Category Archives: Releases

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 6: OF MEN AND WAR

Laurent Bécue-Renard’s candid portrait of veterans struggling with PTSD made its bow at Cannes last year. Since then, it has screened at IDFA, Göteborg, DocPoint, Documentary Fortnight, ZagrebDox, True/False, Full Frame, Visions du Réel, Documenta Madrid, San Francisco, DOXA, Sydney, AFI Docs, Human Rights Watch, and DOK.Fest Munich, among others.

Bécue-Renard’s second film in a planned trilogy dubbed “Genealogy of Wrath” takes an intimate, difficult look at war-scarred US vets who are receiving group therapy at The Pathway Home, a Northern Californian treatment center catering to service members. A carefully-measured work filmed over five years, which incorporates nine months of nearly daily recording sessions at Pathway, the doc captures the frustration, anger, and recurring trauma its subjects are facing after tours of duty in Iraq. Bécue-Renard confines his footage to the present-day, avoiding combat scenes that might typically be used to illustrate his subjects’ harrowing tales to instead force the viewer to focus on the men themselves, and to really hear from them the impact of their experiences, unmediated. Offering no false happy endings, the film instead presents the realities of combat and its aftermath, for both the soldiers and those in their lives.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, November 6: PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT

Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s portrait of an art world iconoclast had its world premiere at Tribeca this Spring. It went on to screen at Nantucket, AFI Docs, Provincetown, San Francisco Jewish, New Zealand, Melbourne, Adelaide, Vancouver, Chicago, and Stockholm, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc for the Nantucket program, saying:
Born into a noted family but intent on making her own mark, Peggy Guggenheim acquired a reputation as a bohemian by eschewing the proscriptive roles of her social status to explore her sexuality and to follow her passion: modern art. Guggenheim befriended emerging figures in the art world in the 1920s and 1930s and began acquiring and exhibiting their work. For a planned museum, she shrewdly amassed an impressive collection of works that would go on to be deemed masterpieces – and was able to save them from the ravages of World War II in the nick of time. Filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland paints a comprehensive portrait of a singular patron of the arts whose pioneering vision has left an indelible mark on art history.

Now on DVD and VOD: MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MINE

Michele Josue’s rounded portrait of the hate crime victim premiered at Mill Valley in 2013. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, IDFA, Cleveland, CNEX Taipei Doc, St Louis, Miami LGBT, Toronto’s Inside Out, and Russia’s Side by Side LGBT fests, among others. In addition to its DVD release, the film is now available on VOD via iTunes and Amazon.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, November 4: IN JACKSON HEIGHTS

Frederick Wiseman’s portrait of NYC’s most diverse neighborhood had its world premiere at Venice this Fall. It has gone on to screen at Toronto, Zurich, London, Tokyo, Chicago, and the New York Film Festival, among others.

As in other works, Wiseman drops the viewer directly into his setting, offering an immersion into the vibrant Queens community and its many cultures and subcultures. Thoroughly a celebration of the local, the film flits effortlessly between various public spaces, more often than not highlighting a sense of community and inclusion. Wiseman’s camera spends time with an assembly of small business owners concerned about gentrification, a circle of gay seniors, a meeting of undocumented people, and a trans support group. He checks in on educational efforts in the neighborhood, from Arabic language lessons to an over-the-top taxi training course. Weaving in the sounds and sights of Jackson Heights – the long-established Queens Pride parade, groups of musicians, shop signs – Wiseman creates an uplifting, engrossing, and sprawling city symphony with his 40th nonfiction feature.

Now on DVD: BRONX OBAMA

Ryan Murdock’s look at a presidential lookalike made its bow at True/False last year. The film has gone on to screen at AFI Docs, Montclair, Traverse City, Hot Docs, Ambulante CA, and Bergen, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here.