The Best Yet-to-be-Distributed Docs 2019

Bouncing around the doc fest circuit this past year, I saw more nonfiction films than could possibly be considered mentally advisable, from sneak-out-of-the-theater duds to unheralded gems I couldn’t wait to rave about. And counterintuitively, it’s those in the latter category, the vast majority international cinematic nonfiction, that always leave me most frustrated. While I can talk (and write) about those films, I can’t bring them to a US theater (or streaming service) near you.

What I can do is compile a list of the few films that managed to stick in my brain all the way through to the end of the year, the ones that I’m most humbly hoping will make it to our shores nationwide in 2020. From the mind-bendingly bizarre to the utterly sublime, all of the following (capsule takes I’ve previously penned for Filmmaker and other outlets) made me reflect on “life itself,” as Roger Ebert would have it, in invigoratingly new and unexpected ways.

To read all about my top picks visit Filmmaker magazine.

’Tis the Season: some docu-series suggestions for holiday binging

With the frantic holiday season in full swing – not to mention a US presidential impeachment, a countdown to Brexit, and the end of liberal democracy as we know it (or so sayeth Twitter) – the final month of 2019 is shaping up to be more information-overloading than jolly ho-ho. Fortunately, we’re also in the midst of a golden age when it comes to well-crafted, brain-engaging (yet distractingly addictive) docu-series, many of which happen to be in the popular true-crime genre. And a slew of streaming services are competing to snap up these easy-to-market gems.

So whether it’s Netflix or HBO, or even SundanceTV you’re looking to bury your head in, here are five suggestions (most excerpted from reviews I’ve previously written for Global Comment and other outlets) for turn off the news and curl up on the couch viewing.

To read my recommendations visit Global Comment.

Doc Star of the Month: Victor Rios, 'The Pushouts’

Dr. Victor Rios, the lead character of Katie Galloway and co-director Dawn Valadez's The Pushouts, is the first professor to be featured as "Doc Star of the Month." An Associate Dean of Social Science and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Rios is also the author of five books (titles include Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys; Project GRIT: Generating Resilience to Inspire Transformation; and Human Targets: Schools, Police, and the Criminalization of Latino Youth), not to mention a popular TED Talk. (1.3 million views and counting!)

But this isn't the first time Rios has been the subject of a documentary. Oddly enough, he first appeared on public television 25 years ago, in the Frontline documentary School Colors. Back then Rios wasn’t the sought-after educator portrayed in The Pushouts, a quietly sensitive mentor leading a summer program at YO! Watts, a youth center in South Central LA for 16-24-year-olds who've been "pushed out" of the system and are neither working nor in school. No. Back then Rios was a gang member who, by the age of 15, had three felony convictions to his name and no plans to ever graduate from high school. (A stereotypical bio that the earlier film unfairly played up, according to Rios — and caused him to initially tell Galloway he’d no interest in working with PBS ever again.) 

Fortunately for Documentary, Rios kindly found time in his busy schedule to fill us in on a variety of topics near and dear to his heart — from the "survivor’s guilt" of the formerly impoverished to finally finding vindication onscreen.

The Pushouts premieres December 20 on PBS' VOCES, Latino Public Broadcasting’s arts and culture series.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Doc Stars of the Month: Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro, 'Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops'

Though "Doc Star of the Month" has spotlit cops in the past (the NYPD's Sergeant Edwin Raymond of Stephen Maing's Crime + Punishment; Oakland Police Department Deputy Chief LeRonne Armstrong of Peter Nicks' The Force), this is the first time Documentary has showcased men in uniform who are breaking every conventional policing rule as part of the job.

Partners in fighting crime in the San Antonio Police Department Mental Health Unit, Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro don't wear a uniform to work and are slow to draw a gun. The subjects of Jennifer McShane's mesmerizing (and SXSW Special Jury Prize-winning) Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops, the macho duo are tasked to deal with folks in mental distress — from a schizophrenic man who refuses to leave a public building to a drug-addicted woman intent on leaping from a bridge. They do so not through any aggressive tactics but through far more radical means — by treating those suffering "perpetrators" with a potent mix of empathy and dignity. 

And because this counterintuitive method, far more thrilling to witness than any Cops-style takedown, actually works, Documentary is honored to highlight both Ernie and Joe as November's Doc Stars of the Month.

To read my interview with the titular heroes visit Documentary magazine.

Danish Doc-Making Legend Jørgen Leth Has No Plans to Retire

As a longtime fan of CPH:DOX I was thrilled to be back in Copenhagen at the end of October for the annual Danish Film Institute’s DokDag conference. And while there (where I had the honor of delivering the international keynote address to the Danish doc industry crowd) I received the added bonus of having coffee with none other than veteran nonfiction provocateur Jørgen Leth. Leth, who looks and acts much younger than his 82 years, will be attending IDFA this month to screen his most recent film I Walk, which deals with the physical aftermath of his having survived an earthquake in Haiti, and also to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. Perhaps too soon, as Leth certainly has no plans to retire.

Indeed, far from it. And after Leth ordered a croissant and lamented the political catastrophe unfolding in his adopted Caribbean homeland, he eagerly and forthrightly answered my question, “So what are you working on next?” (And then some.) So here's what I learned.

Conflict Resolution: Jennifer McShane on Her HBO Doc about Policing and Mental Health, Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at this year’s SXSW, Jennifer McShane’s Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops is an eye-opening look at the game-changing San Antonio Police Department’s Mental Health Unit through the daily activities of two of its humble leaders. It’s also a master class in policing done right.

At first glance the partners-in-fighting-crime protagonists of the film’s title seem straight from Cops central casting — hetero white macho males, one a military vet. But McShane swiftly disabuses us of any preconceived notions we might have with her very first, quite shocking scene, one in which the unassuming heroes respond to a call to escort a distressed schizophrenic man from a government building. Rather than go in with guns blazing the crisis cops do the exact opposite — casually chat with the man while calmly hanging back, ask him what’s wrong rather than telling him what he must do. In short order the two plain-clothed strangers have managed to firmly gain the hallucinating guy’s trust — enough that he just simply walks out the door with them. No handcuffs, let alone tasers, required.

