Category Archives: Releases

Coming to theatres today, Friday, February 22:
PROSECUTING EVIL: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF BEN FERENCZ

Director:
Barry Avrich

Premiere:
Toronto 2018

Select Festivals:
United Nations Association, Santa Barbara, Boulder, Jerusalem, Jewish fests in Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Hartford, Palm Beach, San Diego, Honolulu, and Santa Cruz

About:
A profile of the last surviving member of the Nuremberg prosecutorial team.

Ben Ferencz was brought to NYC as a baby by his parents, fleeing the persecution of Jews in Europe in the early 1920s. By the time he joined the US Army to fight in WWII, he had received a law degree from Harvard. As part of his duties as the war ended, Ferencz was tasked to collect evidence of war crimes, visiting liberated concentration camps to bear witness to Nazi atrocities committed there. When the Nuremberg trials were called, the young lawyer, just 27, was appointed chief prosecutor in the trial of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi death squads responsible for the deaths of more than one million Jews and other supposed enemies of the German state. This set him off an a lifelong mission to prevent further crimes against humanity, including genocide, by advocating for an International Criminal Court – an entity that finally became a reality in 2002. Barry Avrich’s film is a capable if conventional biography, benefitting primarily from the now-nearly 100-year-old subject’s deeply impactful personal reflections, testimony that earns its gravitas without the need for the project’s distracting, bombastic score.

New to DVD this week:
TO THE EDGE OF THE SKY

Directors:
Jedd Wider and Todd Wider

Premiere:
Stony Brook 2017

Select Festivals:
Woodstock, Napa Valley

About:
Parents become activists to access the experimental drug that might save their sons’ lives.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a degenerative genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 5000 boys, and is typically terminal by the mid-20s. The Wider brothers’ film profiles four boys with DMD – Charley, 12; Austin, 14; Jett, 18; and Aiden, 9 – and, just as importantly, their families, led by their fierce mothers. When the latter learn of a new drug with the potential to extend their sons’ lives, they are disheartened to learn the only way to gain access is as part of a very small clinical trial, and one that is not open to sufferers whose disease has progressed too far already. While this is standard operating procedure for the FDA to test a new drug safely before releasing it to the public, the boys’ mothers argue that there is life-threatening urgency that should bypass normal protocols. The film follows their efforts to mobilize a grassroots movement to force the FDA to fast-track access, even if there are risks. The film is unfortunately overlong, including one or two subjects too many, but generally succeeds as an ultimately hopeful, though often angry, David vs Goliath call-to-action profile.

Coming to PBS’s American Masters tomorrow, Friday, February 22:
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.

Charley Pride grew up during segregation in small-town Sledge MS, the son of a cotton farm sharecropper. At the age of 18, he sought advancement via sports, joining the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro League, but found his true calling via music. Listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio with his father, Pride developed a love for country music that inspired his move to Nashville in 1963 during a time of racial strife. In this respectful but simple biography, Barbara Hall recounts how he parlayed his impressive voice and musical talent into an unlikely career as one of the few African American performers working in the genre. Now an octogenarian, Pride reminisces about his life and career, appearing alongside old friends and collaborators like Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tonight, Tuesday, February 19:
STRUGGLE & HOPE

Director:
Kari Barber

Premiere:
Festival International du Film Panafricain Cannes 2017

Select Festivals:
Harlem, Bare Bones, Nevada Women’s, Ethnografilm Paris, Tulsa

About:
The overlooked story of Oklahoma’s historically all-black communities.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, black communities led an effort to establish an all-black state in what would become Oklahoma. Granted 1.5 million acres, these pioneers founded all-black towns throughout the territory, but the dream of a sovereign state quickly faded, and, within a few generations, many of the communities were absorbed into larger cities. Barber’s project reviews this fascinating history while profiling residents of some of the few remaining towns as they struggle to hold on to self-determination and their heritage in the face of encroachment in various forms. While tackling an important and sadly largely unknown topic, the doc is unfortunately very roughly made, juggling too many subjects in too brief a running time – not all of them particularly directly relevant or essential to the larger story – and awkwardly including its narrator on camera, literally reading from the script in front of him.

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, February 18:
UNITED SKATES

Directors:
Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown

Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, London, Denver, Vancouver, Urbanworld, New Zealand, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Sidewalk

About:
An exploration of skating rink culture within African American communities.

I previously wrote about the doc here.