Festival:
The 24th Los Angeles Film Festival
Dates:
September 20-28
About:
Film Independent’s annual festival makes the move to the Fall this year, once again presenting two dozen documentaries among its 70 feature offerings. Continue reading
Los Angeles 2018: Documentary Overview
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Special Screening: SHIRKERS
Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Thursday, September 20:
SHIRKERS
Director:
Sandi Tan
Premiere:
Sundance 2018
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX, Sheffield, Docaviv, AFIDocs, Full Frame, San Francisco, BAMcinemaFest, Vancouver, Gimli, Dallas
About:
The filmmaker recounts the tangled mystery of what happened to her first feature film.
I profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
On DVD: DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN?
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 18:
DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN?
Director:
Travis Wilkerson
Premiere:
Sundance 2017
Select Festivals:
True/False, Locarno, Camden, New York, Denver, Rotterdam
About:
The filmmaker interrogates an obscured incident from his family’s past involving the murder of an African American man.
I profiled the film before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres: GARRY WINOGRAND: ALL THINGS ARE PHOTOGRAPHABLE
Photograph by Judy Teller | Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
GARRY WINOGRAND: ALL THINGS ARE PHOTOGRAPHABLE
Director:
Sasha Waters Freyer
Premiere:
SXSW 2018
Select Festivals:
San Francisco, New Zealand, Thin Line, Vancouver, Haifa
About:
A history and appreciation of acclaimed street photographer.
Garry Winogrand was known for a body of work that encompassed street photography as well as acclaimed publications of American life in Texas and California in the 1960s. Though prone to montages, Freyer makes good use of a rich archive of Winogrand’s striking images in this watchable but fairly straightforward artist portrait, while the photographer himself, who died of cancer in 1984, is represented largely through a frank audio interview with fellow photographer Jay Maisel. Admirers help position his work among those photographers who changed popular understanding of photography from a discipline that illustrated magazine articles to an art form. Taking on particular resonance is work that was produced later in his career, including photo books WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL, which was met with scorn, seen as emblematic of the male gaze coming at the height of feminism; and PUBLIC RELATIONS, focused on the creation of images rather than notable events themselves, a sort of harbinger of the selfie generation.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Urbanworld 2018: Documentary Overview
Festival:
The 22nd annual Urbanworld Film Festival
Dates:
September 19-23
About:
Just seven documentaries appear among the 25 features presented at the long-running NYC event, which celebrates work by African American and multicultural filmmakers. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Special Screening: BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction tomorrow, Tuesday, September 18:
BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY
Director:
Dava Whisenant
Premiere:
Tribeca 2018
Select Festivals:
Nantucket, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, Traverse City, Nashville, Sidewalk, Mill Valley, Vancouver
About:
A comedy writer becomes obsessed with corporate musicals.
I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program, saying:
As a comedy writer researching a segment for the LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, Steve Young stumbled upon the wonderfully strange world of Broadway-style industrial musicals created by companies like General Electric and Ford to motivate their sales teams at private corporate retreats. Absurd but delightful productions like LIPTON ON THE MOVE and THE BATHROOMS ARE COMING! became Steve’s obsession. Dava Whisenant follows him in his entertaining quest to uncover the secret history of this unusual corporate American art form.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
On TV: 93QUEEN
Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, September 17:
93QUEEN
Director:
Paula Eiselt
Premiere:
Hot Docs 2018
Select Festivals:
San Francisco Jewish, Marfa, Charlotte Jewish
About:
A driven woman faces controversy when she sets out to form the first all-female Hasidic EMT corps.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: SCIENCE FAIR
Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 14:
SCIENCE FAIR
Directors:
Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster
Premiere:
Sundance 2018
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Edinburgh, Cleveland, New Zealand, Vancouver, Sun Valley, Portland, Provincetown
About:
A profile of participants in the world’s premier science fair.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres: THE DAWN WALL
Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 14:
THE DAWN WALL
Directors:
Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer
Premiere:
IDFA 2017
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Banff Mountain, Mountainfilm, Melbourne, Greenwich
About:
Two free climbers attempt to scale a seemingly unscalable rock face.
Named for the section of Yosemite’s El Capitan sheer rock face that captures the first light of the day, Lowell and Mortimer’s appealing film chronicles the 2015 effort of climbing partners Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson to ascend the granite monolith. The pair are free climbers, only using ropes as supports in case they slip. El Capitan has long been declared an impossible goal for free climbers, but Caldwell – whose background contains a few surprises – has been wanting to conquer it for a decade. The well-shot film is its most engaging and even thrilling as it shadows the two men for the nineteen days of their attempt, witnessing the punishing lengths they take to complete sections of the course, and celebrating their dedication and teamwork. The filmmakers struggle with pacing, however, interrupting the flow of their climb with sometime superfluous interviews apparently meant to inject more human interest long after it’s really needed, as well as with structure. Given the worldwide media attention the pair received, it’s a strange decision to have the entire narrative hinge on the foregone conclusion of their climb, only to abruptly end with very little reflection from the men afterward.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
In Theatres: AMERICAN CHAOS
Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 14:
AMERICAN CHAOS
Director:
James D Stern
Premiere:
Montclair 2018
Select Festivals:
Zurich, Martha’s Vineyard
About:
Another look back at the 2016 US Presidential election.
The unlikely ascent of Donald Trump to the top of the Republican Party ticket motivates director James D Stern – a lifelong Democrat – to try to understand the businessman’s appeal to his supporters. Stern – who appears on camera in Michael Moore mode, but unassuming where that veteran director is instead confrontational – sets out across the country expressly just to listen, rather than to debate. The results, this long after the events of 11/08/16, are not at all surprising – Trump supporters range from individuals with legitimate viewpoints, acknowledging some of their candidate’s negative aspects, but willing to let them slide, to those with a pathological hatred of Hillary Clinton and a persecution complex. All along, Stern, only rarely so incensed to very delicately challenge some outright lies being spouted, lets them have the stage, subjecting the film’s viewers to his exasperation after the fact. His is a well-intentioned project, but it doesn’t reveal anything really new, and it’s hard to imagine who will want to revisit this terrain yet again.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
what (not) to doc 