Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6:
FACES PLACES

Directors:
Agnès Varda and JR

Premiere:
Cannes 2017

Select Festivals:
Toronto, DOC NYC, New York, Telluride, Vancouver, New Zealand, Reykjavik, Melbourne, London, Chicago

About:
The odd couple director duo travel around French villages and photograph the people they meet.

Bonding over a mutual love of images, French New Wave legend Varda and celebrated photographer/street artist JR decide to collaborate on a fanciful project, beautiful in its simplicity. Visiting several small French hamlets, they meet local residents, then take their large scale portraits and exhibit them within the village – sometimes on the sides of barns, sometimes outside factory walls. Along the way, they playfully banter. It’s a charming, sweet portrait of both everyday people and of two extraordinary individuals who celebrate them.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6:
TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!

Director:
Joan Kron

Premiere:
Miami 2017

Select Festivals:
Martha’s Vineyard, Berkshire, SF DocFest, Newport Beach

About:
Two comediennes contemplate the impact of having plastic surgery.

Notable as director Kron’s debut film at the age of 89, this engaging and entertaining project uses the lens of comedy to explore societal conceptions of female beauty and the pressures many women feel to conform, often through plastic surgery. While some women try to keep their nips and tucks a secret, female comedians have long used their experiences in this area as more material for their routines. Drawing from the experiences of several comics who have had work done, or thought about it, the film primarily focuses on two appealing, funny women, Jackie Hoffman and Emily Askin, as they wrestle with the idea of getting nose jobs, or more, and how changing their appearance may affect their careers.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6 and to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, October 9:
THE ISLANDS AND THE WHALES

Director:
Mike Day

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Wild & Scenic, Big Sky Doc, Leeds, St Louis, Princeton Environmental, Zurich

About:
An island community reckons with the upending of long-held traditions.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In the remote Faroe Islands, an archipelago located halfway between Norway and Iceland, inhabitants have been in tune with their environment for millennia. With a rugged landscape not suited for farming, they have relied on the sea for their survival, enjoying a traditional diet of seabirds, pilot whales, and fish. When they are faced with rising mercury levels in their food, as well as the clamor of international animal-rights activists, the Faroese may be forced to change their ancient ways.

Coming to theatres and to Netflix tomorrow, Friday, October 6:
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P JOHNSON

Director:
David France

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

Select Festivals:
Sheffield, Traverse City, Melbourne, Seattle, Montclair, Frameline, Outfest, Provincetown, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Portland, Halifax, Barcelona, Seoul, Dublin, Glasgow, Vancouver, Honolulu, Austin, Oslo, Sydney, Chicago

About:
A tribute to a pioneering African American transgender activist, who died in 1992 under mysterious circumstances.

Marsha P Johnson – the P stood for “Pay no mind,” according to the outspoken figure – was a veteran of Stonewall and a familiar presence in Greenwich Village for decades before her body was found in the Hudson River near the Christopher St piers. Traditionally dismissive if not outright hostile to the city’s queer population, particularly trans people, the police hastily deemed Johnson a suicide and declined to investigate further. Decades later, Victoria Cruz, an activist with the Anti-Violence Project, decides to explore the case on her own, seeking justice long deferred for this under-acknowledged community leader. As Cruz speaks to Johnson’s old friends, her story is but one of several that emerge in this sensitively crafted film that speak to a history of inequity and violence being visited upon trans people, especially trans people of color, including the legendary Sylvia Rivera, as well as Islan Nettles, who was murdered in 2016.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, October 4:
CHAVELA

Directors:
Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi

Premiere:
Berlin 2017

Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, Sheffield, AFI Docs, Provincetown, Guadalajara, Malaga, Ambulante, BAFICI, Montclair, Seattle, Krakow, Transylvania, Sydney, Galway, Frameline, Outfest, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Milan, Barcelona, Austin, Palm Springs, Chicago

About:
A portrait of an iconic Latin American singer.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program, saying:
Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi pay loving tribute to Chavela Vargas, a figure legendary throughout Latin America for her breathtaking romantic songs, who found more widespread fame by being showcased in the films of Pedro Almodóvar. Adopting masculine attire and performing songs typically reserved for men, she was an iconoclast in a traditionally macho culture, both on stage and off – as evidenced by her passionate love affairs with women like Frida Kahlo and Ava Gardner.

New to VOD this week:
ESCAPES

Director:
Michael Almereyda

Premiere:
BAMcinemaFest 2016

Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, San Francisco (both as WIP)

About:
An unconventional biography of occasional actor and BLADE RUNNER screenwriter Hampton Fancher.

I previously wrote about the doc