what (not) to doc

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, January 9:
CONTAINMENT

Directors:
Peter Galison and Robb Moss

Premiere:
Full Frame 2015

Select Festivals:
Sheffield, Zurich, Vancouver, Denver, RiverRun, Tallgrass, GlobeDocs, Global Peace, Woods Hole, SF Green

About:
A sobering consideration of how humanity can safely contend with radioactive waste.

Taking a broad look, both practical and philosophical, and extending millennia into the future, Galison and Moss’ project attempts to reckon with the inescapable byproducts of nuclear energy and weapons and how to protect both present-day humanity and our descendants for ages to come from their toxicity. More immediate concerns are explored in three locations in the present: the Waste Isolation Plant in Carlsbad NM, whose 2014 closure led to the relocation of waste to the Savannah River Site in SC, and, of course, Japan’s Fukushima disaster site. While it would have been hard for the filmmakers to exclude the latter from their project, it’s been covered so extensively elsewhere that it feels like something of a retread compared to the WIPP story. Similarly, the film’s consideration of the various barriers we face in trying to convey warnings or markers of buried waste to humanity in the far future, while intriguing, has already been addressed in INTO ETERNITY. Still Galison and Moss’ use of graphics and animation to help envision this uncertain future brings a certain creative flair to the proceedings.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, January 6: ACCIDENTAL COURTESY: DARYL DAVIS, RACE & AMERICA

Director:
Matt Ornstein

Premiere:
SXSW 2016, special jury award

Select Festivals:
Cleveland, Atlanta, Nashville, Montclair, Bergen

About:
A portrait of an African-American man who befriends KKK members.

Daryl Davis is a long-time professional musician, but it’s his avocation that makes him more distinct: Unable to understand how someone who didn’t know him could hate him, the middle-aged African-American man has regularly contacted and eventually befriended dozens of members of the Ku Klux Klan for decades. While often initially finding resistance, his perseverance, and, critically, his willingness to listen, has led to unlikely friendships and understanding, and, in several cases, contributed to diehard KKK members leaving the organization and renouncing their racist worldview. Ornstein follows Davis around the country as he speaks with current and past members of hate groups, in addition to being confronted by Black Lives Matter activists who find his form of activism ineffective and inappropriate. While Davis is able to hold his own, and recognizes the slow nature of the kinds of relationships he has built, he still sees the value in maintaining dialogue with opponents in our polarized, echo-chamber society. Although Ornstein captures some thought-provoking interactions and effectively conveys Davis’ mission, he stumbles in devoting too much of the film to his subject’s frankly much less interesting music background.