The longest-running film festival in both North and South America, San Francisco International Film Festival, kicks off its 56th edition this Thursday evening and runs through Thursday, May 9. This is the first festival with new Executive Director Ted Hope at the helm, bringing a welcome and familiar leadership to the organization after the tragic back-to-back deaths of his respected predecessors Graham Leggat and Bingham Ray. He’s brought with him Colin Stanfield as Managing Director, with longtime Director of Programming Rachel Rosen providing continuity and her regular keen curatorial eye. This year’s lineup includes over 150 films, including nearly thirty documentary features. I’ll be in town for the festival’s first weekend and may try to catch a few titles I haven’t already seen, time and schedule permitting. Regardless, here’s a quick look at some of the selections to consider checking out if you’re in the Bay Area: Continue reading
San Francisco International Film Festival 2013: Documentary Overview
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
In Theatres & On DVD/VOD: G-DOG
Coming to theatres via Cinedigm’s Docurama initiative and to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23: G-DOG
Freida Mock’s portrait of a changemaking Jesuit priest made its world premiere at Hot Docs last year. It went on to screen at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Aspen, and toured US embassies around the world via the US State Department’s cultural diplomacy program. The film is part of Cinedigm’s new seven-film program bringing feature documentaries to theatres weekly in up to fifteen US markets, including NYC, LA, Pasadena, Encino, San Diego, Palm Desert, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Hartford, New Haven, Ithaca, Richmond, and Helena. The films are also available for additional theatrical-on-demand screenings via Tugg. In NYC, Cinema Village will screen the doc this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Jesuit priest Father Greg Boyle, respectfully referred to by his titular nickname, is the focus of Mock’s inspirational film, which follows the efforts of his LA-based Homeboy Industries to provide an alternative to gang life. Led by Boyle’s practical philosophy that “nothing stops a bullet like a job,” Homeboy combines educational and vocational opportunities with counseling, tattoo removal, and the fostering of self-worth to interrupt the cycle of gang membership and violence and to end the demonization of gang members in favor of humanizing and genuinely rehabilitating them into society. While it has proven itself to be the most successful gang intervention program in the country, the Recession threatens to put an end to the good work Boyle and his surrogate family of colleagues have done. Mock spends a year at Homeboy, telling not only Boyle’s story, but also those of many of the former gang members who have taken on leadership positions, and the impact on them of Homeboy’s uncertain future. Though the film explores Boyle and Homeboy’s once-controversial past, it’s in broad strokes – a bit more depth here would have helped to balance the present day focus which at times nears dangerously close to an institutional show and tell. That said, Mock successfully captures her main subject’s determination, his knack for disarmingly funny storytelling, and the clear love and respect he has for his charges that has literally saved their lives.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
In the Works: OUT IN THE NIGHT
Race, gender, sexuality, and class are implicated when African American lesbians are charged as a gang after they attempt to defend themselves from a stranger’s aggressive advances.
In NYC’s West Village on a hot summer night, a man first attempted to flirt with, then homophobically accosted, a group of young women from Newark NJ. Although the women tried to walk away, he egged them on, and the situation turned violent – by the end of the altercation, the man suffered stab wounds, and some of the women bore bruises and other injuries. Only the women were arrested, with media labeling them as a “gang” and a “wolf pack,” the man was deemed their victim, and “The New Jersey 4” went on to be sentenced harshly, despite their claims of self-defense. Director blair doroshwalther attempts to make sense of the incident, and, more importantly, its aftermath, revealing how a matrix of factors contributed to the way the story was reported, and to the (in)justice that was meted out. Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
Hot Docs 2013 Overview
In less than one week, Toronto’s Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, kicks off its twentieth edition, which will run through Sunday, May 5. An essential stop on the doc fest circuit, I’ve been fortunate to attend for the past several years, and will be covering the event for Indiewire once again. Like Amsterdam’s IDFA, what’s especially notable about Hot Docs is its ability not only to draw a huge general public audience, but to attract the participation of nonfiction industry players, especially decision makers for key international broadcasters and funds. The latter annually take meetings and hear pitches in the accompanying Hot Docs Forum, for which I was honored to serve on the selection committee this year, and which I plan to include in my coverage as I have done in the past. That said, my main focus will be on the films – as many of the 205 titles appearing in the lineup as I can see during my time there. Director of Programming Charlotte Cook and her team culled this year’s selections, representing 43 countries, from 2386 submissions, organizing them into eleven different sections. The following spotlights the feature docs I’m most looking forward to, going section-by-section: Continue reading
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
On DVD: ETHEL
Available on DVD this week: ETHEL
Rory Kennedy’s portrait of her mother debuted at Sundance last year. It went on to screen extensively on the festival circuit, with slots at Full Frame, Hot Docs, San Francisco, Sarasota, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Traverse City, among others. The doc was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and broadcast on HBO.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres: UNMADE IN CHINA
Coming to LA’s Downtown Independent and Chicago’s Facets Cinematheque this Friday, April 19 and to NYC’s Cinema Village on Friday, May 3: UNMADE IN CHINA
Tanner King Barklow and Gil Kofman’s misadventures in Chinese filmmaking made its debut at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, where it took home an award for best doc. It received another award at Edmonton, and has played a handful of other fests since, including St Louis and Sun Valley.