For Ernie and Joe are he-man poster boys for the radical idea that empathy is not only compatible, but necessary, when it comes to law enforcement. (Or at least radical to me. Racial profiling is indeed very real, and because of this a lot of us who only know police officers through cellphone video images have admittedly developed blue profiling in response.) McShane (Mothers of Bedford, A Leap of Faith) found the time to fill us in on her doc, and its place in the larger criminal reform conversation, prior to the film’s November 19th HBO debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

'I wanted to celebrate a life not having to look like an ordinary life': Eva Marie Rødbro's I Love You I Miss You I Hope I See You Before I Die

Eva Marie Rødbro is not your typical documentarian. The director of several provocatively-titled shorts – including 2008’s 'Fuck You, Kiss Me' (2008) and 2010’s 'I Touched Her Legs' (2010) – Rødbro makes the leap to feature-length work with 'I Love You I Miss You I Hope I See You Before I Die’.

Read all about the experimental director - and her world-premiering IDFA debut - in my interview over at the Danish Film Institute.

A collaborative closeness: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

BIOGRAPHY: A dense journey encompassing the life on Toni Morrison and her place in history.

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am is an intimate look at the life of the titular American icon by famed photographer/documentarian – and Morrison’s friend of over three-and-a-half decades – Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. This collaborative closeness between the filmmaker and his Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning subject proves critical, beyond merely allowing for unguarded access. In a swift-moving two hours Greenfield-Sanders (The Black List, Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart) manages to painstakingly and lovingly pack every «piece» of his dear friend that the Morrison fan and uninitiated alike would ever need in order to grasp her transformative effect on literature – redefining who gets to tell whose story – around the globe.

To read the rest of my IDFA critique visit Modern Times Review.

Think Locally Rather Than React Globally: A Manifesto for 21st Century Doc-Making

"And while the Scandinavian film scene continues to excite me, filmmakers around the world are quickly catching up. Where once I would have thrilled to get a glimpse of the goings-on in a far-flung war zone through a Danish lens, today equally talented native filmmakers are providing me with a striking insider’s take from those frontlines. In recent years, as Danish documentarians teach me more and more about the world around me, I learn less and less about the Nordic region itself. I know a lot about patriarchal systems in developing countries. I know next to nothing about sexual harassment at Zentropa. I'd love to learn more. Unfortunately, important local stories are often sacrificed when filmmakers export their gaze."

Read more of my international keynote address for this year's Danish Film Institute DokDag conference. (Yes, it's in English.)

Shatterbox Shorts-Makers Channing Godfrey Peoples, Veronica Rodriguez, and Tiffany Johnson Talk “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox” at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Moderated by Amy Emmerich, President & Chief Content Officer at Refinery29, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox,” a program of seven quite diverse shorts followed by a post-screening discussion, was presented at the comfy SCAD Museum of Art theater on an industry-heavy Monday afternoon.

The event featured Parisa Barani (Human Terrain), Tiffany J. Johnson and Adrienne Childress (Girl Callin), Kantú Lentz (Jack and Jo Don’t Want to Die), Channing Godfrey Peoples (Doretha’s Blues), and Lizzie Nastro (the Chloë Sevigny-directed White Echo) onstage to discuss their work – as well as working with Refinery29 and Level Forward’s female filmmaking incubator. And because the talk made me eager to learn even more about the Shatterbox selection-to-distribution pipeline I decided to follow up with some of the inspirational participants. Luckily for Filmmaker, three talented women — Channing Godfrey Peoples (one of 2018’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”), Veronica Rodriguez (Shoot), and Tiffany Johnson — kindly agreed to answer a handful of questions via email.

To find out more visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Redefining Identity, Imagination, and Storytelling Through the Female Lens”: Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival

“Come for the glitz. Stay for the substance,” really should be the tagline on my SCAD Savannah Film Festival T-shirt, I thought to myself during this year’s 22nd edition of the US’s largest university-run film festival. Along with the twice Oscar-nominated Alan Silvestri, attending to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for Composing, the fest invited a dozen high-profile and up-and-coming actors (Aldis Hodge, Daniel Kaluuya, Danielle Macdonald, Samantha Morton, Elisabeth Moss, Valerie Pachner, Olivia Wilde, Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Jharrel Jerome, Mena Massoud, and Camila Morrone) to accept an array of accolades. (It also hosted decidedly not-famous journos like myself at the Savannah-charming Perry Lane Hotel.)

But scratch below the Hollywood-tinged surface and you’ll find an event equally concerned with giving its mostly young, genuinely hungry-for-knowledge attendees with a behind-the-scenes education in the business of bringing dreams to the screen. And the festival’s refreshing focus on female empowerment was something to be lauded as well. For in addition to screening over 50 women-helmed films this year, not to mention showcasing the third edition of the always informative Wonder Women Panel series, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival highlighted a program titled “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox.” For those not in the know, Shatterbox launched back in 2016 (birthed by Refinery29 and Level Forward) in order to provide female shorts-makers with the means to tell the wide-ranging stories they’re fighting to tell.

To read the rest visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Amy Heckerling Should be Thought of as a John Hughes!”: Words of Wisdom from the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Wonder Women Directors Panel

Once again, this year’s not-to-be-missed event at the 22nd edition of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 26-November 2), the nation’s largest university-run film fest, was the Wonder Women Panel Series. Now in its third year, these always informative discussions highlight female power in the cinematic arts, from directing, to producing, to writing, to the below-the-line crafts. And for me one of the standouts was Wonder Women: Directors, featuring seven ladies behind the lens currently upending every preconceived notion about chick flicks in impressively eclectic ways.

Taking place on a laidback, late Tuesday morning at a packed Gutstein Gallery, and moderated by Variety’s Pat Saperstein, the panel included Gail Mancuso (Modern Family, A Dog’s Journey), Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Lueebe (Greener Grass), Annabelle Attanasio (Mickey and the Bear), Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (The Mustang), Kaila York (Never See Her Again, Home Is Where the Killer Is), and Olivia Wilde (Booksmart).

