Coming to Netflix today, Tuesday, April 19:
WHITE HOT: THE RISE & FALL OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH
Director:
Alison Klayman
World Premiere:
Netflix release (April 2022)
About:
The story of Abercrombie & Fitch’s emergence as one of the most successful teen lifestyle brands in American history — and the dark inner workings of exclusionary practices and systematic racism that led to the company’s decline.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
New to VOD this week:
SYL JOHNSON: ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS
Director:
Rob Hatch-Miller
World Premiere:
Chicago 2015
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Big Sky Doc, Montclair, BlackStar, Nashville, Florida, Newport Beach, Sidewalk, Indie Memphis, Sound Unseen, Cork, Doc ‘n Roll
About:
A retired, overlooked soul singer finds new opportunities when his song is embraced by a new generation of musicians.
The film screened at DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Despite a couple of minor hits, soul singer Syl Johnson retired from the music industry in the 1980s, never quite having achieved the success for which he longed. But with the dawn of hip hop came the unexpected, widespread embrace of his 1967 song “Different Strokes” – sampled by artists as diverse as Run-DMC, Michael Jackson, the Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, A$AP Rocky, Kid Rock, En Vogue, Usher, and Kanye West, among many others – and new opportunities for the savvy performer emerged, as detailed in Rob Hatch-Miller’s lively chronicle of the ups and downs of Johnson’s career.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to The WORLD Channel’s AfroPoP series tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19:
DOWNSTREAM TO KINSHASA
Director:
Dieudo Hamadi
World Premiere:
Cannes 2020 (unscreened)
Select Festivals:
Toronto, IDFA, DOK Leipzig, RIDM, Singapore, Seattle, Doclisboa, Leeds, Cleveland, AFI Fest
About:
Survivors of Congo’s Six-Day War seek long-delayed compensation from their government.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to NYC’s Pure Nonfiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19, and to CNN and CNN+ this Sunday, April 24:
NAVALNY
Director:
Daniel Roher
World Premiere:
Sundance 2022
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Docville, Cleveland, Hot Docs, San Francisco, Seattle, Sun Valley, Full Frame
About:
After Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent implicated in attacks on other opponents of the Russian government, he partners with journalists and international news organizations to investigate his attempted assassination and find proof of the Kremlin’s involvement.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
Coming to POV today, Monday, April 18:
ON THE DIVIDE
Director:
Leah Galant, Maya Cueva
World Premiere:
Tribeca 2021
Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Human Rights Watch, Watch Docs, St Louis, Tallgrass, Hot Springs Doc, Heartland, SF Latino, Boston Latino, Woods Hole
About:
A look at the lives of three Latinx people in McAllen TX, whose different beliefs come to a head at the last abortion clinic on the US/Mexico border.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to Showtime today, Friday, April 5:
LA MADRINA: THE SAVAGE LIFE OF LORINE PADILLA
Director:
Raquel Cepeda
World Premiere:
DOC NYC 2020
Select Festivals:
Tribeca, Philadelphia Latino, Hot Docs
About:
The “first lady” of the Savage Skulls reflects on the pivotal role of women in the 1970s New York City gang and her later shift to community activism.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to Film Movement Plus today, Friday, April 15:
BOTERO
Director:
Don Millar
World Premiere:
Morelia 2018
Select Festivals:
Palm Springs, Seattle, Miami, Montevideo
About:
A tribute to the popular Colombian artist.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to OVID.tv today, Thursday, April 14:
RED HOLLYWOOD
Director:
Thom Andersen, Noël Burch
World Premiere:
Locarno 1996
Select Festivals:
San Sebastian, Vancouver, Ann Arbor, Art of the Real
About:
An essay film exploring the work of studio directors who were on the Red Scare blacklist.
I previously wrote about the film here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to DVD in re-release this Friday, April 15:
THE FUNDAMENTAL GILBERT AND GEORGE
Director:
Gerald Fox
World Premiere:
UK television broadcast (1997)
Select Festivals:
NewFest
About:
An exploration of the world of Britain’s most eccentric, celebrated, and controversial artistic double act in which life and art are inextricably linked.
The doc screened at NewFest, for which our program notes read:
Take a trip through the heady, genteel, and elemental worlds of Britain’s unofficial godfathers of contemporary art, Gilbert and George. Gerald Fox’s documentary tours the life and work that they have inextricably entwined in their neo-gothic, minimalist, 25-year routine in London’s East End. During the making of this film, Gilbert and George develop a new series of works entitled “The Fundamentals” – studies of their spunk, piss, and blood. Whether attending the opening of a retrospective of their work, having their suits tailored, or taking us on a tour of their collection of rare homoerotica, they remain somehow strangely in performance. Are they gay lovers, geniuses, iconoclasts, anachronisms? The answers are all here and nowhere to be found. This film is probably the closest thing you will ever see to a biography of the internationally renowned “Living Sculptures,” and a marvelous thing indeed.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to The WORLD Channel’s AfroPoP series today, Monday, April 11:
SHE HAD A DREAM
Director:
Raja Amari
World Premiere:
IDFA 2020
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, Zurich
About:
Charismatic, young, Black, and working-class, Ghofrane Binous became politically active during the Tunisian national elections.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 