photo by David Paul Jacobson
Director:
Ryan White
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Tribeca, San Francisco, Full Frame, Miami, IFF Boston, Miami Jewish
About:
A profile of the world-famous sex therapist and Holocaust survivor, Dr Ruth Westheimer.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
New to DVD this week:
CHARLEY PRIDE: I’M JUST ME
Director:
Barbara Hall
Premiere:
Belmont University, Nashville (January 2019)
About:
The story of the Negro League baseball player turned pioneering country music star.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres and to Netflix tomorrow, Wednesday, May 1:
KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE
Director:
Rachel Lears
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Hot Docs, True/False, Full Frame, Athena, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago Doc 10
About:
Four progressive political newcomers – including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – seek to unseat entrenched incumbents.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, April 30:
THAT WAY MADNESS LIES…
Director:
Sandra Luckow
Premiere:
Northwest Film Center (May 2017)
Select Festivals:
Hot Springs Women’s, Richmond
About:
The filmmaker is drawn into the financial, emotional, and legal mess of her brother’s mental health issues.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, April 30:
DEATH OF A CHILD
Directors:
Frida Barkfors and Lasse Barkfors
Premiere:
Göteborg 2017
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Docudays, Giffoni
About:
A thoughtful portrait of parents who have inadvertently caused their own children’s deaths.
Parents are genetically hardwired to care for their offspring, making child abuse, filicide, or neglect so incomprehensible to many, despite their unfortunate frequency. Having become parents themselves, the Barkfors explore a parental nightmare that is surprisingly commonplace but subject to social stigma and harsh judgement: causing the death of a child by heatstroke after forgetting it in one’s car. Through the stories of several individuals who experienced this tragic, inadvertent memory lapse, the film seeks to make sense of the senseless and challenge society’s quickness to condemn them as monsters or bad parents. The Barkfors approach a difficult topic, which is typically sensationalized, with sensitivity and compassion.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 26:
BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ
Director:
Pamela B Green
Premiere:
Cannes 2018
Select Festivals:
Telluride, New York, London, Deauville, Rio, Göteborg
About:
Unearthing the largely forgotten story of the world’s first female film director.
In 1894, at the dawn of film, Alice Guy began to work at Gaumont, where she soon became head of production, and the first woman to direct – and, by some accounts, the first person to focus on narrative storytelling rather than simply creating reels that demonstrated the new technology. After a decade at Gaumont, she relocated to America, and married, forming her own studio, Solax. Though she was responsible for over 1000 films, she was eventually written out of the history books, her work often credited to male subordinates by skeptical male film historians. While cinema studies scholars and silent film aficionados might know about her, to the rest of the world, she is basically forgotten. Pamela B Green’s documentary aims to rectify that injustice, serving as a comprehensive biography of Guy-Blaché and an appreciation of her films and achievements. At the same time, Green uses a personal quest structure, charting her research, including the fortuitous discoveries she made, perhaps as a way to liven the proceedings up a bit, or maybe just to show how much Guy-Blaché had fallen into obscurity. To be frank, this isn’t really necessary or particularly compelling, but thankfully doesn’t derail the project as a whole, which remains a worthwhile corrective to the pioneering filmmaker’s legacy.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 26:
CHASING PORTRAITS
Director:
Elizabeth Rynecki
Premiere:
Jewish Motifs Warsaw 2018
Select Festivals:
St Louis, Rhode Island, Southern Circuit, Jewish fests in San Francisco, Boston, Jerusalem, New York, Miami, and Palm Springs
About:
The filmmaker takes a quest around the world to find her great-grandfather’s lost art.
Moshe Rynecki lived in Poland and painted everyday scenes of Jewish life before being sent to a concentration camp during WWII, where he was killed. While his family managed to keep some of his artwork, most was lost during the war. Decades later, Moshe’s great-granddaughter, Elizabeth, who grew up fascinated by his paintings, begins to showcase his work online, and, in the process, discovers other work in museums and private collections around the world. She sets out to see this work, often running up against obstacles by institutions or individuals who appear frightened that she will attempt to lay claim to Moshe’s art, but Elizabeth’s interest, while personal, is ultimately more historical and cultural. The result of her travels is both a book and this documentary project, which, to its detriment, is more about her search than it is about Moshe’s work. Clunkily narrating every step of her journey, and employing home movie-like production values, this is a very personal, very homegrown project. In this way, it functions as a testimony about the horrific consequences of the Holocaust on families, but, as valuable as that is, it’s one served by a large body of films. Consequently, what gets somewhat short shrift are the issues uniquely central to Moshe and his artwork.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
New to DVD this week:
TEAM KHAN
Directors:
Oliver Clark and Blair Macdonald
Premiere:
Raindance 2018
About:
Pakistani-British boxer Amir Khan tries to cement his legacy in the sport.
Over two years, Clark and Macdonald follow Khan, a professional boxer and Silver medal Olympian, through three pivotal fights, and his dreams of facing off against boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr – which never happens. Instead his ultimate focus becomes an apparently career-defining fight against Mexican champion Canelo Alvarez, for which he must move up two weight classes. In between repetitive scenes of preparation for that ultimately ill-fated bout, including training with his coaching staff and team, press conferences, and promotional events, the film also shows Khan’s more personal side, from his wife and child to the hero’s reception he receives during visits to Pakistan. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t fully succeed in fleshing out its protagonist enough to make his story particularly compelling to non-fans, but those already in his corner will no doubt find more to appreciate.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
New to VOD this week:
PUSHKAR PURAN
Director:
Kamal Swaroop
Premiere:
Montreal World 2017
Select Festivals:
Mumbai, DOK Leipzig, Taiwan Doc, Edinburgh, Doclisboa
About:
Several days at a massive Hindu festival.
Cult filmmaker Swaroop’s film is an experimental immersion into the festivities around the Hindu holy city of Pushkar. His camera weaves around various activities, from observers making offerings or cleansing in sacred waters to people dancing, animals being paraded around, and tourists observing the festivities. All the while, a voiceover rattles off Hindu cosmology to accompany the occasionally arresting visuals. Offering virtually no context for viewers unfamiliar with either the city’s importance or whatever larger meaning the poetic meditation is meant to evoke, this remains a messy and not altogether particularly interesting project for outsiders.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, April 26:
IF THE DANCER DANCES
Director:
Maia Wechsler
Premiere:
Dance on Camera 2018
Select Festivals:
Ashland, Raindance
About:
A leading choreographer restages one of Merce Cunningham’s iconic works.
The legendary modern dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham died in 2009, at the age of 90. Determined not to let Cunningham’s work fade away, Stephen Petronio sets out to reintroduce his 1968 piece, RainForest, to new audiences. To that end, Petronio gathers together three members of Cunningham’s company to assist his dancers in restaging the work, and, in so doing, keeping Cunningham’s legacy alive. Wechsler’s film, produced with Lise Friedman, herself a former member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, excels when it focuses on the dance itself rather than on reflections on Cunningham, and is better suited to observe the artistic process and its impact on the dancers, past and present, than on the intentions of its late originator.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 