“Must Political Solidarity be Unconditional?”: Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche on Their Sundance Doc, Advocate

Long a lightning rod, Lea Tsemel is an idealistic Jewish lawyer who has spent the past five decades defending political prisoners. Or she’s the terrorist’s go-to barrister, rarely turning down a case no matter how heinous the crime. Like most things in Israel, the perspective depends on which side of the occupation you’re on.

Veteran filmmakers Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche understand this reality all too well, having followed Lea Tsemel’s career closely for the past 25 years. And now with their Sundance-premiering Advocate they’ve created an in-the-trenches portrait of this unapologetic firebrand, trailing Tsemel as she juggles high-profile cases (including that of a 13-year-old boy implicated in a random knife attack), while weaving in archival footage of her past legal battles — most of which she loses in Israel’s skewed system. Which is precisely what makes Tsemel such a remarkable character. A warrior for justice who’s spent her entire adult life taking punch after punch, she forever gets up undaunted to fight another day.

Filmmaker spoke with the equally passionate co-directors prior to the doc’s January 27th Park City premiere in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Sometimes Restraint and Holding Back Yields a Far More Meaningful Result…”: Luke Lorentzen on Sundance Doc Midnight Family

Poetically composed and effortlessly segueing between graveyard-shift stillness and chaotic rides through the darkened streets of Mexico City, Midnight Family is a unique cinematic gem. Director Luke Lorentzen spent nearly three months embedded night after night in a private ambulance run by the Ochoa family, an all-male team who race to the scenes of accidents hoping both to save lives and get paid by those they aid.

Filmmaker caught up with the award-winning director to discuss this rare glimpse into an incongruous underworld characterized by equal parts heroic acts and monotonous labor prior to the doc’s January 27th premiere at Sundance in the U.S. Documentary Competition section.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Have a Naive Conviction That Images Serve a Potentially Positive Purpose”: Beniamino Barrese on The Disappearance of My Mother

Not many filmmakers have a mom who’s an iconic model from the ’60s, photographed by the likes of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, a muse to Warhol and Dali. Far fewer have one that kept that past hidden. Indeed, it wasn’t until director/cinematographer Beniamino Barrese made a youthful discovery — a stash of portfolios containing Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar covers tucked away inside a locked wardrobe — that he got an inkling that Benedetta Barzini was more than just the radical, outspoken, intellectual mother he’d been filming since he got his first camera at seven.

And with The Disappearance of My Mother Barrese sets out to create one final testament to his lifelong maternal subject, as the onetime feminist organizer and current university instructor (she teaches a course exploring the relationship between fashion and women’s role in society) is preparing to “disappear.” For Barzini has had enough of a culture that collects images but not experiences, and is set on leaving everyone and everything behind. Including her son.

Prior to the doc’s January 25th Sundance premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, Filmmaker spoke with the Italian director, who’s also an accomplished DP in the UK, about putting together his highly personal first feature.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Was Watching Midcentury Hollywood Biblical Epics, Anti-Communist Propaganda Films, and 1970s B-Movies about Devil Worshippers”: Penny Lane on Hail Satan?

“Blasphemy is not free speech” reads a protest banner on the Little Rock statehouse lawn in a scene from Hail Satan?, the latest from Sundance vet Penny Lane (Our Nixon, Nuts!). The sign is emblematic of the ludicrous (and too often unchallenged) falsehoods that The Satanic Temple — fighting to place an elaborate statue of goat-headed god Baphomet alongside a local legislator’s equally ostentatious Ten Commandments monument — is up against. Luckily Lane, never one to shy away from provocative subjects, is right there on the ground, providing an intimate look into the group’s wild rise.

By seamlessly alternating interviews with members of the Salem, MA-based “nontheistic religious and political activist group” (think The Yes Men of religious pluralism, but with a punk rock flair) with a vast amount of startling historical footage, the notion of what it means to be a “Satanist” is upended in every frame. As The Satanic Temple tackles our nation’s oppressive Christian supremacy — in a manner not unlike other modern-day nonviolent movements such as Occupy, which challenged the supposed “bedrock American value” of capitalism — Lane herself uncovers and obliterates every diehard assumption we might have. (That Ten Commandments monument? Birthed quite unbiblically in a Paramount Pictures publicity stunt.)

