Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 18: SOUND AND CHAOS: THE STORY OF BC STUDIO

Ryan Douglass and Sara Leavitt’s surprising history of a nondescript Brooklyn music studio debuted in the Netherlands last Summer. In addition to one-off engagements around Europe and the US, the doc has screened at Sound Unseen, Noise Pop, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound + Vision. It now comes to iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, VHX, and more via FilmBuff.

Revealing the underground music history of a singular place, Douglass and Leavitt explore Martin Bisi’s titular recording studio, which has been in operation since the 1970s and has hosted a diverse range of musicians, from Brian Eno and Debbie Harry to Sonic Youth and Africa Bambaataa. As much a look back at a changing New York City as it is about its vibrant music culture, this modest film’s interviewees paint a vivid picture of a pre-gentrified Brooklyn full of gangs and stray dogs, and the kind of ramshackle old industrial buildings that provided Bisi’s studio with its unique sound.

Coming to PBS’s POV today, Monday, August 17: NEULAND

Anna Thommen’s look at the process of cultural integration debut at Zurich in 2013. Other fests have included Berlin, DOK.fest Munich, and DocPoint, among others.

Over the course of two years, Thommen’s sharply observed verité film profiles several students in one of the special classes mandated by the Swiss government for asylum seekers to facilitate integration within the larger society, a program that simultaneously provides a leg up to newcomers while insisting on the preservation of Swiss culture and languages in the face of rising immigration. Wisely focused on just three adolescent students, Ehsanullah from Afghanistan and siblings Nazlije and Ismail from Serbia, and their frank teacher/de facto father figure, Mr Zingg, the film details the youths’ challenging backgrounds, the factors that led them to migrate, their struggles with language, and balancing sometimes unattainable aspirations for careers and wealth with pragmatism, crafting a complex portrait of immigration, assimilation, and Swiss national identity.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 11: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE

Matthew Pond and Kirk Marcolina’s profile of a notorious jewel thief debuted at Hot Docs in 2013. Its fest circuit also included IDFA, Woodstock, Tallgrass, Antenna, Hot Springs, Cleveland, Docaviv, and ArcLight Hollywood Doc, among others.

I previously included the film in my Hot Docs coverage here.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11: I AM BIG BIRD

Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker’s look at one of SESAME STREET’s beloved muppeteers had its world premiere at Hot Docs last year. Other fest engagements included DOC NYC, AFI Docs, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Seattle, Montclair, and Melbourne, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here.