Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, January 1:
500 YEARS
Director:
Pamela Yates
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Human Rights Geneva, Human Rights Watch London, Ashland, Full Frame, Seattle, Human Rights Watch New York
About:
The completion of a 35-year trilogy focused on the resistance of Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan population.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, January 1:
THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
Director:
Jennifer M Kroot
Co-Director:
Bill Weber
Premiere:
SXSW 2017
Select Festivals:
Cleveland, DOXA, Ashland, Nashville, Montclair, Martha’s Vineyard, Oxford, Provicnetown, Galway, Frameline, Outfest, LGBT fests in Boston, Tel Aviv, San Diego, Vancouver, Hong Kong
About:
On the life and work of the acclaimed author of the TALES OF THE CITY series.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Earlier today, Indiewire posted the top ten lists of various film industry respondents, including mine. You can see the full list here and my picks here.
As noted there, I’ve restricted my list to non-fiction as a counterbalance, since most of these sorts of year-end rankings tend to only begrudging include one or two documentaries and otherwise heap praise on fiction films. My picks are also limited to official releases in 2017. Various festival favorites which have not yet come to theatres/ancillary will likely make it on next year’s list.
Here are pointers to what I’ve written about my top ten docs of 2017 on what (not) to doc previously. The films are unranked and in alphabetical order. I’ve also named ten additional docs or doc series as a secondary list below.
Top Ten, followed by ten more:
ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL
ALL THIS PANIC
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME
DINA
JANE
KEDI
MOTHERLAND
QUEST
RAT FILM
STRONG ISLAND
BRIMSTONE & GLORY
CITY OF GHOSTS
EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
FACES PLACES
ICARUS
THE KEEPERS
LA 92
LAST MEN IN ALEPPO
ONE OF US
WORMWOOD
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s American Masters in an unabridged director’s cut tomorrow, Friday, December 29:
THIS IS BOB HOPE…
Director:
John Scheinfeld
Premiere:
American Masters (Nov 2017, abridged version)
About:
An in-depth look at the life and eight-decade career of the comedian and performer.
Popular across a broad spectrum of entertainment, from his early years in vaudeville through popular music, radio, stage, and screen, Bob Hope happily lived most of his 100 years in the public spotlight before his death in 2003. Once a cutting edge comic talent, he was viewed as old-fashioned by the 1970s, and fell out of favor. Scheinfeld’s affectionate portrait reminds audiences of his prodigious comic abilities and showmanship, drawing from Hope’s personal archives as well as a wealth of performance footage and interviews with family members and celebrity friends and fans like Billy Crystal, Conan O’Brien, and Margaret Cho. The well-constructed and comprehensive film details Hope’s rise to stardom, buoyed by his popular song “Thanks for the Memories,” and his lasting contributions to comedy, including his development of the topical monologue and conversational humor that influenced generations of stand-ups. In addition, Scheinfeld explores Hope’s charity work and long association with the USO, providing entertainment to military audiences for decades – and, in the case of his appearances during the Vietnam War, painting him as a hawk politically, further underlining that he was out of touch with younger audiences. Still, as demonstrated in the ample examples here, there’s no denying Hope’s talent.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed for an encore screening tonight, Tuesday, December 26:
DEEJ
Director:
Robert Rooy
Premiere:
Woods Hole 2017
Select Festivals:
Newburyport, Superfest, Chagrin Doc
About:
A non-verbal autistic man pushes for inclusion as he pursues higher education.
As a young child, DJ Savarese was abandoned by his birth parents, faced abuse in foster care, and was too-readily dismissed as a lost cause. His adoptive parents disagreed, insisting on mainstreaming him in school, and providing the necessary tools to help him communicate and thrive. Rooy follows Deej and his parents over several years as the young man completes high school and begins his college studies, gaining acceptance at Oberlin, his first choice. Speaking through a computer-aided device, Deej, who takes a producer credit here, emerges as an advocate for disability awareness and inclusion, while also sharing his writing, with themes of isolation and his desire for, yet fears about, independence from his parents.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, December 22:
A GERMAN LIFE
Directors:
Christian Krönes, Florian Weigensamer, Olaf Müller, and Roland Schrotthofer
Premiere:
Visions du Réel 2016
Select Festivals:
Munich, Jerusalem, DMZ, Docslisboa, Docpoint, Zagreb Dox, One World, It’s All True, CNEX Doc, Bergen, Jewish fests in San Francisco, UK, Washington, and Barcelona
About:
Joseph Goebbel’s secretary looks back on her life.