American indie film director Kofman is hired by Chinese producers to adapt and direct one of his screenplays, CASE SENSITIVE, for a Chinese audience. Although he is able to use some of his own team, the majority of the crew is Chinese, and, as he finds out, his backers aren’t exactly hands off. When Barklow learned about the project, he followed along, documenting the making of the film, and, as Kofman notes at the doc’s beginning, its unmaking. Adapting the old adage that films are made three times, in the writing, the shooting, and the editing, Barklow and Kofman bemusedly demonstrate how each of these facets are undermined during their China experience – scripts are rewritten by an overzealous and distrustful translator, without informing the director; equipment is sold by the crew for a quick buck; a passionate DP is fired for being too demanding, against Kofman’s wishes; the director’s edit is recut to produce an indecipherable narrative; and contract agreements are ignored, leading to non-stop work, headaches, and unpaid salaries. Films about the making of films, and especially behind-the-scene docs about disastrous projects, are nothing new – it’s a subgenre in itself – and, in many ways, Barklow and Kofman’s film follows the expected trajectory to provide an audience with the appropriate mixture of gleeful schadenfreude and genuine sympathy. What is different here is the Communist Chinese context and the smart decision to highlight the absurdity of the situation rather than a misplaced sense of righteous outrage. Not enough of CASE SENSITIVE is shown for the viewer to really make an absolute judgement on its artistic merit, but one suspects it was probably never going to be an Oscar contender anyway. Given this, the film isn’t about how the Chinese system ruined a would-be masterpiece, but more about how the corruption unmade the American filmmakers’ expectations of how films should be made. As such, it provides a funny, engaging, and simultaneously insider and outsider look at the compromises placed on creativity and art in a traditionally controlling system that is awkwardly flirting with at least the pretense of more openness.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On TV: THE ISLAND PRESIDENT
Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens next Monday, April 22: THE ISLAND PRESIDENT
Jon Shenk’s profile of a small island nation’s call to action around climate change premiered at Telluride and Toronto in 2011. It went on to screen at numerous fests, including DOC NYC, Thessaloniki Doc, RiverRun, Planete Doc, CNEX Doc, and Documentary Edge, and also enjoyed a limited theatrical release.
I previously wrote about the doc here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
On VOD: TCHOUPITOULAS
Now available on VOD: TCHOUPITOULAS
The Ross Brothers’ immersive exploration of New Orleans debuted last year at SXSW. It went on to screen at BAMcinemaFest, Silverdocs, and CPH:DOX, and claiming awards at Hot Docs, Ashland, and Dallas. The film is now available on demand and digital via iTunes and through Oscilloscope’s site.
I wrote about the doc out of SXSW here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: PORTRAIT OF JASON
Coming to NYC’s IFC Center this Friday, April 19: PORTRAIT OF JASON
Shirley Clarke’s landmark outsider profile made its official premiere at the 5th New York Film Festival in 1967, going on to a theatrical release immediately after. While critics were initially unkind, a response to both the rawness of Clarke’s cinema verité and to her outspoken subject, the documentary went on to be hailed as a classic, pioneering study in black and gay identity. As part of an initiative to re-present Clarke’s films to new audiences, Milestone Films and the Academy Film Archive have restored the doc, bringing their efforts to the Berlinale earlier this year.
The film is stunning in its simplicity, announced from the very beginning of the film, as the audience hears Jason Holliday introduce himself, only to immediately offer up a secondary name, Aaron Payne, his birth name. As video catches up with audio – the film was shot over twelve hours one evening, with the camera needing to be reloaded several times, fading to black or losing focus even as the audio continues – viewers meet the 33-year-old black, gay, self-described hustler who serves as the sole subject of the camera for the film’s entire running time. As signaled by his acknowledgment of the construct of “Jason Holliday,” a name and identity Payne adopted in his time in the mecca of San Francisco, what follows is in many ways also a construct, even a screentest of sorts, as Holliday erupts in a stream-of-consciousness interview/audition, aided by Clarke and her collaborators’ prompting. He covers an astonishing amount of territory, from his abusive family life to his sly manipulation of older white women for profit, frank stories of sexual interests and drug use, and never-to-be-realized, half-serious dreams of putting together a nightclub act. Several times, he’s asked to tell one or another of his standard stories, and Holliday eagerly complies, loving the camera and the chance to be the star of his own film. The effect is mesmerizing, even now in an age when viewers are much more used to documentary or YouTube subjects speaking at length about their lives. Revelatory about race, sexuality, gender, and class, Clarke’s provocative film is an absolute must-see.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
In Theatres: HERMAN’S HOUSE
Coming to NYC’s Cinema Village this Friday, April 19: HERMAN’S HOUSE
Angad Singh Bhalla’s exploration of life in solitary confinement made its debut at True/False last year. It went on to screen at Full Frame, Hot Docs, Harlem, Camden, Hamptons, Antenna, New Orleans, RIDM, and Big Sky, among others.
I included the film in my Hot Docs coverage here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
