Category Archives: Releases

Coming to theatres next Friday, January 27:
THE AGE OF CONSEQUENCES

Director:
Jared P Scott

Premiere:
Hot Docs 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Sheffield, Telluride Mountainfilm, Antenna Doc, Waimea Ocean Festival, Wild & Scenic

About:
Global unrest viewed through the lens of climate change.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC, saying:
Taking an eye-opening approach to climate change, Scott’s film reframes concern for the environment into a question of international security. Viewed by the US military and security experts as a “threat multiplier” for instability, climate change is repositioned at the heart of current global unrest. Droughts and floods lead to food shortages, conflict over resources and mass displacement. Will the world succumb to these cascading disasters or take steps to prevent them?

Coming to PBS’s American Experience this coming Tuesday, January 24:
RACHEL CARSON

Director:
Michelle Ferrari

Premiere:
American Experience (January 2017)

About:
A portrait of the woman whose writing popularized the environmental movement.

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist working for the US Fish and Wildlife Services when she began to combine her lifelong love of writing with an interest in making science accessible, penning articles for the likes of READER’S DIGEST. Eventually, she transitioned to becoming a full-time author, after her second book, THE SEA AROUND US, became a best-seller and National Book Award Winner. While this and the other books in her sea trilogy changed the way readers viewed the oceans and the life they sustained, Carson affected the most significant change in public perception with SILENT SPRING, her 1962 book exposing the hidden dangers of pesticides like DDT, which had been unquestioningly embraced by the US government since WWII as part of a shortsighted view of “better living through chemistry.” Ferrari hews close to the standard American Experience format in this illuminating if conventionally constructed profile, reviewing her subject’s accomplishments through narration as well as talking head commentary from Carson biographers. The film also relates Carson’s pseudo-lesbian relationship with Dorothy Freeman and her struggle with cancer which claimed the author’s life less than two years after her groundbreaking book’s publication, which remains a cornerstone of environmental awareness to this day.

New to VOD this week:
RESET

Directors:
Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai

Premiere:
French TV 2015

Select Festivals:
Tribeca, Sydney, Jerusalem, Melbourne, IDFA, Seattle, Vancouver

About:
A new director aims to shake up the Paris Opera Ballet.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to VOD this Sunday, January 21 and to DVD next Tuesday, January 24:
HIERONYMUS BOSCH: TOUCHED BY THE DEVIL

Director:
Pieter van Huystee

Premiere:
IDFA 2015

Select Festivals:
Sydney, Moscow, DOK.fest Munich, Festival dei Popoli, Docs Against Gravity

About:
A Dutch museum organizes a 500th anniversary exhibition of the work of the medieval painter.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD next Tuesday, January 24:
(DIS)HONESTY – THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES

Director:
Yael Melamede

Premiere:
Full Frame 2015

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, Montclair, Bentonville

About:
A consideration of the psychology behind deception.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens next Monday, June 23:
THE WITNESS

Director:
James Solomon

Premiere:
New York Film Festival 2015

Select Festivals:
Palm Springs, Big Sky, Boulder, Hong Kong, Sarasota, Atlanta

Notable Recognition:
The doc has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

About:
Kitty Genovese’s brother searches for the truth behind her notorious 1964 murder.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to HBO this coming Monday, June 23:
BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN

Director:
Irene Taylor Brodsky

Premiere:
SXSW 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Nantucket, IDFA, Hot Docs, Montclair, Seattle, Docuwest, Fantasia, New Zealand, Melbourne

About:
An insidious Internet meme inspires a shocking murder attempt.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket, saying:
Offering a sensitive investigation of a disturbing true-life crime, Irene Taylor Brodsky chronicles the 2014 case of a pair of 12-year-old Wisconsin girls who attempted to murder their friend to appease the Slenderman, an Internet bogeyman they were convinced otherwise would harm their families. In the wake of this strange crime, the girls’ parents and authorities try to make sense of this Web legend and how quickly and firmly it became cemented in the minds of impressionable young people. Eschewing sensationalism and facile answers, Brodsky tells a complex cautionary tale that questions how much parents truly know about what their kids do online.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, January 17:
HUNTWATCH

Director:
Brant Backlund

Premiere:
DOC NYC 2015

Select Festivals:
Santa Barbara, Sedona, Boulder, Newport Beach

About:
A man makes it his life’s work to save Arctic seals.

I previously wrote about the doc here.