Category Archives: Releases

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 23 and to EPIX this Monday, November 26:
THE PANAMA PAPERS

Director:
Alex Winter

Premiere:
Hamptons 2018

Select Festivals:
IDFA, Double Exposure

About:
The behind-the-scenes story of the largest data leak in history, which exposed economic corruption on a global scale.

In 2015, Bastian Obermayer, an investigative reporters for Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, was contacted by an anonymous whistleblower calling himself/themselves(?) John Doe who somehow obtained a staggering archive of 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm with a client list representing heads of state and the global wealthy elite. As detailed in Alex Winter’s informative if not wholly absorbing film, Obermayer collaborated with an international group of reporters over the next year to thoroughly investigate this unprecedented treasure trove of leaked documents while managing to keep their process under wraps until they were ready to publish. The doc perhaps could have benefitted from spending a bit less time on the investigation and more on its fallout – which directly or indirectly included the ouster of leaders from Iceland, Brazil, and Britain – but it succeeds in underscoring the essential role of journalism as a check on governmental power, and, through the tragic fate of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the real dangers journalist face in trying to expose the truth.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 23:
INVISIBLE HANDS

Director:
Shraysi Tandon

Premiere:
Kansas 2017

Select Festivals:
NYC Asian American, Wales, Bali, Sedona, Julien Dubuque

About:
An investigation into the continued exploitation of child labor around the world.

Covering similar terrain as the higher-profile THE PRICE OF FREE, and relying heavily on that film’s main subject, Kailash Satyarthi, Tandon’s project is more far-ranging, providing a survey of child slavery practices across multiple countries and industries. At the same time, its decidedly more journalistic approach, with a preponderance of talking heads and dispassionate narration, imparts a television feel that limits its effectiveness. Still, Tandon’s well-intentioned if non-cinematic project does offer viewers direct access to exploited children, even if these are through a series of very brief interviews, and takes corporations to task who turn a blind eye to children being used in the supply chain of their products.

New to theatres today, Wednesday, November 21:
¡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.

In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew Nicaragua’s totalitarian government. Though branded as a Cold War enemy by the US resulting in the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Sandinistas established a more progressive – if far from perfect – path for the nation for over a decade. Murray assembles a group of influential but largely officially ignored female leaders in the party, who make an argument for the advances in gender equality, education, health, and economic development that they helped enable through the FSLN. At the same time, they bemoan the way they have been written out of history, while also pointing out the parallel offenses of their male compatriots -chauvinism, on the lighter end, to sexual harassment and even rape on the extreme side. As an oral history, the project is not without its merits, and benefits from its charismatic and powerful protagonists, but as a visual record, it’s a bit too conventionally put together to leave much of a lasting impression.

New to VOD this week:
THE DAWN WALL

Directors:
Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer

Premiere:
IDFA 2017

Select Festivals:
SXSW, Banff Mountain, Mountainfilm, Melbourne, Greenwich

About:
Two free climbers attempt to scale a seemingly unscalable rock face.

I previously wrote about the doc here.