Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres and to Netflix today, Friday, October 20:
ONE OF US

Directors:
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

Premiere:
Toronto 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Mill Valley, Philadelphia

About:
A candid look at what happens when individuals try to leave the insular Hasidic community of NYC.

The film is screening as part of DOC NYC’s Short List, for which our program notes read:
Oscar®-nominated directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (JESUS CAMP, DETROPIA), recipients of the Robert & Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence at this year’s DOC NYC Visionaries Tribute, “have made their most powerful and complex film” (The Hollywood Reporter). Their latest project profiles three members of New York’s Hasidic Jewish community who wish to explore more secular lives. To do so puts them at risk of leaving behind their families and facing hostile opposition. As their stories unfold over several months, the film plays like a suspenseful thriller.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 20:
JANE

Director:
Brett Morgen

Premiere:
Toronto 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, New York, Mill Valley, London, Philadelphia, Chicago

About:
A poetic portrait of the life and work of primatologist Jane Goodall.

The film is screening as part of DOC NYC’s Short List, for which our program notes read:
In the 1960s, National Geographic sent a cameraman to film Jane Goodall’s pioneering work with chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park. More than 50 years later, filmmaker Brett Morgen (KURT COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK, ON THE ROPES) gained access to over 140 hours of this remarkable 16mm color footage. Morgen combines this archival material with a new interview with Goodall to craft a romantic epic of her formative years, set to an original score by Philip Glass. The film “transcends the boundaries of both nature film and biography” (The Hollywood Reporter).

Coming to theatres and VOD tomorrow, Friday, October 20:
DEALT

Director:
Luke Korem

Premiere:
SXSW 2017

Select Festivals:
Dallas, Sarasota, IFF Boston, deadCENTER, Shanghai, New Zealand, Bergen

About:
A portrait of an acclaimed card magician who also happens to be blind.

Richard Turner has nurtured a love for playing cards into a lifelong career. While he prefers the term “card mechanic,” most would describe his sleight-of-hand proficiency as magic. Impressive as his tricks may be, they make an even bigger impact when it’s revealed that Turner is blind. As detailed in Korem’s engaging portrait, however, Turner has actively resisted being described as blind, and has typically passed as sighted, relying on his son Asa to assist him in public. When Asa must leave his father’s side for college, Turner finally must reckon with his disability and come to accept it, jettisoning decades of stubbornness and pride, and learning from the example set by his sister, who is also blind, and, like Turner, also hyper-capable.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, October 18:
THE PARIS OPERA

Director:
Jean-Stéphane Bron

Premiere:
Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2017

Select Festivals:
San Francisco, Seattle, BAFICI, BelDocs, Docs Against Gravity, Moscow, Locarno, Melbourne, New Zealand, Biografilm, Jerusalem

About:
An observational portrait of the French cultural institution over a tumultuous season.

A project in the vein of Frederick Wiseman’s institutional studies, Bron’s film provides audiences with a privileged behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Opéra de Paris, whose expansive mandate covers not only opera but orchestral concerts, ballets, and more. Eschewing interviews for fly-on-the-wall scenes, the filmmaker is presented with a bounty of goings on which could fill at least two features, from the debut and quick departure of celebrity ballet director Benjamin Millepied to a national strike hindering full productions to the terror attacks at the Bataclan and elsewhere around Paris, placing other cultural activities under high alert. Beyond the above, other threads include the experiences of a new Russian singer as he adjusts to the Opera and the search for a bull to take on a special role in the opening production of the season. It’s to Bron’s credit that he juggles these events as well as he does, though at times the film does suffer from being overstuffed. Still, it does succeed in offering a rare glimpse of what goes into pulling off world-class performing arts productions.