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

Dictators, Predators and Magical Thinkers (and Some Combination Thereof): Doubling Up at DOC NYC

Now in its 10th year (though still in November, AKA doc-tsunami festival month) the upcoming DOC NYC is celebrating the anniversary with a wealth of nonfiction riches. Boasting a whopping 300-plus films and events — including 28 world premieres and 27 US premieres — this year’s edition will also be hosting an eclectic array of guests. On hand will be everyone from musician Robbie Robertson — star of Daniel Roher’s Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, which opens the fest — to fashion force-of-nature André Leon Talley (who starred in Kate Novack’s The Gospel According to André just last year), slated to do a Q&A with first-time director Ebs Burnough. The duo will be discussing Burnough’s closing night doc The Capote Tapes, which is centered around never-before-heard audio recordings of the infamous author (and which just premiered at TIFF).

Indeed, there’s so much to choose from it’s hard to know where to begin. Which is why I’ve decided to pair up just six of my top film picks — all female-helmed — to perhaps inspire some outside-the-box selections (and double-feature attendance).

To read all about them visit Filmmaker magazine.

17 Blocks: review

Premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, where it picked up the Award for Best Editing in a Documentary Feature Film, Davy Rothbart’s 17 Blocks is a compelling, two-decades-long look at the Sanford-Durants, an African-American family navigating the ups and downs of daily, low-income life in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol – just 17 blocks away from our nation’s halls of power to be precise. The film’s main cast of characters includes Cheryl Sanford, the strong-willed matriarch who grew up middle-class in a neighborhood nearby; her college-bound son Emmanuel Durant, Jr., who began the whole documenting process as an inquisitive nine-year-old with a home video camera back in 1999; Denice Sanford-Durant, who serves as the family’s grounding force even as Cheryl’s drug addiction spirals out of control; and Akil “Smurf” Sanford, who unfortunately follows in his mother’s footsteps, using drugs and ultimately dealing them.

While the film is an undeniably moving and powerful portrait of the inner-city disadvantaged overcoming obstacles and rising above urban blight adversity, it is also problematically tidy, nearly cliché. Rothbart, the film’s Emmy Award-winning director – and a contributor to This American Life – is notably not from the neighborhood he chronicles. He first met a 15-year-old Smurf and his budding filmmaker brother Emmanuel on a public basketball court only by chance, then soon befriended the entire clan. Rothbart, not incidentally, is white.

To read my review visit Global Comment.

“We Have a Contract with our Audience that We Need to Look Behind the Doors”: Marcus Vetter on His Davos Doc The Forum

When one thinks of the World Economic Forum many words come to mind: Davos, global elite, Bono. One term that decidedly does not is transparency. Which is what makes Marcus Vetter’s The Forum all the more remarkable.

With this fly-on-the-wall doc the German director (The Forecaster) becomes the first filmmaker ever to be granted behind-the-scenes access to the exclusive organization. Vetter follows the WEFs octogenarian founder Klaus Schwab from the run-up decision-making (Who to pair with Netanyahu? Who’s moderating the Bolsonaro? Who gets a souvenir cowbell?) all the way through the glitzy event itself (one attended by both the Amazon-pillaging president of Brazil and the teenage superstar/climate change activist Greta Thunberg, the only guest with the balls to call bullshit on her hosts). In the process he creates a cinematic microcosm that plays like a cross between Andrew Rossi’s The First Monday in May and Jesse Moss’s Netflix series The Family. One in which the rich and powerful, drunk on their own champagne-flavored Kool Aid, groupthink themselves into the pretzel-logic conviction that welcoming the “sinners” — those (almost exclusively white male) titans of industry that Jennifer Morgan, CEO of Greenpeace International attends to confront — in to be “redeemed” is somehow not simultaneously enabling them.

To discuss the process and challenges behind the doc (including placing a boom mic over Bosonaro’s head) Filmmaker caught up with Vetter just prior to the film’s world premiere tonight, October 28, at DOK Leipzig.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It’s Like the Secret Bar or Restaurant in NYC That You’re So Privileged to Discover First….”: Beth Aala on Made in Boise

When one thinks of Idaho, potatoes — not pregnancy — immediately comes to mind. Made in Boise, however, the latest from award-winning filmmaker Beth Aala, will forever change how one views this rugged northwestern locale. Following four gestational surrogates, all devoted mothers with children of their own, who carry babies for women and men (often gay singles and couples) both nationwide and around the world, the doc is an eye-opening look at how this red state-based “unofficial surrogacy capital” of the US is redefining family in surprisingly progressive ways.

Filmmaker caught up with Aala (Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon) a few weeks prior to her film’s opening the new season of PBS’s Independent Lens today, October 28th.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Counterbalancing the traditional narrative: My English Cousin

MIGRANTS: In 2001, Fahed reached the UK filled with dreams. By 2018 he is on the brink of a mid-life crisis.

Karim Sayad’s My English Cousin is a much-needed counterbalance to the slew of refugee-themed docs of recent years. Refreshingly surprising in directorial choices – starting with the opening shot of an industrial pier set to the sound of The Specials’s classic ska lament for the UK’s once-vibrant manufacturing sector, "Ghost Town" – Sayad’s film takes as its subject not the plight of today’s asylum seeker trying to find his way in a foreign new world, but the struggle of a middle-aged immigrant grappling mentally to make his way back home.

To read the rest of my DOK Leipzig critique visit Modern Times Review.

In service to performance: Army

CONFLICT: Following one South Korean recruits' journey of mandatory service reveals how an individual is shaped into being part of a collective identity.

From its arresting opening sequence of military exercises performed before a riveted crowd celebrating South Korean heroism during the war that tore the Korean Peninsula in two, Kelvin Kyung Kun Park’s Army places its central theme of "performance" front and center. Mandatory military service is a rite of passage in South Korea, the director/narrator explains, reflecting on his time (nearly two years required) performing his duty, And how his point-of-view changed as he returns to boot camp a decade later, camera in hand, to follow a fresh-faced recruit named Woochul.

To read the rest of my DOK Leipzig critique visit Modern Times Review.

Elegy for the imprisoned: Exemplary Behaviour

REHABILITATION: In viewing Vilnius prisoners serving life sentences, Exemplary Behaviour examines the paradox between justice and forgiveness.

