Category Archives: Releases

Coming to virtual cinemas today, Friday, April 16:
DOWNSTREAM TO KINSHASA

Director:
Dieudo Hamadi

World Premiere:
Cannes 2020 (unscreened)

Select Festivals:
Toronto, IDFA, DOK Leipzig, RIDM, Singapore, Seattle, Doclisboa, Leeds, Cleveland, AFI Fest

About:
Survivors of Congo’s Six-Day War seek long-delayed compensation from their government.

In June 2000, a conflict between neighboring Uganda and Rwanda spilled over into the Congolese city of Kisangani, resulting in death and injury to thousands. Surviving victims of this six-day conflict were promised restitution, but, as demonstrated in Dieudo Hamadi’s affecting film, they have been kept waiting for nearly two decades. The filmmaker follows a group of survivors, many missing limbs and relying on painful prosthetics, as they undertake a long journey to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, to protest their treatment and demand action from their government. The film is strongest when focused on this trek, and the treatment these activists receive upon their arrival, but falters in its awkward inclusion of dramatized scenes from a theatre workshop involving the participants. Still, Hamadi succeeds in highlighting this injustice, little known in the West, and demonstrating the resilience and righteousness of those most impacted.

Coming to select theatres and to virtual cinemas today, Friday, April 16:
Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts

Director:
Jeffrey Wolf

World Premiere:
Smithsonian American Art Museum (September 2018)

Select Festivals:
Freep, San Francisco DocFest

About:
The biography of a former Black slave turned celebrated self-taught artist.

Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1853 on a cotton plantation. It was not until his 80s when he began to express himself through art. Drawing and painting on the sidewalks of Montgomery, his work featured crude animal and human figures that at times functioned as allegorical explorations of his memories of slavery and later life experiences. This body of work has been embraced in more recent years, included in notable museum exhibitions. While Traylor’s work has its appeal, director Jeffrey Wolf’s approach to his story is an odd mix of very conventional PBS biographical portrait with artsy, would-be inventive flourishes that feel at cross purposes with the constant recitation of the prosaic details of Traylor’s life. Odd staged scenes, enacted readings of writings by Zora Neale Hurston and others, and music and dance interludes tend to distract from, rather than enrich, the appreciation of Traylor’s work.

Coming to VOD via Hulu today, Thursday, April 15:
The State of Texas Vs. Melissa

Director:
Sabrina Van Tassel

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2020 (unscreened)

Select Festivals:
Tallgrass, Raindance, FIPADOC, Cinequest, Deauville

About:
A mother sentenced to death for killing her own young daughter faces her last appeal.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to The WORLD Channel’s AfroPoP today, Monday, April 12:
FINDING SALLY

Director:
Tamara Mariam Dawit

World Premiere:
Hot Docs 2020

Select Festivals:
DOXA, Encounters, Durban, CinemAfrica, NY African Diaspora

About:
The director seeks to unearth the story of an aunt she’s never heard of before.

After Tamara Mariam Dawit, the daughter of an Ethiopian man and Canadian woman, moves to her father’s homeland to reconnect with her father’s side of the family, she learns of the existence of a long-absent aunt, Selamawit, known affectionately as Sally. While Sally’s sisters are surprised by Dawit’s claims that they’ve never spoken about Sally in front of her, it’s clear that their lost sister’s story is a painful one. Interviewing each of her aunts, as well as other family friends, Dawit delves not only into Sally’s story, but that of Ethiopia’s tumultuous history. Though presented as something of a mystery, Sally’s story is well known, up to a point, by her family, the offspring of a respected diplomat for Emperor Haile Selassie’s government. Sally was involved in the student movement that opposed Selassie as well as the more radical Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party that was targeted as an enemy by the repressive military junta that forced the emperor from power in 1974. Sally went into hiding, but the family eventually learned of her death, though they never knew the exact circumstances. To her credit, the filmmaker’s investigation uncovers this missing part of the story, bringing closure to Sally’s sisters. While Dawit’s filmmaking is very basic and conventional, and especially marred by slow, unengaging, and too present expository narration, she does manage to broaden an intimate personal story through a wider consideration of Ethiopia’s fraught history.