Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 26: GLOW: THE STORY OF THE GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING
Brett Whitcomb’s appreciative look back at the classic women’s wrestling program made its world premiere at Hot Docs last year. It went on to screen at Sidewalk, DMZ Docs, Austin, Hot Springs, and Big Sky, among other fests, and was recently broadcast on Logo TV.
I included the doc in my Hot Docs coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, September 26: ROMAN POLANSKI: ODD MAN OUT
Marina Zenovich’s follow up to her previous, influential Polanski film made its debut at Toronto last Fall. It went on to screen at the New York and Zurich Film Festivals, and to be picked up for cable broadcast later this year by Showtime.
I included the film in my Toronto roundup here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, September 26: STEP UP TO THE PLATE
Paul Lacoste’s look at the relationship between a father and son pair of chefs premiered at last year’s Berlin. Other screenings included Seattle, Silverdocs, and San Francisco, among others, followed by a limited theatrical release this past Fall.
I wrote about the doc out of Silverdocs here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, March 19: SOUL FOOD JUNKIES
Byron Hurt’s look at African American food and health premiered at Miami’s American Black Film Festival last Summer. It’s gone on to screen at Urbanworld and at numerous community screenings via ITVS, in addition to its broadcast premiere this past January.
I previously wrote about the film here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, March 18: AMERICAN WINTER
Harry Gantz and Joe Gantz’s exploration of the personal side of the economic crisis made its world premiere last month at the Portland International Film Festival, where it took home the documentary audience award.
The film offers a survey of a range of different families in the Portland area as they struggle to make ends meet in the face of the Great Recession. The bridge between the eight families is the city’s nonprofit social services referral organization, 211info, which assists those in need with a variety of essential support, from locating housing to getting cancelled electricity service restored. Demonstrating quite profoundly the shrinking of the safety net that traditionally forestalled mass poverty and homelessness, these subjects contend with the lasting impact of the bursting of the housing bubble, the stagnation of US job growth, and the ineffectiveness of the healthcare system, all dealing a devastating blow to the stability of the middle class. The Gantzes’ film makes its point that everyone is affected by profiling subjects of different racial backgrounds, levels of unemployment or underemployment, and educational backgrounds, and it’s a testament to just how difficult their situations are that these families open their homes to the filmmakers’ cameras in what are clearly extremely stressful times. While this acknowledgement is welcome, the film overdoes it – with more than a dozen characters featured, it’s hard for the viewer to build up a sufficient rapport with one family before the Gantzes shift over to a second and then a third and a fourth in short order. While effective enough to be worthwhile in its present form, a deeper investment in fewer subjects could have raised this beyond the surface of a survey treatment into a overall more affecting portrait.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
This Wednesday, March 20, kicks off the 42nd annual New Directors/New Films. A co-presentation of the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the event runs through Sunday, March 31, and presents a very selective showcase of the work of international and US emerging filmmakers. Screening just over forty films – features and shorts combined – the series has a track record of championing the early work of now well-established filmmakers, from Pedro Almodovar to Spike Lee.
Six feature docs are included in this year’s lineup, as well as one hybrid project. I’ve previously written about Sarah Polley’s exceptional non-fiction debut, STORIES WE TELL, and about Joshua Oppenheimer’s divisive but must-see THE ACT OF KILLING. I’ll be covering ND/NF’s closing night film, Penny Lane’s engrossing look at the Nixon administration, OUR NIXON (pictured), in my third SXSW post tomorrow.
I haven’t yet seen the remaining doc offerings, but hope to have a chance to do so before the end of the series: Lyubov Arkus’ ANTON’S RIGHT HERE (pictured), a personal chronicle of the filmmaker’s relationship with a severely autistic teenager; Libbie D Cohn and JP Sniadecki’s PEOPLE’S PARK, which draws the viewer through the various goings on at a public park in China through a single tracking shot; and Eryk Rocha’s JARDS, a cinematic duet between the filmmaker and his subject, acclaimed Brazilian singer/songwriter Jards Macalé. Finally, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s THE SHINE OF DAY continues the pair’s string of hybrid documentary/dramas with an unconventional study of two performers.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Maysles Cinema for a one-week run beginning tonight, Monday, March 18: 108 (CUCHILLO DE PALO)
Renate Costa Perdomo’s personal investigation into Paraguay’s history of homosexual repression made its world premiere at Berlin in 2010. It has played extensively on the fest circuit, claiming awards at BAFICI, Guadalajara, Krakow, Docslisboa, Havana, and RIDM, among others.
Costa’s starting point is the mysterious death of her uncle, Rodolfo, fifteen years earlier. In the course of making sense of his passing by interviewing her father, Rodolfo’s brother, and friends and neighbors, Costa learns of the aspects of his life that were not discussed by her family, and, in fact, were indicative of a larger societal elision. Rodolfo had an alter ego, a secret gay life, under a dictatorship that severely punished such deviations from societal norms. Alfredo Stroessner’s regime, in fact, developed a blacklist outing the titular number of gay men, a number that as a result has become a derogatory term – one matched by the second part of the film’s title, translated as “wooden knife,” an implication of uselessness and lack of manly power. As Costa angrily confronts her father about his knowledge of his brother’s suffering, he retreats into religion and passes the buck, making for simultaneously provocative and frustrating scenes. Given her familial connection to her topic, Costa oscillates between the journalistic and the indulgently personal, and suggests that there’s something more unexpected to her findings than there actually is – Rodolfo’s story is, sadly, not particularly surprising, even if the specificity of Paraguay’s repression may be unfamiliar to viewers. However, for Costa, there’s a sense of genuine revelation, which ultimately makes the film work – but more on a personal level than as a work of investigative documentary filmmaking.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, March 19: LOST ANGELS: SKID ROW IS MY HOME
Thomas Q Napper’s look at life on Skid Row made its debut at the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival. It went on to screen at IDFA, One World, Big Sky, and Human Rights Watch London, among others.
I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to Showtime for its broadcast premiere this Friday, March 15, followed by Showtime on Demand between Saturday, March 16 and Friday, April 12: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DICK CHENEY
RJ Cutler and Greg Finton’s extensive profile of the defiant former vice president debuted at Sundance earlier this year. The film is part of Showtime’s newest foray into documentary programming, which has included fellow Sundance doc HISTORY OF THE EAGLES and upcoming portraits of Richard Pryor and Muammar Qaddafi.
I wrote about the film pre-Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, March 12: LOVE FREE OR DIE
Macky Alston’s portrait of gay bishop Gene Robinson debuted at Sundance last year, taking home a special jury prize. It went on to screen at Cleveland, Ashland, Full Frame, Seattle, RiverRun, New Orleans, IFF Boston, Frameline, Outfest, and NewFest, among others, as well as an extensive tour of churches and other community screenings. It becomes available today on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Playstation, Vudu, and XBOX.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