Audrius Mickevičius and Nerijus Milerius’s Exemplary Behaviour is a highly cinematic, surprising look at the Lithuanian prison system through a very complicated lens. With powerful images and an evocative, often ambient sound design, the directors manage to create a work that feels quasi-religious in both spirit and tone.

To read the rest of my DOK Leipzig critique visit Modern Times Review.

Doc Star of the Month: Nicole Williamson, 'Made in Boise'

"Loves being pregnant" is not usually a statement found on one’s bio, but it’s certainly relevant information when it comes to Nicole Williamson. The president and CEO of A Host of Possibilities, Idaho's largest surrogacy agency (located in Boise, the "unofficial surrogacy capital" of the US), Williamson is also one of the breakout stars of award-winning filmmaker Beth Aala's surprisingly uplifting Made in Boise.

Aala's doc follows four gestational surrogates, including this indefatigable businesswoman, who smoothly runs her agency alongside her husband while also raising their two young kids — all while carrying her fourth surrogate baby. Even more impressive, though, is that rather than slowing her down, the unconventional pregnancy seems to energize her — and, in turn, the film itself.

Which is why Documentary is delighted that Williamson found time in her 24/7 schedule to be featured as our October "Doc Star of the Month."

To read my interview with the unorthodox Idahoan visit Documentary magazine.

“It Was a Story that Played Out Almost as a Psychological Thriller and Yet it was True”: Ed Perkins on Tell Me Who I Am

Tell Me Who I Am, the Telluride-premiering feature from Academy Award-nominated (for Best Documentary Short Subject) director Ed Perkins, digs into the stranger-than-fiction saga of Alex Lewis, one half of an identical set of twins, who at the age of 18 lost his memory in a motorcycle accident. Upon awakening from a coma the only person Alex was able to recognize was his brother Marcus — the mirror image he would come to rely on to relearn pretty much everything, from the mundane (down to brushing his teeth) to his very sense of self.

In turn, Marcus devotes himself wholeheartedly to the project of healing his sibling both physically and mentally. So much so that he makes the fateful decision to implant a false family narrative into his brother’s brain in an effort to shield him from a much darker truth. One in which Marcus himself, through Alex, is able to, if not completely erase from his own mind, suppress enough to go on to live his own satisfying life.

Unfortunately, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And to learn all about bringing this thorny story to the screen Filmmaker caught up with the British documentarian just prior to the film’s Netflix premiere earlier this month.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Claudia Lacy, 'Always in Season'

Jacqueline Olive’s debut feature, Always in Season — its title a nod to the year-round racial terror that African-Americans, especially in the Deep South, historically have experienced — picked up the Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency at this past Sundance Film Festival. Though the film explores the domestic terrorist act of lynching and its legacy through multiple angles — from sober, talking-head interviews to Monroe, Georgia’s harrowing, annual lynching reenactment — the beating heart of the film lies within one specific woman: Claudia Lacy.

Five years ago, Lacy — a native of Bladenboro, North Carolina, who had returned home to raise her teenage son after his older brother Pierre had left for college — was launched into an unthinkable nightmare. Her youngest child Lennon, a high school football star, was found hanging from a swing set in a park, his death immediately ruled a suicide. That Lennon had no history of depression, left no suicide note, and seemed to have injuries consistent with what one local mortician likened to those of a victim of a bar brawl, did not seem to faze law enforcement, which quickly closed the case.

Troublingly, to this day no one has been held responsible for the dubious investigation afforded this supposed suicide. And to this day Claudia Lacy continues to demand transparency from those in charge, her way of grieving while fighting for justice for her son. Which is why Documentary could think of no nonfiction protagonist more deserving of the role of September's “Doc Star of the Month.”

To read my inspiring interview visit Documentary magazine.

“The Privileged Life Can Also Come at a Price”: Eva Mulvad on her TIFF-Premiering Love Child

Having committed adultery and conceived a child out of wedlock, a couple is forced to choose between keeping secrets and family ties — or being true to love and residing in exile. Though that could be the plot of an old-fashioned romance novel (or modern-day soap opera), it’s actually the all-too-real situation the protagonists at the heart of Eva Mulvad’s documentary Love Child are forced to reckon with.

Over the course of six years Mulvad (the Danish documentarian behind lighter dramatic fare such as the Grey Gardens-in-Portugal standout The Good Life, and more recently, A Cherry Tale and A Modern Man) follows Iranian lovebirds Leila and Sahand, and their young son, as they flee their country, await asylum in Turkey, and attempt to start some semblance of a “normal” life. All the while knowing that the consequences of their initial momentous decision to leave could be never touching beloved family members again. Or a deportation to a homeland in which extramarital relationships are punishable by death.

Filmmaker was fortunate to catch up with Mulvad to discuss this latest work soon after the film world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“No One Saw a Thing” on SundanceTV

Avi Belkin, the director and executive producer behind SundanceTV’s (currently streaming) true crime series No One Saw a Thing, has described his six-part look at a nearly four-decade-old cold case as a Rashomon-style inquiry. The Israeli director – whose Mike Wallace Is Here premiered at Sundance back in January and in theaters just this past July – revisits the 1981 murder of “bully” Ken Rex McElroy (and the multiple violent incidents that followed his death) in Skidmore, Missouri by going to the small town and interviewing those who were there at the time. Literally. For though no one was ever charged with shooting McElroy in the head, while his wife sat beside him in his truck, there were by some estimates around 60 witnesses to the killing. And yet, once investigators came calling the entire town closed ranks. No one was convicted back then because “no one saw a thing.”

To read my entire review visit Global Comment.

“It’s About Pursuing ‘Truth’ and How Each Journalist Interprets That Word for the Rest of Us”: Yung Chang on His TIFF-Debuting This Is Not a Movie

Long a thorn in the establishment’s side, veteran foreign correspondent Robert Fisk has spent the past four-decades-plus reporting “subjectively” from frontlines the world over, most notably in the Middle East. An Arabic speaker, who interviewed Osama bin Laden three times before 9/11, Fisk has forever served “on the side of the suffering,” political implications be damned. Unsurprisingly, this has caused the Beirut-based Brit to become a controversial, if highly respected, figure, labeled both human rights advocate and terrorist sympathizer alike.

