Category Archives: Releases

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, April 14:
TALKING ABOUT ADULTERY

Director:
Bara Jichova Tyson

World Premiere:
Sheffield 2019

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Jihlava, Kerala

About:
An intimate exploration of marriage, sex, and infidelity.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Husbands, wives, mistresses, and others vividly recount confessional stories about sex, love, friendship, and yearning in this provocative film exploring infidelity. As the camera lingers over familiar domestic spaces, it reveals landscapes of intimacy, desire, and monotony. Artist/filmmaker Bara Jichova Tyson adds intriguing personal layers through poignant live collage-making and the story of an affair unfolding through the course of making the film, providing a window into the inner tensions of modern marriage.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, April 14:
REFUGEE

Director:
Alexander J Farrell

World Premiere:
DOC NYC 2018

Select Festivals:
Windsor

About:
A Syrian refugee seeks to be reunited with her family.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Raf’aa flees Syria in the midst of the war, leaving behind her husband, Nazem, and their two sons in order to seek asylum in Europe. The family plans to follow her to Germany, but by the time Nazem and the boys make it to Greece, they find the borders closed. Confined to the stark conditions of a refugee camp while Raf’aa copes with the trauma she experience on her own journey, will Nazem be able to safely reunite his family?

New to VOD this month:
WE BELIEVE IN DINOSAURS

Directors:
Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross

World Premiere:
San Francisco 2019

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, AFI Docs, St Louis, Hot Springs Doc, Woods Hole, Sidewalk, Southern Circuit, Rocky Mountain Women’s, Virginia

About:
An exploration of the influence of American creationism through Kentucky’s contentious Ark Encounter museum.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 14:
EAST LAKE MEADOWS: A PUBLIC HOUSING STORY

Director:
Sarah Burns and David McMahon

World Premiere:
PBS broadcast (March 2020)

About:
The history of an Atlanta public housing community.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week:
THE COLD BLUE

Director:
Erik Nelson

Premiere:
AFI Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
New York, Traverse City

About:
A meditation on war composed of archival film of B-17 bombers shot by William Wyler.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
CITIZEN K

Director:
Alex Gibney

World Premiere:
Venice 2019

Select Festivals:
Toronto, London, Warsaw, AFI Fest, Hamptons, Rio

About:
An exploration of post-Soviet Russia through oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS today, Tuesday, April 7 and next Tuesday, April 14:
THE GENE: AN INTIMATE HISTORY

Directors:
Chris Durrance and Jack Youngelson

World Premiere:
PBS broadcast (April 2020)

About:
A far-ranging history of the discovery and research into the human genome.

Based on the eponymous book by Pulitzer Prize-winning oncologist Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, and executive produced by Ken Burns, this two-part, four-hour documentary provides viewers with a crash course in genetic science, tracing its development from the pioneering 19th century studies of Gregor Mendel to the mapping of the human genome and more recent, thorny questions around genetic manipulation through technologies like CRISPR. Threaded alongside this history – which, while informative, is presented in a conventional, educational PBS style of expository narration, talking heads, and graphics – are various profiles of individuals facing challenges due to genetic diseases, bringing a human angle while also demonstrating the wide implications of the science being discussed. The project’s expanded form allows room to address the complex ethical issues involved, and to contextualize them with considerations of how genetic science has been perverted in the past through eugenics, and how this could resurface through modern genetic tinkering. This is critical, as shown in the disturbing development which serves as the film’s bookend, the November 2018 announcement that a Chinese researcher defied an agreed upon moratorium on clinical gene-editing to alter twin baby girls in vitro to be unable to contract HIV.