, CPH:DOX, RIDM, BAFICI, FIDM, Open City, DOK Leipzig, Indie Memphis, San Diego Asian, Hawai’i, CAAMFest, LA Asian Pacific, Sarasota, Krakow

About:
A creative portrait of the filmmaker’s grandfather.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In this affectionate portrait, filmmaker Kimi Takesue finds an unlikely collaborator while visiting her grandfather Tom in Hawai’i. A recent widower in his 90s, Tom seems content to go about his daily routines until he shows surprising interest in his granddaughter’s screenplay. In alternately funny and poignant discussions, Kimi’s fictional love story – and Tom’s creative revisions – soon serve as a vehicle for his past memories of love and loss to surface.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, September 21:
LOVE, GILDA

Director:
Lisa D’Apolito

Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, Montclair, AFI Docs, San Francisco Jewish, Boston Jewish, Seattle, Sidewalk

About:
An intimate, personal portrait of the legendary Gilda Radner.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program, saying:
In this deeply intimate portrait, alternately touching and uproarious, Lisa D’Apolito reveals the personal side of Gilda Radner. Told largely through the comedian’s own words via intimate recordings and private journal entries read by admirers like Amy Poehler and Melissa McCarthy, the film relates how Radner emerged from the world of improv to become one of the members of the original cast of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. There, gifted with an uncanny ability to create unforgettable characters, she introduced the world to Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, and many others, while confronting both the perils and pleasures of instant celebrity. But neither success nor her romance with actor Gene Wilder could prepare the spirited comedian for her biggest challenge – a battle with ovarian cancer.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, September 19:
GARRY WINOGRAND: ALL THINGS ARE PHOTOGRAPHABLE

Director:
Sasha Waters Freyer

Premiere:
SXSW 2018

Select Festivals:
San Francisco, New Zealand, Thin Line, Vancouver, Haifa

About:
A history and appreciation of acclaimed street photographer.

Garry Winogrand was known for a body of work that encompassed street photography as well as acclaimed publications of American life in Texas and California in the 1960s. Though prone to montages, Freyer makes good use of a rich archive of Winogrand’s striking images in this watchable but fairly straightforward artist portrait, while the photographer himself, who died of cancer in 1984, is represented largely through a frank audio interview with fellow photographer Jay Maisel. Admirers help position his work among those photographers who changed popular understanding of photography from a discipline that illustrated magazine articles to an art form. Taking on particular resonance is work that was produced later in his career, including photo books WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL, which was met with scorn, seen as emblematic of the male gaze coming at the height of feminism; and PUBLIC RELATIONS, focused on the creation of images rather than notable events themselves, a sort of harbinger of the selfie generation.