Now in his seventies and still dodging bullets, both literally and figuratively, Fisk continues to file columns for The Independent (he left The Times soon after Murdoch purchased it) with a near-religious dedication. It’s a dedication perhaps matched only by Canadian documentarian Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze, China Heavyweight), who tags along with Fisk on his current reporting crusades — and in the process paints a revealing cinematic portrait of an uncompromising journo hellbent on exposing modern-day news’s (i.e., Murdoch’s) “fair and balanced” charade. As Fisk himself damningly puts it at one point in Chang’s riveting This Is Not a Movie, if he were covering the Nazi death camps he would not be seeking comment from the SS spokesman.

Filmmaker had the good fortune to catch up with the Ottawa-born Chang just prior to his fourth feature’s Toronto premiere (September 9 and 11).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Tried to Take a Look at These Things from a Distant Future”: Thomas Heise on his TIFF-Premiering Berlin Doc, Heimat is a Space in Time

Winner of the Caligari Film Prize at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Heimat is a Space in Time is German documentarian Thomas Heise’s absorbing look at 20th-century history in his homeland via his own family’s artifacts — most notably astonishingly intimate letters that sweep us from the rise of Nazism, to the Cold War division of the country, to life on the Stasi-controlled side of the Berlin Wall. Three generations of firsthand accounts, read in unobtrusive voiceover, are gracefully interwoven with family photos and archival images to create a nearly three-and-a-half-hour cinematic epic — one that unfolds in digestible parts like a great novel.

Filmmaker took the opportunity to catch up via email with Heise (and his English-translating producer Heino Deckert) prior to the doc’s North American premiere in the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival (September 6 and 15).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Review: Netflix’s “The Family”

Jesse Moss’s docu-series, The Family, was executive produced by Alex Gibney, who likewise produced the Netflix series Dirty Money, which included an episode helmed by Moss (The Overnighters). Watching it is either heaven or hell, which is part of its brilliance. Whether you believe in the religious freedom the Founding Fathers espoused – or in the white Christian supremacy they actually practiced – will determine if the series is a five-part horror film or a much-ado-about-nothing profile (of an organization that, after all, has been “hiding in plain sight” since Eisenhower).

To read the rest of my take visit Global Comment.

“Every Viewer Can Decide What to Believe or Not Believe, Who to Trust and What to Question”: Avi Belkin on His SundanceTV True Crime Series No One Saw a Thing

Currently playing on SundanceTV, the Blumhouse-produced No One Saw a Thing is a true crime series directed by Avi Belkin, whose unexpectedly riveting Mike Wallace Is Here premiered earlier this year at Sundance (and launched in theaters just last month). It revisits a surreal episode in American vigilante history in which the small town bully of Skidmore, Missouri was shot to death while sitting in his truck, his wife by his side. This occurred back in 1981 — and to this day no one’s been charged. Even though a good chunk of the population witnessed the murder.

While this mystery remains unsolved, another mystery came to mind as I binge-watched the six-parter. How on earth did a Tel Aviv born-and-raised filmmaker get involved in a nearly four-decade-old story set in the American heartland? Fortunately, Filmmaker was able to catch up with the Israeli director to ask this question and more a few weeks after the first episode aired (on August 1st).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Better Science through Storytelling at CPH:DOX

One of the many highlights of the always impressive CPH:DOX is its annual CPH:CONFERENCE, five days of jam-packed industry events with each full day centered around a specific theme (film, art, science, technology and social change). While I wasn’t in town to attend them all, I did at least have the good fortune to catch the Science & Film program, which opened the conference and was curated by Greg Boustead, the founding executive producer of Sandbox Films, a new mission-based documentary studio (underwritten by the Simons Foundation and headquartered in Los Angeles) devoted to excellence in creative science storytelling.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine (and pick up a copy of the summer issue at a newsstand near you).

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

“Living is an adventure and a challenge...If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.” Opening with the words of the great jazz musician himself, the tone is set for Stanley Nelson’s latest documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool. Though the film relies heavily on predictable archival footage, and straightforward talking head interviews with critics and historians (it’s for public television’s “American Masters” series after all), Nelson nevertheless manages to provide an informative glimpse into the life of an unconventional artist, one filled with real surprises at every turn. (All moved quickly along with the help of a mind-blowing soundtrack, naturally.)

To read the rest of my take on the great documentarian’s take on the great musician visit Global Comment.

Doc Star of the Month: Mads Brügger, ‘Cold Case Hammarskjöld’

Since I didn’t attend this year’s Sundance, I missed seeing Cold Case Hammarskjöld — the latest surreal offering from the Danish gonzo journalist/filmmaker/radio host/all-around provocateur Mads Brügger — at its debut back in January, when it won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. Which, like the film itself, turned out to be a bizarre blessing in disguise. Instead of braving the Park City crowds, I found myself, several months later, serenely watching the mesmerizing (and hilarious) doc — a through-the-looking-glass reexamination of the death of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in a mysterious 1961 plane crash — in Copenhagen, at a private screening (yes, another lucky twist — just for me) while I was in town for CPH:DOX. (It’s good to have friends in Danish places.)

And my very first thought upon emerging from the Danish Film Institute’s cozy screening space? Mads Brügger, who’s made a career of putting himself in front of his own lens, would make one heck of a “Doc Star of the Month.” So in a final fortunate break, Documentary caught up with Brügger a week before the film’s August 16th theatrical premiere, through Magnolia Pictures, to get the scoop on this sleuthing tour de force.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld is a gonzo journey you don’t want to miss

Mads Brügger’s Cold Case Hammarskjöld, which debuted at Park City back in January, is a cinematic reinvestigation of the mysterious 1961 plane crash that took the life of United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld. But such a grave synopsis doesn’t even begin to describe this addictively gonzo (unsurprisingly, as Brügger is the Danish provocateur behind The Red Chapel and The Ambassador) doc, its every frame pulsing with sprawling ambition.

To read my thumbs-up review visit Global Comment.

“We Decided to Treat the Policy and the Propaganda as if They Were Also Human Characters”: Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang on One Child Nation

One Child Nation, winner of this year’s Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize (and premiering theatrically August 9th via Amazon Studios), is a striking cinematic examination of China’s three-and-a-half decade long, one-child policy by filmmakers Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow, I Am Another You) and Jialing Zhang (Complicit). It’s also a stunning uncovering of the multi-layered machinations required for a government to negate reproductive autonomy.

