Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 23: THE PEARL BUTTON

Patricio Guzmán’s continued reminder of Chile’s history of violence made its world premiere at Berlin earlier this year, where it won the jury prize for best script. Its extensive festival run has included Toronto, BAFICI, Biografilm, Sydney, Jerusalem, Melbourne, San Sebastian, Bergen, Vancouver, London, and Yamagata, among others.

Just as the director’s NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT made a poetic connection between the Chilean desert and the victims of Pinochet’s violence buried within, so too does Guzmán draw links here between his nation’s extensive coastline and the secrets within its depths. In this case, the auteur reveals the haunting stories of the nomadic water-based Kaweskar indigenous groups who called these regions home until they were all wiped out in the wake of colonialism. But these were not the only people confined to a watery grave, as the director eloquently reminds us of the brutal techniques employed by the Pinochet regime to dispose of enemies of the state, turning the ocean into a mass grave for the disappeared. Guzmán’s film serves, then, as an elegy for the losses of both, separated by nearly a century.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 23: THE DIPLOMAT

David Holbrooke’s profile of his accomplished father had its world premiere at Tribeca this Spring. It went on to screen at San Francisco, Traverse City, Sarajevo, AFI Docs, Telluride Mountainfilm, and Jerusalem, among others.

Richard Holbrooke lived a life of public service, with a career in US foreign affairs that began with Vietnam in the 1960s and carried through to Afghanistan until his death in 2010. As detailed here, Ambassador Holbrooke worked for the Carter and Clinton administrations, famously brokered peace in the Balkans, and later tried unsuccessfully to duplicate these efforts for the Obama administration in Afghanistan. In alternate ways both an ideal and a problematic filmmaker to tell the story of Ambassador Holbrooke, his filmmaker son brings a reverential and comprehensive, but occasionally uncomfortably personal, approach to this portrait, revealing a man who devoted himself to the rest of the world, but perhaps sacrificed his family relationships in his pursuit of peaceful resolution through diplomacy.

Coming to NYC theatres tomorrow, Friday, October 23: TOP SPIN

Sara Newens and Mina T Son’s profile of teen champions made its debut at DOC NYC last year. It has gone on to screen at Big Sky, Salem, CAAMFest, Am Doc, TIFF Kids, Nashville, IFF Boston, LA Asian Pacific, Montclair, and SF Docfest, among others.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In Sara Newens and Mina T Son’s spirited sports film, three driven teenage athletes attempt to go for Olympic gold. Their sport? The perpetually popular but underappreciated game of table tennis. Northern California’s Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang balance friendship and professional rivalry to see who’ll come out on top, while Long Island’s Michael Landers sacrifices his senior year of high school to devote more time to training at NYC’s SPiN.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, October 21: HEART OF A DOG

Laurie Anderson’s meditation on life and loss premiered at Telluride. It has gone on to screen at Venice, Toronto, San Sebastian, New York, Adelaide, and Chicago.

Returning to film after nearly three decades, experimental performance artist/musician Anderson offers a surprisingly whimsical and sometimes hypnotic essay on mortality, inspired by her dearly departed rat terrier Lolabelle. While often focused on the dog, and Anderson’s maternal attachment to her, manifested most clearly in the retelling of a dream in which the artist gives birth to the canine, the film free associates, eschewing any discernible structure to instead move between this relationship to broader musings on loss and vulnerability, localized in a post 9/11 surveillance state, and into suggestive connections between the deaths of her mother and of her life partner, Lou Reed.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 20: ONE CUT, ONE LIFE

Lucia Small and Ed Pincus’ collaborative exploration of mortality had its world premiere at Full Frame last year. It went on to screen at IFF Boston, Woods Hole, Torino, and the New York Film Festival, among others. The doc now comes to VOD via iTunes.

I previously wrote about the film upon its theatrical release here.