Category Archives: Releases

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, April 16:
WHAT LIES UPSTREAM

Director:
Cullen Hoback

Premiere:
Slamdance 2017

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Seattle, AFI Docs, Traverse City, Dallas, Sonoma, Ashland

About:
The filmmaker investigates the coverup behind drinking water contamination in West Virginia.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theateres today, Friday, April 13:
NANA

Director:
Serena Dykman

Premiere:
St Louis 2016

Select Festivals:
Fargo, Harlem, Miami Jewish, Rocky Mountain Women’s

About:
The filmmaker revisits her grandmother’s enduring mission to share her story as a Holocaust survivor.

The film’s titular subject is Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant, an outspoken, disarmingly funny Polish woman who emerged from the horrors of Auschwitz as the sole survivor of her family, and who died when the filmmaker was only eleven. She appears here primarily through a collection of interviews and public appearances where she relates her experiences of the Holocaust, the anti-Semitism that welcomed her upon liberation, and her lifelong survivor’s guilt. Having approached this project as a way to better learn about her grandmother, Dykman ends up employing the crutch of many a first-time filmmaker and takes an unnecessarily meta approach, attempting to make her film also about her own journey – in making the doc, and in following in Michalowski-Dyamant’s footsteps both literally – retracing her steps – and figuratively – viewing her filmmaking as a different way of continuing to speak out about the Holocaust. This split focus results in a clunkiness that, rather than supplementing the older woman’s story, unfortunately serves as a distraction.

New to DVD and VOD this week:
MABEL, MABEL, TIGER TRAINER

Director:
Leslie Zemeckis

Premiere:
Santa Barbara 2017

Select Festivals:
Beverly Hills, SF DocFest

About:
A biography of Mabel Stark, one of the trailblazing female performers of the circus world.

Mabel Stark survived an impoverished and abusive upbringing to join the circus in 1911. There her romantic involvement with a big cat trainer led to training tigers herself, a role for which women were said not to be suited. Her determination allowed her to attain celebrity within the circus world in the decades before WWII, and notoriety for how many times she was mauled by her tigers only to return to continue her act. Stark spent much of her later life in Jungleland, where the TARZAN movies were filmed, until a new owner booted her out, and trouble befell her beloved animals, precipitating her death in 1968. Interwoven with Zemeckis’ affectionate, but too-conventional and uncinematic recounting of Stark’s colorful life are several interviews with retired female circus big cat trainers/performers, who offer slightly more contemporary variations on Mabel’s experiences, but ultimately serve as an unnecessary distraction from her story.

Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, April 10:
MIGHTY GROUND

Director:
Delila Vallot

Premiere:
Los Angeles 2017

Select Festivals:
Big Sky Doc, Napa Valley, Hot Springs Doc, Calgary

About:
A man attempts to use music to battle a lifelong crack addiction and homelessness.

Vallot’s film focuses on Ronald Troy Collins, who spends his days on the streets of LA’s Skid Row asking people for money in exchange for a song – money he’ll use for a simple meal or his next hit of crack, which he’s been using since the age of 13. He gets by with the help of an extended network of people he’s befriended over time, including a store owner and young journalists and musicians who have taken an interest in Collins’ talent. They also play a role in supporting Collins as he tries and fails and tries again to get clean, and eventually channels his energy into developing his music. While Vallot manages to keep the focus rightly in Collins and less on his supporters, thereby avoiding a potential white savior narrative that could easily develop, given that he is African American and they are white, the technically rough film feels overlong, too often including indulgent and unnecessary scenes of Collins just riffing on nothing in particular. Still, it’s a heartfelt and unusually upbeat project that succeeds in putting a honest spotlight on the issue of homelessness.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, April 10:
BEYOND THE WALL

Directors:
Jenny Phillips and Bestor Cram

Premiere:
IFF Boston 2016

Select Festivals:
Woods Hole, Newburyport Doc, Sun Valley, Boston Latino, Prisoners’ Justice, Peace on Earth

About:
A look at the challenges faced by former prisoners after their release.

Phillips and Cram’s film ostensibly focuses on Louie Diaz, a former addict and prisoner who successfully re-entered society after incarceration and now helps others as they attempt to adjust to life outside. He’s an intriguing and charismatic figure, and one whose experiences uniquely positions him to make a difference in the lives of the five men who he counsels and to prevent their recidivism. While earnest and tackling a vital topic, the film would have benefitted from a tighter focus on Diaz and perhaps one or two others with an especially compelling story, like barber Billy, rather than introducing more and more subjects to diminishing interest and attention.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, April 9:
THE ART OF THE SHINE

Director:
Stacey Tenenbaum

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2017 (longer version under the title SHINERS)

Select Festivals:
Edmonton, Socially Relevant, Hot Springs Doc, Sarajevo

About:
Shoe shiners around the world talk about their profession.

Tenenbaum’s upbeat film cuts between colorful shiners in far flung places – including New York City, Toronto, La Paz, Tokyo, and Sarajevo – allowing laborers often-ignored by both passers-by and even their own customers to have a voice. While some have actively worked towards making their profession viewed as more upscale, others still reckon with societal stigmas associated with working in the streets. Still, the filmmaker’s overall approach is celebratory, highlighting the positivity, independence, and even creativity that the job affords its practitioners. While well shot, and spotlighting some intriguing subjects, the film suffers from choppy pacing and includes a few shiners too many for its brief running time, with some profiles feeling unnecessarily padded and others underdeveloped.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 6:
ACORN AND THE FIRESTORM

Directors:
Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

Select Festivals:
AFI Docs, Montclair, Traverse City, Indie Memphis, Cucalorus, St Louis, Milwaukee, Napa Valley

About:
An exploration of the manufactured controversy that led to the downfall of a powerful community-based advocacy group.

During the 2008 US Presidential election, John McCain called into question the activities of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and Barack Obama’s connection to the group, suggesting in hyperbolic terms that they were engaged in voter fraud. The next year, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, a pair of “concerned citizens” purported to catch ACORN employees on hidden camera abetting their plans involving tax evasion and human trafficking, supposedly while dressed as a stereotypical flashy pimp and prostitute. The media had a field day with their videos, the government raced to defund them, and private funders followed suit, leading to the dissolution of the organization by 2010. Atlas and Pollard’s enraging but not always fully focused film covers this scandal, revealing how quickly and unquestioningly O’Keefe and Giles’ dubious claims were accepted, and the reality of how the pair manipulated editing and flat out lied about the particulars of their sting operation – as well as the forty years of positive, effective change and empowerment that ACORN fostered. Importantly, they link the scandal to the emergence of what would become the alt right, but this is an area that could have received more attention.