And ironically, as the NYC-based Wang herself points out towards the end of the film, advocates of China’s (now defunct) policy and the US’s (very much alive) anti-abortion stance both subscribe to a core belief in state control over female bodies. Indeed, the US as well has a long record of forced sterilizations — most notably of Native American and black women — based on that same dubious “quality of life” justification that China long employed.

That said, the Chinese Communist Party took its mandate to a whole other bizarre level — openly celebrating (and, of course, propagandizing) its human rights abusing law. Which is why Filmmaker was excited to learn more from the China-born co-directors about this disturbingly dark chapter in their native country’s not-so-distant history.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: David Carroll, 'The Great Hack'

When the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, many of us were alarmed to learn the extent to which we’d transformed from consumer to product in the digital age. Few of us, however, were inclined to take on those greedy behemoths mining our online data in the ravenous mode of the copper barons of old. Fortunately, there was David Carroll, an associate professor of media design, and director of the MFA Design and Technology graduate program at the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. In other words, the perfect foil for Big Tech Goliath.

And in The Great Hack, the latest from Academy Award nominees Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim (The Square, Control Room, startup.com), we’re given a front-row seat to the battle. The team follow this unlikely hero on his transnational quest for accountability — via a lawsuit demanding that Cambridge Analytica unmask the very source of its data.

Which is precisely why Documentary is honored to feature this voice for the greater good as our July Doc Star of the Month. (The Great Hack debuted July 24 on Netflix along with a limited theatrical release.)

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“A Record for All of History of What Our Lives Were Like, and What We Went Through”: Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts on For Sama

Nabbing this year’s top doc prize at Cannes (as well as at SXSW), For Sama is a harrowing, on-the-ground look at the disintegration of a society through one young woman’s eyes. That woman, Waad Al-Kateab, also happens to be the film’s co-director (along with Emmy Award-winning, BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Edward Watts). Incredibly, and courageously, as her beloved city of Aleppo came under attack by Syrian forces, Al-Kateab decided to pick up a camera and create a heartfelt record — or rather “love letter” — to her unborn daughter Sama. What she captured was not just the clear-eyed reality of losing friends (both to bombs and emigration) on a regular basis, but also her own personal secrets to survival: love, marriage, and of course, motherhood.

Prior to the doc’s theatrical premiere (July 26th in NY and LA), Filmmaker spoke with Al-Kateab and Watts about the surprising journey their film took from war zone to the south of France.

To read my interview with the duo visit Filmmaker magazine.

"I Was Drawn...to the Pure Mystery of It”: Liz Garbus on Her HBO Doc, Who Killed Garrett Phillips?

In 2011 the small town of Potsdam, NY was rocked by an inexplicable atrocity: 12-year-old Garrett Phillips was discovered murdered in his home. The tragedy in turn launched a manhunt, which led to the ex-boyfriend — or rather, one of the ex-boyfriends — of Garrett’s mother Tandy Cyrus being arrested for the crime. Which only led to more questions as this man, Oral “Nick” Hillary, happened to be the beloved soccer coach at Clarkson University. And also one of the few black men in town.

Liz Garbus’s Who Killed Garrett Phillips? painstakingly follows the twists and turns that unfolded over the five years from Garrett’s death to Hillary’s trial. Through a treasure trove of materials — including police recordings, courtroom footage, and interviews with everyone from investigators, to family members, to Hillary himself — Garbus crafts a cautionary tale of what can happen when racial bias and a community’s desperate need for closure ultimately collide.

Filmmaker caught up with the acclaimed documentarian prior to the two-part film’s HBO airdate. (Part one premieres July 23 with part two airing the next night.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Our Work Was Bound to Cause Discomfort…”: P.A. Carter on his HBO-Premiering Doc Series, Behind Closed Doors

One of the most complicated (and epic, as it feels much larger than the sum of its two parts) documentaries I’ve seen in years, P.A. Carter’s Behind Closed Doors is this summer’s not-to-miss film for true crime devotees. Debuting on HBO July 16th and 17th, Carter’s meticulously-crafted picture begins with the double murder of 13-year-old Aarushi Talwar and her family’s servant Hemraj Banjade in the Talwars’s upper-middle-class home — a mystery that immediately unleashed a media circus in the staid Indian town of Noida. But it was the whiplash machinations surrounding the subsequent investigations and interrogations, trials and appeals, that kept the public riveted to this decade-plus-long soap opera. One in which class and privilege, and cultural clashes, played a starring role.

Filmmaker took the opportunity to speak with Carter about his astonishing doc just prior to the film’s airdate.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

A 5-Step Guide to a Nonbinary Life in the Post-Stonewall, Pre-Caitlyn Era

Long before there was wifi and smartphones, let alone language to define my identity, I’d envisioned a world in which a boy could feel comfortable living his true self in a girl’s body, and vice-versa – as opposed to one in which hormones and surgery, medical intervention masking a societal ill, would be celebrated as the Holy Grail to psychological wellness.

And after a bit of halfhearted trial and error playing a straight chick, I found that the radical act of simply pursuing my inner gay male desires freed me from caring how others perceived me.

And to read the rest of my back-in-the-day take on pursuing Pride visit Global Comment.

Doc Star of the Month: Raymond Braun, ‘State of Pride’

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising this month, a slew of films reflecting on that seminal event in LGBTQ history are, unsurprisingly, hitting screens from coast to liberal coast. What sets Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s State of Pride apart from this pack, though, is the doc’s firm focus forward, as the Oscar-winning duo turn their lens on the many young queer communities celebrating Pride today. 

And not just the usual suspects — i.e., white cisgender gays and lesbians of means living in New York City and the Bay Area — that have historically been visible onscreen. Though San Francisco is indeed represented, its Pride is seen through the eyes of characters that include a recent immigrant from Syria who fled persecution for his sexuality. The filmmakers also travel to decidedly non-liberal Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Salt Lake City, Utah, encountering gay, lesbian and trans people of color (whose rural roots are as much a part of their identity as being queer) — and even meet with a disabled man who found coming out to be more frightening than losing the use of his legs. In other words, State of Pride — now streaming on YouTube as part of YouTube Originals — showcases an exciting variety of shades within the proverbial rainbow.

