Category Archives: Recommendations

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.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3: HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY

Director:
Daniel Raim

Premiere:
Cannes 2015

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, RiverRun, Jerusalem, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Ashland, Vancouver, various Jewish film fests

About:
A portrait of an unheralded couple and their behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood history.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
WOMAN ON FIRE

Director:
Julie Sokolow

Premiere:
DOC NYC 2016

Select Festivals:
Thessaloniki Doc, Atlanta, Bentonville, Kansas City, Oxford, Florida, Workers Unite, Frameline, LGBT fests in Boston, Toronto, Austin, Seattle, Memphis, Fresno, Chicago

About:
A profile of a pioneering transgender woman.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
This portrait of courage under fire celebrates NYC’s first openly transgender firefighter. For Brooke Guinan, fighting fires runs in her blood – both her father and grandfather served in the FDNY. But as a transgender woman, her path to service has not been without obstacles. Transitioning from male to female in what is still an overwhelmingly macho profession proves a challenge for her coworkers and her family, while her boyfriend reckons with the impact on his parents of Brooke’s newly public profile.

Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 3:
THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY

Director:
Errol Morris

Premiere:
Telluride 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Toronto, New York, Chicago, IDFA, Hong Kong, Provincetown, Moscow, IFF Boston

About:
A large-scale Polaroid photographer reflects on her work on the eve of her retirement.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, October 2:
SWIM TEAM

Director:
Lara Stolman

Premiere:
Hot Springs Doc 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Napa Valley, Oxford, Glasgow, Big Sky Doc, Boulder, Reel Abilities, SXSWedu, San Diego Latino, Sarasota, RiverRun, Nashville, Montclair, Berkshire, Greenwich, SF Docfest

About:
A portrait of three teenage swimmers, all on the autism spectrum.

I previously wrote about the doc here.