Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5:
LOVE MEANS ZERO

Director:
Jason Kohn

Premiere:
Toronto 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, IDFA, Hamptons, Camden, Philadelphia

About:
A portrait of an infamous and influential tennis coach who has trained champions, at a personal price.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Nick Bollettieri ran America’s most famous tennis academy, producing multiple champions including several who would become fierce rivals: Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, and more. Was Bollettieri a genius or a tyrant, a father figure or a huckster? There are no simple answers. He’s been interviewed countless times and is always quick on his feet, ready for anything coming at him. But he meets his match in documentary maker Jason Kohn (Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury prize, MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)).

Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction tonight, Tuesday, May 29:
THE ATOMIC CAFE

Directors:
Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty

Premiere:
Film Forum (March 1982)

Select Festivals:
SXSW 2018 (restoration premiere)

About:
A compilation of clips from the first decades of the nuclear era reveal an undercurrent of denial and anxiety.

Newly restored in 4K, this cult classic documentary traces the history of nuclear armaments and their impact on American society, as filtered through government propaganda, news footage, and advertisements from the 1940s through the early 1960s. Eschewing narration, text cards, or any contextual details, the filmmakers instead construct a collage in roughly chronological order, trusting viewers to acknowledge the absurdity of the touted safety of nuclear preparedness training such as the infamous “duck and cover” campaign, particularly when juxtaposed with images of radiation poisoning and devastation from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and tests in the Pacific. Covering the end of WWII through the middle of the Cold War, the film demonstrates the insidiousness of state-driven attempts to simultaneously ramp up fear of the Communist threat yet soften concerns about the aftermath of a seemingly inevitable nuclear war, instilling complacency about the atomic age. Viewed in hindsight, the material is often darkly humorous, but nervously so, and all too relevant in an era of fake news and government distrust and instability.

Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction tomorrow, Thursday, May 24:
A JIHAD FOR LOVE

Director:
Parvez Sharma

Premiere:
Toronto 2007

Select Festivals:
Berlin, Rio, Thessaloniki Doc, Planete Doc Review, Ambulante, Morelia, Sheffield, Istanbul, Melbourne, Reykjavik, Helsinki, LGBT fests in San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Montreal, London, Boston, Miami, Torino, and Zurich

About:
Profiles of gay and lesbian Muslims in several countries.

Timed to the 10th anniversary of the film’s theatrical release in 2018, STF re-presents Sharma’s pioneering project, produced by Sandi duBowski (TREMBLING BEFORE G-D, and exploring the intersection of Islam and homosexuality. Years in the making and filmed at grave personal risk by the filmmaker and his subjects, Sharma’s doc explores the diversity of Muslim lives across more than a half dozen nations, from Iran and Egypt, where there are strict laws against homosexuality, to somewhat more tolerant countries like Turkey and India. A survey of this nature often results in a sense of repetition, more questions than answers, and a lack of context that is sometimes frustrating, but the poignant and at times provocative film succeeds in humanizing its subjects, and, most importantly, providing those who have been silenced with a platform to speak their truth.