what (not) to doc

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5:
COACH JAKE

Director:
ian Phillips

Premiere:
Urbanworld 2017

Select Festivals:
Heartland, Bushwick, Yonkers, Reel Recovery

About:
A portrait of NYC’s winningest coach as he contemplates mortality and his legacy.

Martin Jacobson, known affectionately by his soccer players at Manhattan’s Martin Luther King Jr High School as Coach Jake, joined the troubled school in 1994. During his long tenure he has logged more wins than any other high school soccer coach in the city. As recounted in Phillips primarily congratulatory profile, he did so after beating a decade-long addiction to heroin which left him with hepatitis C, seemingly replacing one addiction for the thrill of winning. As the affable but imperfect septuagenarian hopes to bring his latest team to the championships, he reflects on the good and bad parts of his life – from mentoring his largely immigrant-background players to perhaps dropping the ball with his own kids – and how he keeps on going.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 1:
NOSSA CHAPE

Directors:
Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist

Co-Director:
Julian Duque

Premiere:
SXSW 2018

Select Festivals:
Montclair, Kicking & Screening

About:
A Brazilian soccer club reckons with a devastating tragedy.

In 2016, the underdog Associação Chapecoense de Futebol was poised to put their small Brazilian city on the map, having experienced a record season and qualifying for the nation’s top-ranked division. But en route to Medellín, Colombia for an important match, their charter airplane crashed, killing 19 members of the team. With just three athletes surviving, and those with serious injuries, the club and its family members face an uncertain future. The Zimbalists and Duque follow their efforts to rebuild, bringing on a new coach who controversially wants to forge ahead, recruiting new players who don’t gel as well as the lost team, and following the physical and emotional aftermath of the survivors. Surviving athletes struggle through physical rehabilitation with the hope of playing again, as well as with survivor’s guilt, while family members seek compensation for the loss of their loved ones. While taking a fairly conventional approach to storytelling, the filmmakers are able to convey the deep sense of loss felt by the team and community, creating a welcome and impactful emotional resonance that lifts this above most standard sports docs.

Coming to PBS’s American Experience tomorrow, Tuesday, May 29:
THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT

Directors:
Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu

Premiere:
CAAMFest 2017

Select Festivals:
LA Asian Pacific, DisOrient, Philadelphia Asian American, Austin Asian American

About:
An in-depth consideration of the discriminatory US law that targeted Chinese nationals.

In 1882, the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only federal legislation explicitly naming a specific nationality as undesireable and restricting its immigration and citizenship rights in America. For Chinese nationals who had already toiled on US soil, it prevented them from seeking naturalized US citizenship or from sponsoring family members to join them in the promised land of the free. For Chinese who wished to seek a new life in America, it quashed that dream. For the children of Chinese nationals born in the US, it created bureaucratic hurdles and questions around the validity of their US citizenship, so much so that it led to a Supreme Court case with ramifications for anyone born on US soil. Directors Burns and Yu trace the history, origins, and impact of the discriminatory law and those that followed which targeted Chinese and Chinese-Americans, placing this largely forgotten part of US history within the larger context of societal and legislative strictures on what constituted American identity, and how race and prejudice factored in to these decisions. At the same time, the film reflects on the resistance the Chinese community in America demonstrated when faced with these oppressive laws, from filing legal challenges to refusing to cooperate with racist registration programs. While hewing exactly to conventional storytelling and drowning in a sea of talking heads, the film feels comprehensive and informative, and carries with it an unspoken commentary on present-day attempts to restrict citizenship and immigration on racial, religious, or national lines.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens this Monday, May 28:
SERVED LIKE A GIRL

Director:
Lysa Heslov

Premiere:
SXSW 2017

Select Festivals:
Bentonville

About:
Participants in the Ms Veteran America competition bring awareness to the plight of homeless female vets.

I previously wrote about the doc here.