Also making State of Pride stand out is its earnest host on this cross-country journey, human rights activist Raymond Braun. The YouTube star serves less as onscreen interviewer than empathetic listener, allowing space for the people he lovingly greets to answer the profound question, “What does Pride mean to you?” in beautifully unpredictable ways. And because of this, Documentary is honored to celebrate Braun as our June “Doc Star of the Month.”

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Greta Schiller, “Before Stonewall”

“I made a whole film, Paris Was a Woman, about lesbians in Paris between the wars. Now we have the internet, and the communication on the web, and people can fly places, and you can live anywhere and still connect with other queer people. But back then you lived in Greenwich Village. You lived in the Left Bank of Paris. You lived in San Francisco. It was so hard if you didn’t.”

Such were the reflections of the award-winning director Greta Schiller when I recently got her on the phone to chat about First Run Features’s newly restored version of her landmark documentary Before Stonewall, in theaters this month (June 21st in NYC, June 28th in LA, with a national rollout to follow). Filmed in 1984 with a team that included co-director Robert Rosenberg and research director Andrea Weiss – who would go on to win both an Emmy for her work and Schiller’s heart (the married couple now run Jezebel Productions) – the film contains a treasure chest of revelations to surprise even the most queer history-savvy viewer.

To read the rest visit Global Comment.

‘Before Stonewall’ Tracks the Pre-Movement Era

Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month’s 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller’s Before Stonewall. Originally released in 1984 —as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionaries — the film, through the use of evocative archival footage, presents a remarkable portrait of queer life in the closeted time from the early 20th century right up until that fateful night in 1969.

To discuss this engaging history lesson-turned-lively time capsule — made all the more meaningful through first-person accounts from elderly lesbians and gays who survived both World War II and the war on their true selves — Documentary caught up via phone with the award-winning director, who personally supervised the 16mm restoration process of the film that opens June 28 in Los Angeles through First Run Features, following its June 21st premiere in New York City.

To read the interview visit Documentary magazine.

A Sneak Peek at the 30th Human Rights Watch Film Festival

The 30th anniversary edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (running June 13-20, and co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center) has much more to boast than its smartly slimmed-down lineup of 13 feature-length films (11 docs and two narrative works). In addition to the requisite post-screening panel discussions with filmmakers, subjects and special guests, there’s this year’s added bonus of actual behind-the-lens parity. With half the films directed or co-directed by women, the majority directed by filmmakers of color and, perhaps most importantly, half helmed by filmmakers with actual roots in the places they’re documenting, HRWFF has done something truly remarkable – put its human rights mission into post-colonial film festival action.

To find out my top picks visit Filmmaker magazine.

“That’s What Public Art is All About…Everyone is Invited”: Andrey M Paounov on his Christo doc Walking on Water

Andrey M Paounov’s Walking on Water centers on the legendary environmental artist Christo and the realization of his most recent project (his second since the 2009 death of his beloved partner in life and art Jeanne-Claude). 2016’s The Floating Piers was a two-mile-long walkway of monk-yellow fabric that allowed over a million visitors to “float” on foot across Italy’s Lake Iseo.

What Walking on Water is not, thankfully, is your standard celebratory portrait of an unconventional maestro (though Christo, who brings to mind a Bulgarian version of Bernie Sanders, is certainly that). Indeed, what makes Paounov’s Locarno-premiering film so refreshingly unique is the parallel artistry behind the lens. Employing stunning cinematography and a reverent score, while smartly eschewing any context or backstory, Paounov thrusts us right inside the fast-moving, tension-filled creative process itself — a drama in which a grand vision can be dashed by anything from mindless bureaucracy to a sudden downpour.

Filmmaker spoke with the acclaimed Bulgarian director (whose last film was the TIFF-debuting The Boy Who Was a King) prior to the doc’s May 17th opening at NYC’s Film Forum.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We’re Looking for Passionate People Who We Think Will Put in the Work and Deliver”: Dorota Lech on the 20-year-old Hot Docs Forum

As a film journo who usually prefers celebrating the fruits of cinematic labor over covering the messy business of making the product I’m often a bit squeamish when it comes to observing pitch sessions (in no small part due to the glaring abundance of older white faces dangling the purse strings). Fortunately, the folks behind the two-decade-old Hot Docs Forum, which utilizes the appropriately Harry Potter-esque, neo-Gothic Hart House student center at the University of Toronto, do an expert job of combining industry necessity with collegial fun.

This is perhaps best evidenced by the Forum’s Cuban Hat Award, a prize decided by audience ballot and funded by literally passing around a Cuban hat as collection plate during the proceedings. And this year’s eclectic take, which went to Bo McGuire and producer Tatiana Bears for their intriguingly titled Socks on Fire: Uncle John and the Copper Headed Water Rattlers, included over $2,000 in six currencies along with various production services. And that’s in addition to a homestay in Copenhagen to office space in Greece to two Toronto Raptors “We The North” t-shirts — they’d made the NBA playoffs after all — and a tin of ginger mints. (No ginger mints went to the projects Midwives, Colour of the Wind or Twice Colonized, though they did ultimately receive Canadian dollar prize winnings totaling $30,000, $20,000 and $30,000, respectively.)

So to get a better understanding of how this transformation of high-stakes shark tank into supportive team spirit came about, Filmmaker turned to the nomadic (Poland-born but Toronto and LA-based) head of the Forum, Dorota Lech, who also leads the Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery section.

Doc Stars of the Month: Trinea Gonczar & Amanda Thomashow, 'At the Heart of Gold’

Erin Lee Carr (Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop; Mommy Dead and Dearest) has built an impressive career turning ripped-from-the-headlines stories (she is the daughter of late media icon David Carr, after all) featuring society’s “monsters” into sober reflections on society itself. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before the deft documentarian decided to tackle one of the most outrageous scandals in recent memory: the aiding and abetting of pedophile doctor Larry Nassar over decades by Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics and the organization’s Olympian-making affiliates (including superstar coaching couple Bela and Martha Karolyi).