In Krönes, Weigensamer, Müller, and Schrotthofer’s captivating portrait, Brunhilde Pomsel is presented in stark black and white, her wrinkled face framed in close-up, underlining her 103 years, as she recounts how she came to work for the notorious Nazi Propaganda Minister. Intercut with these reflections are quotations from Goebbels and footage from the period produced by both Germany and Allied forces. Pomsel notes that she was apolitical and, beyond that, “one of the cowards,” and that, despite what viewers might want to think about themselves, they too would likely have complied rather than resisted when faced with the Nazi regime. At the same time, Pomsel offers contradictory views about what she did and didn’t know about the actions of the Nazi high command for which she worked – she claims not to know what was being done to the Jews in concentration camps, but her friendship with a Jewish friend who suffered under the Nazis is a recurrent thread here. Still, the filmmakers aren’t engaged in some kind of trial here – instead, they allow the centenarian’s words to underscore the human costs of compliance and expose the moral complicity in unquestioningly permitting hatred and persecution to become the new normal.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to Investigation Discovery tonight, Thursday, December 21:
THE FAMILY I HAD
Directors:
Katie Green and Carlye Rubin
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Docaviv, Camden, Hamptons, Melbourne
About:
A mother reckons with the aftermath of her son’s horrific crime.
In 2007, 13-year-old Paris brutally killed his four-year-old half-sister Ella, stabbing the child to death and then reporting the incident to 911. Left to pick up the pieces was their single mother, Charity, grieving for her lost daughter while facing separation from her clearly troubled son. Green and Rubin revisit the terrible crime while also combing through the family’s archives to try to make sense of Paris’ violent action, revealing along the way a surprising history of tragedy in Charity’s own upbringing. As the resilient woman starts over, having another child pointedly named Phoenix, Charity balances her fear of Paris and his potential future actions with a genuine forgiveness for him and a drive to help others impacted by crime. While offering no easy answers to this family tragedy, the film sensitively explores the complex ties of family and love.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to VOD via Sundance Now tomorrow, Thursday, December 21:
CIRCUS KID
Director:
Lorenzo Pisoni
Premiere:
Mill Valley 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Florida, Woodstock, Berkshire
About:
The director reflects on his unorthodox upbringing in the circus.
The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
The Pickle Family Circus was founded by a young couple in 1974, paving the way for the New American Circus Movement. Their son Lorenzo became a performer from a young age. Now an actor, he looks for answers to a lifetime of questions as he explores an unconventional relationship with a father who was also his coach, employer, and clown-act partner. In his compelling personal film, Pisoni captures the spirit, lunacy, daring, and dynamics of growing up in a circus family.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
New to VOD this week:
THE BILL MURRAY EXPERIENCE
Director:
Sadie Katz
Premiere:
American Documentary Film Festival 2017
About:
An actress becomes obsessed with having a “magical” encounter with the famed comic actor.
Having learned about Bill Murray’s quirky tendency to surprise strangers with unexpected, unforgettable, and sometimes plain unbelievable experiences – such as crashing a wedding, throwing an ice cream social, or joining a kickball game – actress-turned-filmmaker Katz decides that she simply must have one – and, sadly, that she absolutely must film the entire self-indulgent process. While she initially recruits some friends to join in the supposed fun, Katz’s unhealthy obsessiveness scares them off eventually, leaving her to carry on with just a small crew in her not-at-all-compelling mission to meet her icon and hand him a bunch of balloons. Katz is an unfortunately unappealing, annoying protagonist, making a hopelessly overlong, forced vanity project that never transcends a home movie feel, with poor technical qualities across the board, and a “the journey is more important than the destination” moral that was obvious five minutes in.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, December 19:
BEHIND THE CURTAIN: TODRICK HALL
Director:
Katherine Fairfax Wright
Premiere:
SXSW 2017
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Seattle, Martha’s Vineyard, Baltimore Black, San Diego, Calgary Underground, Frameline, Outfest, Image+Nation, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Salt Lake City, Denver, Honolulu, North Carolina, Vancouver, Austin, Memphis, and Sydney
About:
A profile of the performer and YouTube sensation.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 