Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to PBS tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17: AMERICAN COMANDANTE

Adriana Bosch’s tale of an unlikely participant in the Cuban Revolution makes its debut on American Experience tomorrow.

Bosch reveals the unusual – and only recently declassified – story of William Morgan, an American with a decidedly-checkered past who found a second chance to make a name for himself on an island undergoing revolutionary change. Having shamed his upper-class Toledo family several times over as an Army deserter, ex-convict, circus performer, and petty criminal with mob ties, Morgan set out on a path of reinvention at the dawn of the Cuban Revolution, leaving his life in Miami behind to first smuggle in arms to Cuba and later to join the Second Front, a guerrilla group in the Escambray Mountains. After proving himself, the American attained the rank of comandante, married a local Cuban woman, helped grow the rebel forces, and eventually joined forces with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to end the dictatorial rule of General Batista. Morgan reveled in his new position, attaining further fame in his key role in preventing an insurrection, for which he made powerful enemies and lost his US citizenship. But in his self-mythologizing and idealism, he failed to clue into Castro’s communist leanings until it was too late, ultimately running afoul of the new leader. The content of Morgan’s colorful life makes Bosch’s doc engaging, which otherwise hews close to PBS’s conventional biographical approach.

Coming to PBS’s WORLD Channel as part of Native American Heritage Month today, Monday, November 16: RISING VOICES/Hótȟaŋiŋpi

Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey’s exploration of the Lakota language has screened at the South Dakota and Red Nation film fests, as well as numerous community screenings in the lead-up to its broadcast debut.

Confronting an issue that is a direct consequence of historical US policies around Native American assimilation, Hott and Garey’s film looks at the impending disappearance of the Lakota language. With fluency in the tongue vanishing as the elder population passes, the Lakota people question what will become of their culture divorced from their tribal language. Will the answer come in the form of immersion schools, or, curiously, from non-Native instructors who have become adepts in the disappearing language? The film offers poignant reflections of the role government-mandated Native American boarding schools had in shaming and punishing the Lakota and other tribes about their heritage and language, erasing the foundation of culture, and details efforts underway to re-embrace the tribal tongue before it dies out.

Coming to Netflix tomorrow, Saturday, November 14: DIOR AND I

Frédéric Tcheng’s behind-the-scenes look at the legendary fashion design company made its bow at Tribeca in 2014. It has screened at fests in Seattle, Sydney, Provincetown, Outfest, Jerusalem, New Zealand, Rio, Hamptons, Warsaw, Abu Dhabi, CPH:DOX, Tallinn Black Nights, and Madrid Fashion among others. It made its VOD debut earlier this year, but comes to Netflix this weekend.

I previously wrote about the doc here.