For as horrific as Nassar’s behavior was — hundreds of girls and young women subject to sexual abuse in the guise of medical “treatments” for years on end — there was the equally appalling reaction of the adults surrounding him, who refused to believe those who did have the courage to speak up. Indeed, one of the most chilling aspects of this whole sordid mess was the systemic “gaslighting,” as one former gymnast described it, of the kids who chose to come forward. Adults who didn’t want to face the truth simply told the adolescent victims that the molestation that was happening wasn’t actually happening, which the girls then often accepted — only to find out years later, once Nassar was revealed as a serial predator, that what they were comfortingly assured was reality wasn’t actually reality. In other words, a matrix of crimes — physical, psychological and emotional — by a multitude of culprits ultimately occurred.

To untangle the thorny drama, Documentary turned to two heroic women — Trinea Gonczar, a longtime family friend of Nassar’s and one of his earliest victims, and Amanda Thomashow, who filed the first Title IX complaint against him — to discuss everything from the intense coverage surrounding the shocking case to the symbiotic impact of #MeToo.

To read my interview with the remarkable ladies visit Documentary magazine.

A Stripper, A Gangster, A Border Crisis (and no Trump!): What to See at Hot Docs 2019

It goes without saying that the upcoming 26th edition of Hot Docs (April 25th-May 5th) presents a wealth of topnotch nonfiction films to choose from. With over 200 pictures — not to mention numerous events, immersive media and the two-day industry Forum — North America’s largest documentary festival might even feel like too much of a good thing. Fortunately for me, between the miracle of Vimeo links and traveling on the doc fest circuit since IDFA, I’ve seen a good chunk of the feature-length selections, many of which I fear will be buried beneath the headline-grabbing buzz. (Much of it well-deserved. Not only are the majority of this year’s films female-helmed, but there’s even a “Persister” section dedicated to “Women Speaking Up and Being Heard.” And then there’s the honoring of the two Julias: “Focus on Julia Ivanova,” will showcase the near two-decade long career of the USSR-born director, while the US’s own Julia Reichert will receive both the Outstanding Achievement Award along with a retrospective.)

So rather than hail any audience pleasers (Ryan White’s Ask Dr. Ruth certainly doesn’t need my help packing the house) or the splashier guests (i.e., ”A Conversation with Ai Weiwei”) I’ll just offer a wide-ranging list of standout films both likely to be overlooked and not to be missed.

And to read that list visit Filmmaker magazine.

Full Frame’s 9th Annual A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy Closes with “Framing the Conversation: Stanley Nelson”

Taking place on a Saturday afternoon in the lobby of The Durham Hotel, “Framing the Conversation: Stanley Nelson” was the final panel discussion in a series of A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy chats at this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. (Though the festival itself is an arm of the Center for Documentary Studies at the prestigious Duke University, these always informative, free-to-the-public, laidback talks have been the 22-year-old Full Frame’s secret weapon for close to a decade.) In town to interview Nelson, the down-to-earth founder of Firelight Media, a recipient of both the MacArthur “Genius Grant” and a National Humanities Medal from President Obama, and a filmmaker whose over three-decade career now includes his latest for PBS’s “American Masters” series Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, was Nancy Buirski, herself an award-winning filmmaker (The Loving Story, The Rape of Recy Taylor) and the founder of Full Frame.

Buirski began by noting that Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool seemed to mark a departure from the rest of Nelson’s oeuvre as it doesn’t deal explicitly with social justice and the African-American experience. Which also prompted her to wonder, “Are you an activist filmmaker?”

To learn the thoughtful answer to this and more visit Filmmaker magazine.

“DocsStillSoWhite: Moving From Ally to Accomplice” at Full Frame’s 9th Annual A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy

"DocsStillSoWhite: Moving From Ally to Accomplice” — the title inspired by a curriculum developed by the panel’s moderator Seena (“The Woke Coach”) Hodges — was the second of two diversity-centric A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy discussions presented at this year’s Full Frame. Speaking before an impressively packed house in The Durham Hotel lobby early on a Saturday morning, the upbeat Hodges began by reminding the four panel participants to be mindful of the allotted hour (while wryly apologizing for the “colonial construct of time”). She then asked the two teams of filmmakers — two black producers working alongside two white directors — to introduce themselves and to also discuss the genesis of their Full Frame-selected docs.

And to read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

"#DocsSoWhite: The Path Forward" at Full Frame's 9th Annual A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy

Moderated by “The Woke Coach,” Seena Hodges (who began by acknowledging the Catawba people, onetime inhabitants of the land on which the Durham Hotel was built), the fourth edition of Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s #DocsSoWhite discussion focused squarely on concrete solutions to the film world’s stubborn resistance to true inclusion behind the lens. Hodges then laid out a few “rules” for her panelists, which included Gina Duncan, associate vice president of cinema at BAMcinematek; Maori Karmael Holmes, founder/artistic director of Blackstar Film Festival;  and filmmakers Edwin Martinez (Personal Statement) and Bernardo Ruiz (Harvest Season). Hodges spoke of being in a “brave” space, as opposed to a “safe” one, and urged everyone to “challenge yourself and your right to feel comfortable.” She also called attention to the fact that it’s “laborious” to be on a panel like this, recognizing that it shouldn’t be the “job” of people of color to enlighten.

To read the rest visit Documentary magazine.

'Southern Sustainability' at Full Frame's 9th Annual A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy

IDA’s own Dana Merwin, a native of south Georgia who, as Program Officer, administers the Enterprise Documentary Fund and the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund, moderated the “Southern Sustainability” panel at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, which ran from April 4-7; the panel featured the diverse foursome of Eric Johnson of the Raleigh-based Trailblazer Studios, Rachel Raney of UNC-TV, Susan Ellis of Raleigh-based Footpath Pictures, and Naomi Walker of the Durham-based Southern Documentary Fund (SDF). Sitting that Friday morning in the laidback lobby area of The Durham Hotel, Merwin thanked the caffeinated audience for coming out for such an early conversation (at 9:15, the day after Full Frame’s opening-night festivities), and then urged all in attendance to acknowledge their role as “stakeholders” in the discussion that was to follow.

And to read all about it visit Documentary magazine.