Divide and Conquer: The Corporate Coup d’Etat

Thanks to Canadian filmmakers Mark Archbarand and Jennifer Abbott’s 2003 doc The Corporation (which was subsequently turned into the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by the film’s writer, University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan) I’ve long been aware that corporations have been granted personhood in the eyes of our law. (And been dismayed that though corporations are people, too, they rarely suffer serious consequences for breaking the law.)

So I was surprised by how utterly unnerved I felt during this year’s IDFA, when I caught the premiere of another Canadian doc, The Corporate Coup d’Etat. Emmy Award-winner Fred Peabody (All Government’s Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone) tackles the same topic as his countrymen’s earlier film, while updating it for the current worldwide mess we find ourselves in. Frighteningly, Peabody makes the compelling case that today’s rising authoritarianism and declining democracy can be traced right back to these faceless, if not nameless, “individuals.” And unlike catastrophes like climate change, stopping corporations is on nearly no nation’s global agenda.

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.

Three Faces of Evil: Top Scary Political Docs of 2018

If there was one theme that dominated the landscape on the doc fest circuit this year it was politics — and not just that of the Trump administration or the Kremlin (though those subjects were well represented). Filmmakers around the globe seemed to be in obsessive pursuit, trying to find some rational explanations for the irrational hell that’s been going on. Which means that as bad as the decline of western civilization might seem in our current time, there is one upside — it makes for some stunning cinematic art. So with that in mind I’d like to give a shout to a trio of must-see character studies, portraits of men in power that both chilled me to the bone and opened my eyes to the bigger picture.

To read my picks visit Filmmaker magazine.

Talking Gender Parity in the Immersive World at the FilmGate Interactive Media Festival

No film fest is complete these days without an attempt to tackle the vast gender inequality that’s long afflicted the industry. So it comes as no surprise that the sixth edition of the FilmGate Interactive Media Festival devoted an entire panel to searching for remedies when it comes to immersive media. “Reaching True Gender Parity in Interactive Storytelling” proved to be a fascinating chat amongst four fervent ladies — Marie-Pier Gauthier of the National Film Board of Canada (who also served as panel moderator), HP’s Global Head of Virtual Reality Joanna Popper, Vivian Marthell, who leads local art house O Cinema, and FilmGate’s own executive director Diliana Alexander. Sitting in the comfy leather recliners at the cozy Silverspot Cinema — a five-minute walk from the Eurostars Langford, the hotel in one of downtown Miami’s landmark beaux arts buildings where guests were put up — we audience members (who refreshingly included quite a few dudes) were treated to a no-holds-barred discussion filled with both frustration and hope.

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

“If the Content is Sh*t, It Will Still be Sh*t in VR and AR”: Virtual Reality and Hard Truth at the 2018 FilmGate Interactive Media Festival

The Virtual Reality Portal at the FilmGate Interactive Media Festival, which this year overlapped with Art Basel in downtown Miami, featured a wealth of new discoveries alongside some stellar high-profile projects. Among the three-dozen or so interactive works on display were a pair that made for great companion pieces. The first was Lynette Wallworth’s “psychedelic documentary” Awavena, an inner trip that I’d just missed experiencing at IDFA DocLab (and which made me wish that every VR experience came with a hammock). The second, Eliza McNitt’s Sundance-premiering outer trip Spheres, also had perhaps the widest target audience of any of the pieces represented. As I waited in line, watching a little boy who looked to be having a ball participating in this Darren Aronofsky-produced “songs of the cosmos,” I noticed an elderly woman in a wheelchair chatting amiably with the project’s creator. (I later learned this was McNitt’s 90-year-old grandmother, who’d shown up to don a headset for the very first time and experience her granddaughter’s Florida debut.)

To read all about my own Miami trip visit Filmmaker magazine.