Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres and to VOD today, Friday, March 18: THE BIRTH OF SAKÉ

Erik Shirai’s inside look at a small Japanese saké brewery premiered at Tribeca last year. It has since screened at Seattle, Provincetown, Dokufest Kosovo, San Sebastian, Milan, ZagrebDox, Philadelphia, Chicago, Antenna, Bend, Mar del Plata, Sidewalk, Palm Springs, Tallinn Black Nights, and Goteborg, among several others.

The Tedorigawa Brewery in northern Japan has been in operation for over 140 years, but is one of a relative few artisanal breweries still in operation in an industry that has turned to mechanization. Shirai documents the painstaking six-month process by which the beverage is made, immersing the viewer in the microcosm of the workers and their learned brewmaster. Living together at the brewery during this period, they forego time with their families in order to uphold the tradition of handcrafted saké, while also attempting to adapt their product to modern tastes. Bolstered by picturesque cinematography, Shirai offers an intimate perspective that pays respect to their diligence and sacrifice while quietly marking its potential impending disappearance.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, March 18: EVERYTHING IS COPY

Jacob Bernstein and co-director Nick Hooker’s portrait of Nora Ephron made its debut at the New York Film Festival last Fall. The doc also screened at Palm Springs and the Westchester Jewish film fests.

Bernstein, Ephron’s eldest son with her second husband, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein, constructs a straightforward but warmly engaging tribute of the celebrated writer/director. Weaving together archival personal footage, various media appearances of his mother, and interviews with family and illustrious friends and admirers, from Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, and Meg Ryan to Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, and Gay Talese, among several others, the film relates how the daughter of mildly successful Beverly Hills screenwriters went from a mail girl at Newsweek to a famed magazine essayist for Esquire and The New Yorker before breaking in as a Hollywood screenwriter and later director, usually drawing from her personal experiences. Borrowing its title from an aphorism oft-stated by Ephron’s mother – essentially that anything that happens in ones life is fair game for use by a writer – the film makes much of her uncharacteristic decision to keep secret her diagnosis of leukemia, which claimed her life in 2012, but thankfully Bernstein doesn’t get too bogged down in this, choosing instead to celebrate his mother’s life and her deft skill in bringing humor to personal tragedies and triumphs alike through her clever writing.

Coming to Netflix tomorrow, Friday, March 18: MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN

Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland’s candid look at the unexpected aftermath of a stroke had its world premiere at IDFA in 2014. The doc went on to screen at Sheffield, ZagrebDox, and at this year’s SXSW.

A deeply personal story, the stroke victim here is Sodderland herself. After she suffered an intracranial hemorrhage, the 34-year-old went missing, alarming her friends and family who finally tracked her down at a London hospital. While they are relieved that Sodderland has survived, they soon learn she has lost fundamental language capabilities making it difficult to express herself. She turned to filmmaker Robinson to help document her long recovery, as she tries to relearn to read and write despite the aphasia the stroke has left her with, and joins an experimental study to stimulate her brain in the hopes of creating neural pathways. All the while, Sodderland contends with strange, altered vision that lends a distinct, experiential visual texture to the film, and unexpected side-effects from her treatment. As she attempts to make sense of her new reality, this prompts a fascinating consideration of her very sense of self in the absence of memories or the kinds of communication that she relied on before the stroke, ultimately leading to a hopeful new approach to life.

New to DVD this week: WHAT OUR FATHERS DID: A NAZI LEGACY

David Evans’ profile of the sons of high-ranking Nazis made its debut at Tribeca last year. It also screened at the Jerusalem, Vancouver, Hamburg, London, Stockholm, and San Francisco Jewish film fests.

Evans’ film focuses on three men: Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter, both sons of lawyers turned governors of Nazi-occupied territories during WWII, and Philippe Sands, a renowned international human rights attorney whose Ukrainian Jewish grandfather lost his entire family due to atrocities overseen by Frank and von Wachter’s fathers. While Frank has unreservedly condemned the actions of his father, a man who never showed him any affection before he was convicted at Nuremberg and sentenced to death, von Wachter clings to the increasingly untenable belief that his beloved father was a good man, not responsible for any war crimes. In settings both private and public, Sands and Frank challenge von Wachter to face facts, but continue to face disturbing resistance, facile excuses, and impossible demands for corroboration, making for a troubling and compelling consideration of the limits of denial.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, March 15: BOOM BUST BOOM

Terry Jones, Bill Jones, and Ben Timlett’s creative look at economic crashes has largely bypassed festivals to instead screen at universities, conferences, and other professional events since its debut last March. It opened theatrically last week and now comes to VOD platforms including iTunes.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 15: STEVE JOBS: THE MAN IN THE MACHINE

Alex Gibney’s look at the life and legacy of the computer pioneer debuted at SXSW last year. Other fest berths included Nantucket, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, AFI Docs, Melbourne, Woodstock, Napa Valley, DocPoint, Big Sky, and IDFA.

I previously wrote about the film here.