Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, August 24: POINT AND SHOOT
Marshall Curry’s look at an unlikely freedom fighter in Libya debuted at Tribeca last year, where it won the Best Documentary Award. Its fest circuit has also included Hot Docs, AFI Docs, IFF Boston, Nashville, Traverse City, New Zealand, and Melbourne.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to LA theatres tomorrow, Friday, August 21 and to VOD next Tuesday, August 25: MATEO
Aaron I Naar’s portrait of a gringo mariachi singer made its bow at SXSW last year. Screenings followed at Hot Docs, Martha’s Vineyard, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound+Vision series, Camden, Hot Springs Doc, In-Edit, Cork, and Rotterdam.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres and VOD tomorrow, Friday, August 21: BEING EVEL
Daniel Junge’s look at the larger-than-life exploits of the motorcycle showman debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Its extensive festival run has also included SXSW, Miami, Cleveland, Dallas, IFF Boston, Seattle, Sydney, deadCENTER, Las Vegas, Melbourne, and New Zealand.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to PBS this Friday, August 21: NATIONAL GALLERY
Frederick Wiseman’s tour of the London institution made its bow at Cannes last year. Other fest screenings included Toronto, NYFF, Deauville, Biografilm, London, Chicago, Vancouver, Sydney, and Busan, among others.
I previously wrote about the film upon its theatrical release here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to CNN tomorrow, Thursday, August 20: ÉVOCATEUR: THE MORTON DOWNEY JR MOVIE
Daniel Miller, Seth Kramer, and Jeremy Newberger’s re-examination of the career of the controversial talk show host made its bow at Tribeca in 2012. Festival play followed at IDFA, Montclair, TromaDance, and Denver, among other fests.
I previously wrote about the doc out of Tribeca here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, 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.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, August 18: LAMBERT AND STAMP
James D Cooper’s profile of the would-be filmmakers who discovered The Who made its world premiere at Sundance last year. Other fest appearances included Sundance London, Sarasota, Belfast, Knoxville, Whistler, and Chattanooga, among others.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
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.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Saturday, August 15: FINDERS KEEPERS
Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel’s exploration of a notorious battle over a missing leg bowed at Sundance earlier this year. Since then it has screened at SXSW, Hot Docs, RiverRun, Sarasota, Traverse City, IFF Boston, New Zealand, Melbourne, and Sundance NextFest, among other fests.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Coming to the WORLD Channel’s American Equality series tomorrow, Friday, August 14: SPIES OF MISSISSIPPI
Dawn Porter’s look at state-sponsored surveillance during the civil rights era had its world premiere at Little Rock in 2013. Screenings followed at Sidewalk, New York African Diaspora, and the United Nations Association fest before the doc made its broadcast debut on PBS’s Independent Lens in February 2014.
In 1956, lawmakers, faced with the reality that segregation was under threat, created the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an agency that was tasked with maintaining the “Mississippi way of life.” Though seemingly innocuous, those in the state working toward fuller civil rights did not realize at the time that they were facing a clandestine political machine that would grow to become a de facto spy network, keeping tabs on “agitators” and willing to resort to intimidation and violence to prevent change. Porter’s revealing – and still sadly topical – doc details the modus operandi of the Sovereignty Commission, including the practice of recruiting African Americans to report on civil rights groups’ activities from within, employing the same tactics used by the FBI’s covert COINTELPRO operations, and their close ties with the Ku Klux Klan, whose membership had infiltrated positions of power in law enforcement and government. As noted here, these abuses of civil liberties would have stayed hidden for decades to come were it not for the intrepid work of Jackson MS’s Clarion-Ledger, which exposed documents linking the Commission to the deaths of voter-registration workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, which helped turn the tide of public opinion; as well as the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
