what (not) to doc

New to DVD/VOD this week:
JIM ALLISON: BREAKTHROUGH

Director:
Bill Haney

World Premiere:
SXSW 2019

Select Festivals:
Seattle, IFF Boston, Woods Hole, Full Frame, DocLands, , Minneapolis-St Paul, Sedona

About:
A Texan scientist doggedly pursues immunotherapy as a potential way to cure some cancers.

Bill Haney’s film tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Jim Allison and his development of ipilimumab, an immunotherapy drug. Affected early in life by his mother’s death from cancer, he has spent decades working on an effective cure for some kinds of cancer in the controversial field of immunotherapy – essentially treating not the cancer but the body’s immune system as a way for it to fight off the cancer itself. While Allison should make for a compelling subject, not only for his lifelong scientific mission, but for his maverick demeanor, Haney unfortunately takes a very straightforward, old-fashioned biographical approach that feels promotional and educational TV at the same time. Where the film could have shined is in its profile of Sharon Belvin, a woman who benefited from his research, but her story appears in awkwardly intermittent segments that feel like interruptions, robbing them of their impact.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
DRAG KIDS

Director:
Megan Wennberg

World Premiere:
Hot Docs 2019

Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, RIDM, St Louis, NewFest, Inside Out

About:
Four preteen drag performers are brought together for Montreal Pride.

Inspired by the more visible – and sanitized – version of drag popularized by RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE, younger fans have taken to dressing up themselves. Some have generated press and gained social media followings, while others are decidedly under the radar. Director Megan Wennberg profiles four such kids – Stephan and Nemis (both age 9) and Jason and Bracken (both 11) – hailing from Canada, the US, and Spain by way of the UK, and concocts an excuse to have them meet. The kids demonstrate minor points of interest – Bracken is a biological female performing femininity in a field dominated by males, Jason is from the Bible Belt – but, frankly, as performers, they’re only about as good as one would expect a preteen to be. Their parents are far more interesting, demonstrating refreshing support despite criticism. Still, the film struggles to sustain feature length, and is predicated on a manufactured premise – arranging for the disparate subjects to unite for a group performance in Montreal – making this a very surface treatment that sidesteps the more interesting questions raised about the appropriation of queer culture and the attempts to strip it of its radicalness, sexuality, and history.

Coming to NYC’s JCC Manhattan for several screenings beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, December 25:
CHICHINETTE: THE ACCIDENTAL SPY

Director:
Nicola Hens

World Premiere:
Haifa 2019

Select Festivals:
Hof, UK Jewish, Kasseler Dokfest

About:
A nonagenarian French Jewish woman reveals her unlikely WWII espionage activities.

For nearly six decades, until she finally wrote a memoir, Marthe Cohn kept her wartime exploits to herself. Now, she travels around the US and beyond from her home in Los Angeles to speak about her experiences – most notably, how, in the last days of WWII, she became a spy behind enemy lines to gather key information about Germany’s activities for French Intelligence. It’s the latter that gave Cohn her the nickname that serves as the film’s title, translated as “little pain in the neck.” Cohn is a charming and fun older woman, a welcome figure to spend time with, but Nicola Hens’ film has structural issues, taking a too strictly chronological approach which robs it of any real drama – Cohn’s spy experiences are crammed into the last half hour of the film, with the bulk of the doc instead spending an outsize amount of time on the otherwise generally uneventful life of its subject.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
PREY

Director:
Matt Gallagher

World Premiere:
Hot Docs 2019

Select Festivals:
Calgary, Cinéfest Sudbury

About:
A survivor of sexual abuse sues the Catholic Church.

More than 50 years ago, as a young teen, Rod MacLeod was sexually abused by Father Hodson Marshall, a priest who was permitted to serve in various parishes despite numerous complaints about his pedophilic behavior. Upset with the continued lack of accountability – or even a willingness to apologize for its role in enabling such crimes – MacLeod engages legendary “priest hunter” attorney Rob Talach, to take on the Basilian order of the Catholic Church in Ontario in a civil suit. Director Matt Gallagher is able to draw from a deposition with Marshall before the priest’s death, and interviews Father David Katulski, the primary voice for the Church, both providing disturbingly dismissive answers to the serious charges being considered, reflective of the insidious denial and obstruction that the institution has fostered for generations. Beyond this, however, Gallagher is unable to film within the courtroom itself, a limitation that results in some clunkiness, such as the awkward and excessive inclusion of survivor Patrick McMahon and his protests in front of churches. Ultimately, however, the project is a worthwhile one – an earnest and somewhat hopeful look at an attempt to overcome institutional abuse and combat impunity.