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.