“The Whole Mission of this Film was About Holding Bannon Accountable for His Actions...I Didn’t Ever Want Him to Succeed”: Alison Klayman on The Brink

If there’s one defining trait of Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News and White House Chief Strategist to Trump before he was given the boot from both, it’s his ability to disconnect, to casually dismiss inconvenient truths. And director Alison Klayman (Ai Wewei: Never Sorry, The 100 Years Show) captures this aspect right from the start of her compelling globetrotting doc The Brink. Embedding fly-on-the-wall style with Bannon on his unite-the-far-right/self-promotion tour across Europe and through the mid-term elections of 2018, Klayman opens with a scene in which the Soros-demonizing champion of Charlottesville waxes rhapsodic about one of his, uh, “films” screening in a place best known for mass atrocity. “My shit in Auschwitz rocks,” he boasts without a glimmer of self-awareness. And the layers of irony only grow more head-spinning from there.

In fact, unlike in Errol Morris’s recent misguided take on the man in American Dharma, Bannon often comes across as pathetic in The Brink, an Ayn Rand-reading college freshman double-majoring in philosophy and cinema studies (able to quote Lincoln and namedrop Riefenstahl in a single film!). I spoke to the savvy “25 New Face” alum prior to the doc’s March 29th theatrical premiere.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Alexandria Goddard, 'Roll Red Roll'

Years before the #MeToo movement galvanized women around the world, the sexual assault in 2012 of an incapacitated teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team set the international media ablaze. Sparking the firestorm was Alexandria Goddard, a crime blogger originally from the Ohio town. Fully aware of the centrality of Big Red football to the city’s identity, Goddard nevertheless methodically collected and pieced together social media evidence of the rape. Then she used her blog Prinniefied.com to blow the whistle on the assailants (who’d seemed determined to live up to the dumb jock stereotype, having callously and idiotically documented the commission of a felony via Facebook, Twitter, text messages and smartphone recordings).

More recently, Goddard has found herself being profiled, as one of the main characters of Nancy Schwartzman’s Roll Red Roll. The doc revisits both the saga and the important questions it raised around cyberbullying, victim blaming, adult complicity and rape culture itself.

Documentary was lucky enough to catch up with the activist sleuth prior to the film’s US theatrical premiere on March 22 at New York City’s Film Forum.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“I Had To Tell a Story About Five Guys Working Behind Computer Screens”: Hans Pool on Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World

Hans Pool’s Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World follows the diehard band of brothers (yes, there are no citizen journo sisters featured) behind the online investigative outfit Bellingcat, founded by a shy Brit determined to unmask some of the media’s most notorious blockbuster stories. Whether that be through geo-location mapping, voice analysis, drone imagery, or even fact-checking legacy organizations like the NY Times (one of several outlets to report a staged car bombing as real), the international collective takes tools once the province of law enforcement and other paid “professionals” to separate fact from fiction in a very 21st century way.

Filmmaker spoke with the Dutch director right after his doc’s US premiere at SXSW, and prior to the film’s CPH:DOX opening on March 22nd.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Wanted Men to Engage with the Subject of Sexual Violence….”: Nancy Schwartzman on Roll Red Roll

Since Nancy Schwartzman’s filmography includes the short docs The Line, which explores sexual boundaries and consent, and xoxosms, a love story revolving around teens and tech, it’s obvious that the rape of a teenage girl by members of Ohio’s celebrated Steubenville High School football team back in 2012 would grab this director-producer-media-strategist’s attention. After all, the assault had been documented through Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and even cell phone recordings by the assailants, and it was subsequently brought to the world’s attention by a female crime blogger. Now, nearly seven years after the crime, Schwartzman takes a deeper look, revisiting and deconstructing the case in a feature documentary, Roll Red Roll, which opens at Film Forum on March 22nd.

Filmmaker was fortunate to catch up with the activist and documentarian, who is also an award-winning app designer, prior to the release to learn more about exposing the modern-day collision of rape culture and cyber bullying.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Have an Interest in Women Who Are on a Mission, Who Want to Create Impact”: Marie Skovgaard on Her CPH:DOX Opening Night Film, The Reformist

Marie Skovgaard’s The Reformist follows Sherin Khankan, a feminist revolutionary this American had never heard of, but who is practically a household name in her hometown of Copenhagen. Khankan, Denmark’s first female imam, founded the Mariam Mosque, one of the first in Europe to be led by women. And fortunately, Skovgaard was there to artistically document the mosque’s difficult birth as well as the trials and tribulations (both internally and externally) the uncompromising religious leader faced in its aftermath.

Filmmaker spoke with the Danish director prior to the doc’s opening night, CPH:DOX premiere on March 21st.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“What I Discovered Was a Unique Bond Between Man and Dog…”: Heddy Honigmann on Buddy

For over 30 years the globetrotting Dutch filmmaker Heddy Honigmann has been wowing audiences the world over. Born in Peru to Polish Jewish parents, Honigmann’s been honored with retrospectives at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and also at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where her latest work of cinematic nonfiction Buddy closed this year’s Doc Fortnight. A heart-soaring tearjerker, the doc is an exquisite portrait of the lives of six guide dogs and their owners. But because it’s a Heddy Honigmann film it inevitably transforms into a philosophical meditation — in this case, an exploration of the love affair between mankind and its best friend.

Buddy receives its theatrical premiere today, March 20th, at Film Forum.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Truth to Power: Why CPH:DOX is The Future of Progressive Fests

With the “golden age” of documentary filmmaking still upon us, there’s no shortage of doc fests to attend throughout the year (especially around November, when it often feels like a nonfiction pileup). The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, however, knows how to set itself apart from the pack. Besides now taking place in March (and thus not needing to fight with IDFA over eyeballs and premieres), CPH:DOX strives to be “the best festival in and for the world.” What this means in concrete terms is that, though CPH:DOX showcases everything from cinematic art pieces to true-crime thrillers, it’s forever rooted in civic engagement. Indeed, I would go so far as to call CPH:DOX a social activist entity — perhaps even the most progressive doc fest on the planet.

So as proof for my theory here are just a handful of reasons to check out the upcoming edition (March 20th-31st).

To read my guide for what not to miss visit Filmmaker magazine.