Coming back to theatres tomorrow, Friday, April 5:
AMAZING GRACE
Realized and Produced by:
Alan Elliott
Premiere:
DOC NYC 2018
Select Festivals:
Berlin, SXSW, True/False, AFI Fest, Full Frame, Pan African
About:
A landmark Aretha Franklin music concert film is released over forty years after it was filmed.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, April 3:
WALL
Director:
Cam Christiansen
Premiere:
Calgary 2017
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Edinburgh, Annecy
About:
An animated adaptation of David Hare’s play exploring the impact of Israel’s West Bank barrier.
Presented free to audiences in a one-week run at NYC’s Film Forum, Christiansen’s film will, of course, have resonance with American viewers due to the current presidential administration’s obsession with a border wall with Mexico. While that contentious project sits outside of the scope of Hare and Christiansen’s doc, another historical structure, the Berlin Wall, is invoked here, with its similarities and contrasts to the Israel/Palestine separation barrier pointed out during Hare’s meditation on mitigating conflict between the two nations. Reviewing the barrier’s origins in response to terrorist bombings within Israel, Hare notes its relative successes and failures – bombings down, but rocket attacks up – and seeks out the perspectives of individuals on both sides, literally. Christiansen provides audiences with an imaginative way to experience the wall and its various meanings, while also helping to break the project out of its theatrical origins – though there’s no fully escaping its staginess, given Hare’s monologuing.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
New to DVD and VOD this week:
AMERICAN RELAPSE
Directors:
Pat McGee and Adam Linkenhelt
Premiere:
Rhode Island 2018
Select Festivals:
Cleveland, Orlando, Anchorage, Montana
About:
A candid look at America’s heroin epidemic through the perspective of recovering addicts helping others navigate rehab.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, April 2:
¡LAS SANDINISTAS!
Director:
Jenny Murray
Premiere:
SXSW 2018
Select Festivals:
Lima, Southern Circuit, Maryland
About:
The female leaders of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution look back at their unsung accomplishments.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, April 2:
THE GREAT BUSTER
Director:
Peter Bogdanovich
Premiere:
Venice 2018
Select Festivals:
Telluride, Chicago, Deauville, Mill Valley
About:
A tribute to comic screen legend Buster Keaton.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD and digital download tomorrow, Tuesday, April 2:
JIHADISTS
Directors:
François Margolin and Lemine Ould Salem
Premiere:
Biarritz FIPA 2016
About:
An unfiltered look at radical jihadist ideology.
More or less banned in France to prevent the spread of propaganda, and not released in the US until several years after its 2016 debut, Margolin and Salem’s rather rough-looking project aims to offer an inside look at fundamentalist Islam, from the mouths of adherents themselves. In practicality, this means the film consists of a parade of poorly shot talking heads espousing the virtues of sharia law, and the righteousness of whipping, mutilating, or stoning sinners, with an introduction and intermittent interjections from Margolin sitting at his desk offering brief statements or background about the content or production challenges. Filling out the project are clips from Islamic State propaganda videos, serving as a substitute for the filmmakers’ inability to access subjects in Syria and Iraq. While a strong project conceivably could be made that simply presents chilling jihadist ideology, allowing its speakers to shock the audience and perhaps motivate them to oppose its message in some way, even in the absence of counterarguments or pointed editing, this attempt falls short, its distracting, amateurish production values and approach failing to prove compelling.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, April 1:
TRE MAISON DASAN
Director:
Denali Tiller
Premiere:
San Francisco 2018
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Cleveland, IFF Boston, Montclair, AFI Docs, Rhode Island, Heartland, Raindance, Cucalorus, Big Sky Doc, Thessaloniki Doc, NewportFilm
About:
A profile of three young boys whose parents are in prison.
The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
While his father serves a prison sentence, Tre, 13, has his own run-ins with the law. Maison, a hyperactive 11-year-old with Asperger’s, is raised by his grandmother while his beloved dad is behind bars. Finally reunited with his mother, six-year-old Dasan must confront the truth behind her time away. This compelling portrait of growing up with absent role models poses raw and meaningful questions about justice and the cultural, societal, and economic implications of mass incarceration.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, March 29:
AMERICAN RELAPSE
Directors:
Pat McGee and Adam Linkenhelt
Premiere:
Rhode Island 2018
Select Festivals:
Cleveland, Orlando, Anchorage, Montana
About:
A candid look at America’s heroin epidemic through the perspective of recovering addicts helping others navigate rehab.
Focused on the “rehab capital of America,” Delray Beach FL, McGee and Linkenhelt’s eye-opening and at times harrowing film profiles Allie and Frankie, two longtime heroin addicts in recovery who have devoted themselves to helping others get clean. As these two advocates quickly reveal, they are part of a growing, and, for some, lucrative industry that has developed to deal with the heroin epidemic. While some so-called junkie hunters have exploited this situation, working the health insurance system to profit off of users’ cycles of recovery and relapse, Allie and Frankie are not in it for the money. Throughout this compelling and wisely tightly contained doc, which roughly covers about 3 days, they attempt to help other addicts – including one of Allie’s friends – into rehab, with varying levels of success, all while risking their own sometimes tenuous relationship to sobriety.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND
Director:
Theo Love
Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festivals:
Tallgrass, Cucalorus, BendFilm, Sidewalk, Traverse City, American Film Festival Poland
About:
A far-fetched tale of hidden illicit treasure captures the attention of a hapless man desperate for money.
Rodney Hyden carved out a measure of success for his family as a small business owner in Florida, but then the Great Recession struck, and he lost everything. Seeking a way to get back on track, he hears a crazy story from a neighbor involving a bag of cocaine that was secreted away on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra, alleged to be worth $2 million. Despite the lack of any practical knowledge of the drug trade, or any real connections that could facilitate the sale of cocaine – nor, pointedly, any apparent concern about placing kilos of hard drugs onto the streets – Hyden concocts a hare-brained scheme to visit the Caribbean island and retrieve the buried treasure. The level of his ineptitude can be measured by noting that his first attempt fails because he forgot to bring a shovel, but his missteps don’t end there. Director Theo Love, noting a good story when he hears one, appropriately spins his own wild tale out of the proceedings, bringing style and humor to this recounting of his hapless protagonist’s misadventures. At the same time, missing in this lighter approach to this stranger than fiction episode is an acknowledgement of how Hyden’s privilege figures in to his ultimate reckoning, a stark contrast to how other individuals from different racial and class backgrounds caught up in similar illegal activities are typically treated. Leaving that systemic issue aside, Love’s film succeeds in demonstrating the seduction of storytelling, and in an entertaining manner.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Photo courtesy Discovery Channel
Director:
Ross Kauffman
Premiere:
Sundance 2019
Select Festivals:
Washington DC Environmental, Mountainfilm, Sun Valley, EarthxFilm
About:
A dual profile of efforts to reverse the decimation of Asia’s wild tiger population.
My pre-Sundance doc profile may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