Lane spoke with Filmmaker about what just might be the “least experimental” of all her works prior to the doc’s January 25th Park City premiere.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

The SPHERES VR Experience: Science Meets Art Onscreen

"No human has fallen inside a black hole…until now,” VR artist Eliza McNitt stated at the beginning of what turned out to be one of the industry panel highlights at this year’s FilmGate Interactive Media Festival. McNitt, who’s twice won the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, was seated onstage beside Jess Engel, producer on their planetarium-in-a-headset experience Spheres – a “three chapter journey to discover the sounds of the universe” – on a sunny Saturday afternoon at downtown Miami’s Silverspot Cinema.

To read all about this impressive immersive experience – which opens at NYC’s Rockefeller Center January 18th - visit Hammer to Nail.

Doc Star of the Month: Ashley York, 'hillbilly'

Kentucky-born, LA-residing filmmaker Ashley York (Tig) has devoted a good chunk of her career to tackling issues of gender inequality and advocating for feminist causes. So in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the choice of supporting a glass-ceiling breaker over a pussy-grabber came as a no-brainer. What she couldn’t quite wrap her head around was the equal MAGA enthusiasm shown by her strong-willed Granny Shelby back home in coal country.

Hence the time was right for York and her co-director, Sally Rubin, to pick up the camera, leave the coastal echo chamber, and embark on a six-state journey of asking questions and truly listening — and in the process knock down some devastating media stereotypes (from Deliverance to Buckwild) about Appalachia, while taking a deep dive into the region’s multifaceted, complicated roots.

Documentary was thrilled to catch up with the co-director and star of hillbilly, awarded Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, prior to the film’s January 8th digital release.

To read the rest visit Documentary magazine.

Grappling with “Insider” and “Outsider” Documentary Filmmaking: Sally Rubin on hillbilly

From The Beverly Hillbillies to Buckwild, and from Coal Miner’s Daughter to Deliverance, the face of Appalachia has long been defined (and stereotyped and exploited) by the Hollywood eye. And in the wake of the 2016 presidential election the caricaturing continued, this time at the hands (and pens) of the press corps on the other coastal liberal side.

Enter native Appalachian documentarians Sally Rubin (Deep Down) and Ashley York (Tig) to remedy historical wrongs. In their LA Film Festival Best Documentary Feature winner hillbilly the duo systematically take a wrecking ball to every highly offensive yet socially acceptable white trash cliché. Embarking on a six-state odyssey both grassroots political (the Affrilachian Poets) and highly personal (York’s Trump-loving Granny Shelby), the co-directors manage to create a loving portrait of their homeland that both enlightens and entertains.

Filmmaker caught up with Emmy-nominated director Rubin prior to the doc’s January 8th (digital/cable/satellite) release via The Orchard.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Dharma’s A Bitch: Watching Errol Morris Respond to the Bannon Doc Backlash

“Should evil be allowed to talk?” is what the conversation around Errol Morris’s latest documentary American Dharma has devolved into – at least according to the filmmaker. For the record, Morris believes the point is moot. “They are gonna talk no matter what,” the documentarian continued in the pre-screening intro to his portrait of Steve Bannon during this year’s IDFA, which is where I caught the controversial flick. (And got the added bonus of being able to watch Morris watching his film, as I somehow ended up grabbing a seat a few feet away from the director, rushing in to the Royal Theatre Carré at the last minute. Sometimes it pays to run late.)

But is this defense as disingenuous as Bannon’s own denial about the emptiness of his cause? Morris created much-lauded docs about McNamara and Rumsfeld long after they’d exited the daily news cycle. Which caused me to wonder, Couldn’t he have waited at least a few years, allowing us (and perhaps even Bannon) a bit of reflective distance before giving the blowhard showboat yet another platform?

To read the rest visit Hammer to Nail.

The Poverty Porn of Roma

With its current 96% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing (the overwhelming majority of critics weighing in being from the white male demographic unsurprisingly), many anointing it the best movie of the year, Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar contender Roma has sure been getting a lot of love. Beautifully crafted, the film is based on the director’s own memories of growing up amidst the early ’70s political turmoil of Mexico, in a fairly well off household that employed a beloved maid/nanny named Libo – who the film’s main character Cleo is based on.

Which is also where the tone-deaf difficulties start. For as lovely as this feel-good movie is to look at, I found Cuarón’s cliché-ridden portrayal of his heroine unbearably cringe-worthy to watch.

To read my review visit Global Comment.