New to VOD via MUBI this week:
JAMILIA
Director:
Aminatou Echard
World Premiere:
Berlin 2018
Select Festivals:
Cinéma du Réel, Jerusalem, DocumentaMadrid, Vancouver, Open City Docs
About:
An exploration of the cultural impact of a 1958 Kyrgyz novella and its titular heroine.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, July 19:
DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME
Director:
AJ Eaton
World Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, SXSW, Santa Barbara, Sun Valley, Seattle, Revelation Perth, Boulder
About:
A candid, warts and all portrait of the rock and roll legend.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
New to VOD this week:
THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY
Director:
Chad Freidrichs
World Premiere:
Chicago 2017
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Denver, St Louis, Big Sky Doc, Planet in Focus, DC Environmental, Salem, Sarasota, Revelation Perth, Architecture & Design fests in New York City, Washington DC, Los Angles, Rotterdam, Milan, Zurich, Copenhagen, and New Orleans
About:
A chronicle of an almost successful attempt to build the city of the future.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In the 1960s, frustrated by the growing problem of urban pollution, Athelstan Spilhaus, a visionary scientist and futurist comic strip writer, assembled a team of experts to develop a bold experiment: the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). MXC would be the city of the future, a domed metropolis for 250,000 pioneering residents, built from scratch and using cutting-edge technology to prevent urban sprawl and pollution. Things didn’t quite go as planned, as explored in Chad Friedrichs’ fascinating look back at the would-be city of tomorrow.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS tomorrow, Wednesday, July 17:
8 DAYS: TO THE MOON AND BACK
Director:
Anthony Philipson
World Premiere:
BBC broadcast (July 2019)
About:
An immersive revisitation of the Apollo 11 mission.
This PBS presentation may very well be the last of a veritable subgenre of Apollo documentaries released this year, all timed, of course, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of mankind setting foot on the moon. In some ways, director Anthony Philipson’s project is similar to both Todd Douglas Miller’s epic APOLLO 11 and Tom Jennings’ APOLLO: MISSIONS TO THE MOON, in that it puts heavy focus on archival material. Unlike both of those takes on the Apollo mission, however, this one chooses to incorporate extensive dramatized re-enactments to supplement extant material. In practice, this amounts to actors portraying Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Mike Collins lip-synching actual audio recordings of conversations between them and Mission Control. It’s frankly an odd stylistic choice, and one which viewers may find to be distracting more often than not. Leaving that aside, Philipson is more successful at weaving together the audio with actual mission footage, as well as Walter Cronkite’s useful CBS News coverage of those historic eight days in space. As the former plays out, particularly, of course, the lunar landing and return to Earth, the film does achieve its intended immersive impact, resulting in an at times absorbing watch that would seem to approximate the experience of watching the events on those days back in 1969.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 16:
ROBERT SHAW: MAN OF MANY VOICES
Directors:
Pamela Roberts and Peter Miller
World Premiere:
Atlanta Symphony Hall (April 2016)
Select Festivals:
Newport Beach, San Diego Jewish, Breckenridge
About:
An appreciation of acclaimed conductor Robert Shaw.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 16:
MAN ON FIRE
Director:
Joel Fendelman
Premiere:
Slamdance 2018
Select Festivals:
Big Sky Doc, Indie Grits, Atlanta, Newport Beach, Sidewalk, Hot Springs Doc, St Louis
About:
The self-immolation of a local pastor forces a small Texan town to reckon with its history of racism.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, July 15:
BISBEE ’17
Director:
Robert Greene
Premiere:
Sundance 2018
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, True/False, CPH:DOX, Visions du Reel, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, BAMcinemaFest, Sydney, Jeonju, Minneapolis/St Paul, Cleveland
About:
An old town on the Arizona-Mexico border collectively confronts the darkest episode in its history.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to theatres today, Friday, July 12:
SEA OF SHADOWS
Director:
Richard Ladkani
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Ambulante, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX, Hong Kong
About:
An investigation into efforts to save an endangered whale species caught in the crossfire of a lucrative black market battle.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, July 12:
GENERAL MAGIC
Directors:
Matt Maude and Sarah Kerruish
World Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festival:
Palm Springs, Cleveland, Florida, Doc Edge, Sidewalk, Philadelphia, Hot Springs Doc, Milwaukee, Denver, Hawaii
About:
A look back at an ahead-of-its-time tech company.
Smartphones have become ubiquitous in just over a decade, but, in 1990, the very idea of a handheld computer was so out there, that one of the companies that developed the concept was called General Magic. A spinoff of Apple just a few years after the introduction of the Macintosh, the company drew together some of the leading minds in technology, as well as partnerships with AT&T and Sony, promising groundbreaking developments. Fortunately for directors Matt Maude and Sarah Kerruish, company insiders also did a remarkable job of documenting their efforts, including filming key moments that are included in this intriguing if somewhat hagiographic history lesson of ambition, forward-thinking, and failure. The film chronicles the company’s efforts to develop, produce, and market the Magic Link, which, upon its release in 1994, was an expensive, clunky misfire that led to General Magic’s bankruptcy. Key players in the firm went on to make magic elsewhere, however, and, as the film argues, the principles behind the Magic Link informed the next couple of decades’ worth of invention that fundamentally have altered society’s relationship to technology.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, July 12:
BETHANY HAMILTON: UNSTOPPABLE
Directors:
Aaron Lieber
World Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festival:
Los Angeles, Hot Springs Doc, Palm Springs, Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, Newport Beach
About:
A portrait of the professional surfer, best known for losing an arm to a shark attack as a teenager.
Hawaiian born Bethany Hamilton had already been surfing competitively for five years when she was attacked by a tiger shark at the age of 13. She gained fame not only for surviving the encounter, but for bouncing back and continuing to compete. Her story became a bestselling book, which was later adapted into a film. Director Aaron Lieber is understandably less interested in focusing on this well-trod territory here, and instead follows the now adult Hamilton, as she still attempts to compete on the pro circuit while balancing the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood. While featuring the requisite well-lensed surfing footage one would expect from such a project, this puffy portrait offers no real surprise or drama and feels overstretched with multiple endings, making it best suited to Hamilton’s existing fanbase.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 