Category Archives: Releases

New to digital download via HBO this week:
WIG

Director:
Chris Moukarbel

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2019

Select Festivals:
NewFest OutCinema, Fringe! Queer

About:
On the past and present of the legendary Wigstock festival.

Beginning in 1984 and running for 20 years, Wigstock was an outdoor drag festival originally taking place in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Organized by drag queen Lady Bunny and several friends who were part of NYC’s nightlife scene, the event grew in popularity but faced pushback by the Giuliani administration, being forced to move to the Hudson River Piers until 2001. Though Bunny restarted the event in Tompkins Square after a year’s hiatus, its final incarnation was in 2005 – until she revived it once again in 2018. Director Chris Moukarbel chronicles Wigstock’s history against a backdrop of changing perceptions of queer culture and drag’s place in it, while also showcasing performers in the lead-up to last Summer’s event. Like 1995’s WIGSTOCK: THE MOVIE before it, the film draws from a rich if rough archive of early East Village footage shot within the queens’ nightlife milieu, accompanied by the musings of Bunny and other iconic figures like Kevin Aviance, Flotilla DeBarge, and Linda Simpson, some of whom seem to take particular issue with the popularization, appropriation, and commodification of drag through avenues like RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE. As a counterpoint, Moukarbel also focuses on Charlene Incarnate, an outspoken trans-identified draq performer who has gained a following and won the smaller Bushwig festival, and who participates in the 2018 Wigstock revival, among other representatives of the new generation of drag. The 2018 performances fill the final section of the doc, but, as a whole, the subversive history of Wigstock’s first incarnation is its most compelling element.

Coming to HBO tonight, Wednesday, December 18:
FINDING THE WAY HOME

Directors:
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

World Premiere:
NYC (December 2019)

About:
The stories of several formerly institutionalized children who were given a second chance.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to digital download via HBO this week:
ICE ON FIRE

Director:
Leila Conners

World Premiere:
Cannes 2019

About:
A look at how the world can reverse climate change.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to HBO tomorrow, Tuesday, December 17:
WELL GROOMED

Director:
Rebecca Stern

World Premiere:
SXSW 2019

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, San Francisco, Cleveland, Montclair, Sarasota, RiverRun, Bentonville, Maui, Woods Hole, Thin Line Doc, Newport Beach

About:
A portrait of competitive creative dog groomers.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, December 16:
ATTLA

Director:
Catharine Axley

World Premiere:
BendFilm 2019

Select Festivals:
Heartland, Banff, SF American Indian, Anchorage

About:
Champion dogsled racer George Attla passes on his knowledge to his grandnephew.

With a career spanning 1958-2011, indigenous Alaskan George Attla was a legendary dog musher, winning nearly 20 championships before retiring. Director Catharine Axley follows Attla in his twilight years, after the champion began a youth program in his rural home town, the village of Huslia, continuing the indigenous tradition of dog mushing. In addition to relating his underdog story – childhood tuberculosis led to a disconnect with his family, culture, and language, in addition to serious physical limitations – the film chronicles Attla’s mentorship of his 20-year-old grandnephew, Joe Bifelt. While this intergenerational training helps liven up the more standard biographical elements, the project could have benefited from expanding beyond its television length to become more compelling.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, December 13:
FINDING THE WAY HOME

Directors:
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

World Premiere:
NYC (December 2019)

About:
The stories of several formerly institutionalized children who were given a second chance.

Globally, children fall prey to disreputable or illegal orphanages or other institutions that promise desperate parents a better environment and educational opportunities but instead neglect, abuse, or traffic their sons and daughters for profit. Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill profile eight children, some with disabilities, who fortunately escaped this dark fate through the efforts of organizations that help to reunite families, find foster parents, and shut down criminal enterprises. Bringing viewers to far-flung lands including Moldova, Nepal, and Haiti, the doc offers heartbreaking stories of exploitation and greed, balanced with hopeful outcomes. The most eye-opening segment follows a Haitian pastor who has had his squalid orphanage closed by authorities, but goes on to open an equally overcrowded and filthy new children’s home. Taking a survey approach that unfortunately proves limiting, Alpert and O’Neill offer only brief sketches of the youth and their guardians, and unfortunately are unable to go into much detail, but the film still proves affecting.