Category Archives: Recommendations

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

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, October 3:
THE SENSITIVES

Director:
Drew Xanthopoulos

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

Select Festivals:
Camden, Newburyport Doc, New Hampshire, Santa Fe

About:
An intimate portrait of several individuals suffering from inexplicable, debilitating environmental allergies.

Over the course of several years, Xanthopoulos followed three stories about “sensitives,” people suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and environment-related disabilities, perhaps best-remembered from Todd Haynes’ 1995 film SAFE, starring Julianne Moore. Here, the focus is on Joe, a husband and grandfather who wrestles with the idea of relocating to a community protected from environmental triggers; Karen and her grown twin sons Sam and Nathan, who long ago moved to the desert and depend on Karen’s elderly mother for all of their needs; and Susie, who risks her own well-being to advocate for others suffering in isolation. Focused more on humanizing the misunderstood sufferers of chemical and electrical sensitivities, often too readily dismissed as psychologically troubled, Xanthopoulos crafts a beautifully lensed, meditative film.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, October 3:
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME

Director:
Bill Morrison

Premiere:
Venice 2016

Select Festivals:
New York Film Festival, London, Rotterdam, Göteborg, Thessaloniki Doc, BAFICI, It’s All True, Docs Against Gravity, Seattle, Melbourne, EBS Doc, Sydney

About:
Lost films discovered preserved in the Yukon permafrost are used to tell the story of their origins.

In the remote Canadian town of Dawson City in 1978, a cache of nitrate films were unearthed during the excavation of an old hockey rink for a construction project. The Dawson City Film Find contained more than 500 silent film reels, many long believed lost. From this beginning, Morrison turns back the clock to the foundation of the town amid the Klondike Gold Rush, displacing First Nations people in the process, and creatively uses clips from the discovered films, together with old newsreels and other archival materials, to trace Dawson City’s history up through 1978 – with some curious but fitting diversions about money, industry, and capitalism – explaining in the process how the films ended up in the permafrost. The result is an artful, fascinating excavation of time and place, all through a deep love for film.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, October 3:
THE FARTHEST

Director:
Emer Reynolds

Premiere:
Dublin 2017

Select Festivals:
Tribeca, Edinburgh, Seattle, AFI Docs, Sydney, New Zealand, Telluride Mountainfilm

About:
A comprehensive history of the Voyager mission, from inception to execution to the present day.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
RAT FILM

Director:
Theo Anthony

Premiere:
Locarno 2016

Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, True/False, SXSW, Florida, Maryland, Art of the Real, Docaviv, Doclisboa, Vancouver, Mar del Plata, Torino

About:
A provocative essay about Baltimore’s rodents emerges as a simultaneous cultural anthropology of race and class.

I previously wrote about the film here.