Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, October 10:
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB: ADIOS
Director:
Lucy Walker
Premiere:
May 2017
About:
The Grammy Award-winning musicians who engendered worldwide interest in Cuban music take a final tour.
I previously profiled the doc when it was originally scheduled to debut at Sundance this past January here. It was unexpectedly withdrawn from the festival before its premiere, reportedly due to post-production delays.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, October 10:
FAREWELL FERRIS WHEEL
Directors:
Jamie Sisley and Miguel MiG Martinez
Premiere:
AFI Docs 2016
Select Festivals:
Denver, Virginia, Margaret Mead, Napa Valley, Big Sky Docs, Salem, Atlanta,
About:
A behind-the-scenes look at the plight of Mexican migrant carnival workers.
Once a thriving American entertainment industry, the carnival has been on the decline for decades. Faced with an ever-shrinking pool of skilled workers, owners have taken to employing Mexican migrant workers using the H-2B visa for temporary, non-agricultural work. While workers are able to work legally in the US, for far more than they might earn in Mexico, they must separate from family for months, and are often provided with substandard living conditions and wages. Over several years, Sisley and Martinez’s thoughtful, understated film focus on a number of workers, as well as the ex-carnival owner who has turned recruiting H-2B workers into a cottage industry, as they reckon with the challenges of their jobs, and with an activist movement that seeks to curtail the use of the visa program and to raise carnival worker pay, citing protecting both migrants from exploitation and American workers from the consequences of deflated wages.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, October 10:
CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER
Director:
Doug Nichol
Premiere:
Telluride 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Denver, Cleveland, Nashville, Big Sky Doc, Mill Valley, Documentary Edge, Woods Hole, SF DocFest
About:
An appreciation of a bygone but once ubiquitous technology.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6:
FACES PLACES
Directors:
Agnès Varda and JR
Premiere:
Cannes 2017
Select Festivals:
Toronto, DOC NYC, New York, Telluride, Vancouver, New Zealand, Reykjavik, Melbourne, London, Chicago
About:
The odd couple director duo travel around French villages and photograph the people they meet.
Bonding over a mutual love of images, French New Wave legend Varda and celebrated photographer/street artist JR decide to collaborate on a fanciful project, beautiful in its simplicity. Visiting several small French hamlets, they meet local residents, then take their large scale portraits and exhibit them within the village – sometimes on the sides of barns, sometimes outside factory walls. Along the way, they playfully banter. It’s a charming, sweet portrait of both everyday people and of two extraordinary individuals who celebrate them.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6:
TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!
Director:
Joan Kron
Premiere:
Miami 2017
Select Festivals:
Martha’s Vineyard, Berkshire, SF DocFest, Newport Beach
About:
Two comediennes contemplate the impact of having plastic surgery.
Notable as director Kron’s debut film at the age of 89, this engaging and entertaining project uses the lens of comedy to explore societal conceptions of female beauty and the pressures many women feel to conform, often through plastic surgery. While some women try to keep their nips and tucks a secret, female comedians have long used their experiences in this area as more material for their routines. Drawing from the experiences of several comics who have had work done, or thought about it, the film primarily focuses on two appealing, funny women, Jackie Hoffman and Emily Askin, as they wrestle with the idea of getting nose jobs, or more, and how changing their appearance may affect their careers.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6 and to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, October 9:
THE ISLANDS AND THE WHALES
Director:
Mike Day
Premiere:
Hot Docs 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Wild & Scenic, Big Sky Doc, Leeds, St Louis, Princeton Environmental, Zurich
About:
An island community reckons with the upending of long-held traditions.
I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In the remote Faroe Islands, an archipelago located halfway between Norway and Iceland, inhabitants have been in tune with their environment for millennia. With a rugged landscape not suited for farming, they have relied on the sea for their survival, enjoying a traditional diet of seabirds, pilot whales, and fish. When they are faced with rising mercury levels in their food, as well as the clamor of international animal-rights activists, the Faroese may be forced to change their ancient ways.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 6:
BENDING THE ARC
Directors:
Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
Sheffield, San Francisco, Telluride Mountainfilm, Montclair, Miami, Berkshire, Greenwich
About:
Three health care advocates develop a groundbreaking, lifesaving community health model.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
New to VOD this week:
BLURRED LINES: INSIDE THE ART WORLD
Director:
Barry Avrich
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, DocuWest
About:
A consideration of the art market and its continually increasing prices.
Using as a starting point the inflation of prices for an auction of new works by Damien Hirst in 2008 while the world financial markets dovetailed into the worst crisis since the Great Depression, the film launches into a broad exploration of the modern art market and its various players. Surveying artists, auction houses, critics, reporters, gallerists, museum directors, art fair regulars, and collectors, the film seeks to understand the complicated landscape and what the increasing commerce of modern art has done to the culture of modern art. While the topic is compelling, the execution is conventional, taking a talking heads-heavy survey approach that often becomes repetitious and gives the project a television feel.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, October 6:
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL
Directors:
Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Cannes, AFI Docs, Biografilm
About:
The follow-up to the Academy Award-winning AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to theatres and to Netflix tomorrow, Friday, October 6:
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P JOHNSON
Director:
David France
Premiere:
Tribeca 2017
Select Festivals:
Sheffield, Traverse City, Melbourne, Seattle, Montclair, Frameline, Outfest, Provincetown, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Portland, Halifax, Barcelona, Seoul, Dublin, Glasgow, Vancouver, Honolulu, Austin, Oslo, Sydney, Chicago
About:
A tribute to a pioneering African American transgender activist, who died in 1992 under mysterious circumstances.
Marsha P Johnson – the P stood for “Pay no mind,” according to the outspoken figure – was a veteran of Stonewall and a familiar presence in Greenwich Village for decades before her body was found in the Hudson River near the Christopher St piers. Traditionally dismissive if not outright hostile to the city’s queer population, particularly trans people, the police hastily deemed Johnson a suicide and declined to investigate further. Decades later, Victoria Cruz, an activist with the Anti-Violence Project, decides to explore the case on her own, seeking justice long deferred for this under-acknowledged community leader. As Cruz speaks to Johnson’s old friends, her story is but one of several that emerge in this sensitively crafted film that speak to a history of inequity and violence being visited upon trans people, especially trans people of color, including the legendary Sylvia Rivera, as well as Islan Nettles, who was murdered in 2016.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
what (not) to doc 