Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 9:
THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W EUGENE SMITH
Director:
Sara Fishko
Premiere:
New Orleans 2015
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Rotterdam, Full Frame, Cleveland, Florida, BAFICI, Copenhagen Jazz Film Festival
About:
An insider look at NYC bohemia in the late 1950s-early 1960s.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s American Experience tomorrow, Tuesday, January 9:
INTO THE AMAZON
Director:
John Maggio
Premiere:
American Experience (January 2018)
About:
Former President Teddy Roosevelt faces death during a South American expedition.
In 1913, still stinging from his electoral defeat which would have given him a third term as president, Roosevelt set off on an adventure to re-energize his spirits. Joining with famed Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon and a team of six Americans which included his son, Kermit, Roosevelt was tasked to chart an unexplored Amazon tributary known as the River of Doubt. As detailed in Maggio’s well-executed, if conventional, retelling, the experience turned out far more challenging and treacherous than anyone anticipated, costing the lives of several on the trek, and nearly adding Roosevelt’s to that number.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens this coming Monday, January 8:
UNREST
Director:
Jennifer Brea
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Sheffield, CPH:DOX, SXSW, RiverRun, Cleveland, Nashville, New Zealand, Melbourne
Notable Recognition:
The doc was shortlisted for the Academy Awards.
About:
A personal and candid look at life with a debilitating and widely misunderstood medical condition.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
New to VOD this week:
BOBBI JENE
Director:
Elvira Lind
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Camden, Docaviv, Docs Against Gravity, Biografilm, Melbourne, Helsinki
About:
An American dancer leaves a position with Israel’s premier dance company to return to the US to begin a solo career.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, January 5:
IN THE LAND OF POMEGRANATES
Director:
Hava Kohav Beller
Premiere:
January 2018 (theatrical)
About:
An exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Beller attempts to tackle the massive, and seemingly perpetual, issue of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in this thoughtful but flawed project. While ostensibly about Vacation From War, an effort to bring together the younger generation of both sides in dialogue with a hope toward perhaps reaching some kind of mutual understanding, Beller makes the strange choice to bypass the potential stories these participants might have been able to share and instead profiles several unconnected individuals, from a traumatized Israeli survivor of a suicide bombing to a young Palestinian boy who receives life-saving heart surgery from an Israeli doctor. This broadening results in the project becoming a loose survey, taking on far too much and greatly lessening whatever potential transformative impact might have come from the Vacation From War discussions.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, January 3:
ANATOMY OF A MALE BALLET DANCER
Directors:
David Barba and James Pellerito
Premiere:
Dance on Camera 2017
Select Festivals:
Full Frame, AFI Docs, Provincetown, DocUtah, Rio, GlobeDocs, Raindance, Hot Springs Doc, Key West, SF Dance, Austin LGBT
About:
A portrait of longtime American Ballet Theater principal dancer Marcelo Gomes.
Barba and Pellerito follow Gomes over the course of several years, as the Brazilian dancer celebrates his twentieth year with the ABT and faces retirement. A charismatic, well-liked performer, Gomes, who was the first major professional ballet dancer to come out publicly, details his upbringing in Brazil, and his early experiences as the sole boy in ballet class. While bullied, he had the support of his family, and especially that of his gay uncle Paulo and Paulo’s partner Wolf, easing his pursuit of his dancing dreams and his later embrace of his sexuality. While the filmmakers attempt to develop a family-focused storyline about Gomes’ long-estranged father, this thread unfortunately feels forced and incomplete in what is otherwise an enjoyable, light profile of a world-class artist.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to DVD this week:
CHAVELA
Directors:
Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi
Premiere:
Berlin 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, Sheffield, AFI Docs, Provincetown, Guadalajara, Malaga, Ambulante, BAFICI, Montclair, Seattle, Krakow, Transylvania, Sydney, Galway, Frameline, Outfest, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Milan, Barcelona, Austin, Palm Springs, Chicago
About:
A portrait of an iconic Latin American singer.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, January 2: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING
Directors:
David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Premiere:
Tribeca 2015
Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Hot Docs, IDFA, Bentonville, Melbourne, Camden, Antenna, Rio
About:
An intimate portrait of a family’s reckoning with mortality.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, January 2:
SHADOWMAN
Director:
Oren Jacoby
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Stockholm, Virginia, Vancouver, Poland’s American Film Festival
About:
A once-celebrated but long out-of-the-spotlight contemporary artist emerges from the shadows.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 2:
THE CHALLENGE
Director:
Yuri Ancarani
Premiere:
Locarno 2016
Select Festivals:
IDFA, Hot Docs, Edinburgh, SXSW, Dubai, New Directors/New Films, True/False, Thessaloniki Doc, Göteborg, Encounters, Taipei, Traverse City, Melbourne, Docs Against Gravity, Docaviv, San Francisco
About:
A privileged look at the lives of ultra-rich Qatari amateur falconers.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
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