Commemorating Pearl Harbor Day, this week’s Indiewire-curated Hulu documentaries takes a look back at the war to end all wars with a focus on docs and historical programming on WWII. View them all now for free!
For more information about the selections, see my Indiewire article.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Indiewire @ Hulu Docs, Recommendations
Coming to NYC’s Maysles Cinema after 36 years for an exclusive one-week run beginning next Monday, December 12: DAGUERRÉOTYPES
Legendary filmmaker Agnès Varda made this love letter to her Parisian neighborhood back in 1975. Though it screened as part of series or festivals, it has never received a US theatrical release until now.
Punning on the name of her street, Rue DaGuerre, Varda likens her portrait of its various shopkeepers to the early 19th century photographs developed by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, notable as the first commercially successful photographic process. Besides a few sequences of brief narration, the bulk of Varda’s film consists of scenes set within the quaint mom-and-pop boulangerie, boucherie, salon de coiffure, and apothicaire that line the 14th Arrondissement street that’s been her home for more than half a century. Usually, the filmmaker merely observes as the shopkeepers open up for the day or tend to customers, but there are also sequences in which her subjects, speaking directly to the camera, reveal where they were born, how they met their partners, when they came to Paris, and how they began working in their trade. In a more unusual sequence, they attend and participate in a magic show. Despite the temporary spectacle the latter provides, the true magic in this understated doc is the beauty in the mundane – the everyday moments that populate these individuals lives: the way one shopkeeper folds and unfolds the shutters in the front of her store as her husband moves merchandise outside, the pleasure another merchant shows when finding and selling a customer two buttons, and the same merchant quietly coping with his wife’s apparent dementia. It’s a lovely, small film, revealing a slice of 1970s Paris that is now long gone.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Screening at NYC’s Harlem Stage tomorrow, Friday, December 7: (A)SEXUAL
Angela Tucker’s film on the dawning of a new identity-based movement had its premiere at Frameline this Summer. It went on to screen at NewFest, Seattle LGBT, and the New Orleans Film Festival.
Last year, I profiled Tucker’s project while it was still in production (and before she finally settled on its (suggested-by-me) title). I had the opportunity to watch the completed film at NewFest back in July, though I’ve yet to write about it again here until now. In many ways, launching the film on the LGBT film circuit makes a lot of sense – it’s very much a film about sexuality and identity, two concepts that are often at the core of LGBT films. The difference in Tucker’s film, of course, is that her subjects’ identities are not defined by the gender they’re sexually attracted to, but instead by not being sexually attracted to anyone. As the film asks, in a culture where sex is everywhere, how does the 1% of the population who are asexual fit in? The film benefits from focusing on the asexuality movement’s poster child, the handsome and charismatic David Jay, who came out to his parents as asexual more than a decade ago. While his attempts at navigating intimate relationships without sexual attraction might exasperate some viewers – why does everything have to be so complicated that it needs a literal flowchart? – his outspoken personality engenders fascinating dialogue and contemplation about concepts we all too easily take for granted. In watching the film, I was reminded of the first time I heard gender theorist Kate Bornstein discuss her own transition indepth, an experience that certainly shifted some of my own paradigms about gender, sexuality, identity, and attraction. Beyond this kind of confrontation with societal assumptions, what also makes Tucker’s film fascinating is that she’s essentially documenting the beginning of an identity in its first years. As the Internet helps to bring together individuals who have always thought they were unique, they’re only now organizing public gatherings and events to put a face to the concept of asexuality – and Tucker is there, capturing their anxiety and excitement, as well as the confusion and sometimes, bizarrely, the hostility of those confronted by their existence.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction as a pre-Winter season special screening next Tuesday, December 13 and as part of Rooftop Films’ “Films for the Occupation” series next Wednesday, December 14: BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s doc on the impact of the Atlantic Yards development project previously screened at Rooftop Films, multiple festivals, and enjoyed a limited theatrical run. It has been shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
I previously wrote about the film here.
Note: Directors Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky will be present for post-screening Q&As at both screenings. The Rooftop Occupation screening is free to the general public.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
Coming to theatres this Friday, December 9: KNUCKLE
Ian Palmer’s twelve year profile of the Irish Traveller community premiered at Sundance earlier this year. After further festival exposure, the film opened in the UK and Ireland this past summer before its US run.
I wrote about the film pre-Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Now screening at NYC’s Quad Cinema as part of the African Diaspora International Film Festival: AN AFRICAN ELECTION
Director Jarreth Merz and co-director Kevin Merz’s engaging behind-the-scenes view of Ghana’s 2008 presidential election premiered at IDFA and came stateside for Sundance at the beginning of the year. Since then it won at the Atlanta Film Festival and at Visions Du Reel.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to VOD next Friday, December 9: WE WERE HERE
David Weissman and Bill Weber premiered this look at San Francisco’s early response to AIDS at Sundance at the beginning of the year. The film is on the shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film is here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, December 6: BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD
Liz Garbus premiered her biography of the chess wunderkind at this year’s Sundance. After screening at numerous additional festivals, it was broadcast on HBO this summer.
I profiled the film pre-Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Yesterday’s IDFA round-up looked at selected titles from the First Appearance competition for which I was a juror. Today’s wraps up my brief thoughts on films from other competitions, as well as a handful of films from the festival’s non-competing “Reflecting Images” sections. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, In Brief, Recommendations
Coming to PBS’ Independent Lens tomorrow, Thursday, December 1: ART & COPY
Doug Pray’s look at advertising and its influence had its world premiere in competition at Sundance in 2009. The film went on to screen extensively at other fests, picking up awards at Atlanta and Newport Beach, as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Arts & Culture programming.
The director of acclaimed festival favorites like SURFWISE and SCRATCH turns his attention to the world of advertising, examining the intersection of creativity, commerce, and culture. His film explores the origins of some of the most famous advertising campaigns in the US and how they left an impression on modern culture – from Reagan’s “It’s morning in America” ads to Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan. Beyond running down these and other memorable sales pitches, the film is especially captivating in relating the seismic shift that took place within the industry in the mid-1960s when art directors began to collaborate directly with copywriters, which had never been done before. Interviewing real world Mad Men (and Mad Women), Pray brings to life the story of how the profession moved from the mediocre to became a dynamic, exciting, and creative endeavor – albeit one that hinges on the ethically questionable practice of persuading people they absolutely need to have what’s being pitched to them.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
