Jennifer Lyon Bell and Stoya Talk “Blue Artichoke Films Presents: Adventures In Intimacy” (and Sex Positivity)

Taking place on Friday, February 28th in Amsterdam (or via a live stream near you), “Blue Artichoke Films Presents: Adventures In Intimacy” will be, according to the event’s press release, “a celebration of sex-positive, p*rn-positive, queer-friendly culture as explored by p*rn performers, scientists, and sex educators in their own work.” Organized by the feminist force behind Blue Artichoke Films (which will simultaneously celebrate its platform launch) Jennifer Lyon Bell, the evening’s quartet of speakers, including the host herself, are an international array of notable thinkers on the subject of erotica in cinema. The Netherlands Ellen Laan, a sexologist and “pleasure activist,” will be joined by performers Bishop Black (Berlin-based by way of the UK), and the US’s own high-profile Stoya.

Both award-winning filmmaker Bell (who was crafting “ethical porn” long before that was a thing) and prolific sex writer Stoya (“Philosophy, Pussycats & Porn”) found time to fill us in on what to expect.

To read my interview with the duo visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Think the Public Deserves More Transparency”: Brian Knappenberger on His Horrifying Netflix Docu-Series, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez

The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is a six-part Netflix docu-series from Brian Knappenberger (Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press) that delves into one of the most horrific crimes to hit Los Angeles headlines in recent years — the death of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend after years of physical torture and emotional abuse. Taking as its starting point the courtroom drama of death penalty defendant Isauro Aguirre (after one too many outbursts from Gabriel’s mom Pearl Fernandez the accused murderers are ultimately tried separately), the series soon becomes something else entirely — a Kafka-esque saga of systemic culpability ensnaring everyone from Board of Supervisors politicos to overworked Department of Children and Family Services social workers (four of whom found themselves facing unprecedented criminal charges of their own). In other words, the sprawling scope of the story practically requires the docu-series treatment in order to do justice to Gabriel’s tragic case.

Filmmaker caught up with the busy director, in production on his latest, a few days before The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez‘s February 26th Netflix debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

The healing power of cinema: The Earth Is Blue as an Orange

CONFLICT: A single mother and her four children cope with life inside a war zone through their collective artistic project.

Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Iryna Tsilyk’s The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is an unusual addition to the recent slew of nonfiction films portraying everyday life in war zones. This particular frontline is the "red zone" of eastern Ukraine, a place where a young boy can look straight into (Kyiv native) Tsilyk’s lens and explain how one can tell, just by the sound, if a shell is heading towards you, or moving away.

To read the rest of my Thessaloniki Documentary Festival critique visit Modern Times Review.

Doc Star of the Month: Victoria Gonzalez, 'After Parkland'

In a relatively sane world — or at least nation — Victoria Gonzalez would never have been one of the guiding lights of Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman's documentary After Parkland. A student at the time Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida became shorthand for the latest mass murder by a young man with an assault rifle, Gonzalez lost both her innocence and her boyfriend, Joaquin Oliver, on that Valentine's Day in 2018. And even as there was no bringing back either, Gonzalez herself was forced to carry on — searching, struggling, and finding not answers, but her own voice. 

Fortunately, veteran journalists Taguchi and Lefferman were able to capture this intimate journey — and those of the devastated parents and siblings and friends left behind — from the immediate aftermath of the tragedy right through to the school’s bittersweet graduation ceremony. And fortunately for Documentary, this naturally media-shy young woman agreed to be our February "Doc Star of the Month."

After Parkland opens with "Day of Conversation" screenings in select cities nationwide through Kino Lorber on February 12, and will be available for streaming on Hulu beginning February 19.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

"...We Wanted Our Cameras to Listen and Play Witness”: Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman on After Parkland

On Valentine’s Day 2018 the community of Parkland, Florida was irrevocably transported into the headlines. That was the day when a 19-year old gunman walked into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and took the lives of 17 of its students. In the aftermath of the horrific event news crews descended as grieving parents and children struggled to find footing in a new reality. And while a great many reporters packed up once the soundbites ran out, veteran journalists Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman stayed behind — and got to truly know the fathers and mothers and siblings, the significant others and best friends, and the survivors who lived to bear witness to a nightmare they still struggle to awake from.

Filmmaker caught up with Taguchi and Lefferman to discuss transforming these relationships delicately built into their feature documentary After Parkland, a tapestry of candid interviews and fly-on-the-wall footage (as well as harrowing cellphone video and frenzied media coverage) that gives us a genuine glimpse into life, as the title suggests, on the other side of a tragedy.

After Parkland launches nationwide with a series of “Day of Conversation” screenings on February 12th. (The film’s theatrical distributor Kino Lorber is partnering with Demand Film to allow communities to request screenings, and with Picture Motion, which does advocacy and marketing for social issues films.) The doc begins streaming on Hulu on February 19th.

To read my interview with the co-directors visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Watching The Battle of Chile Helped Me to Have the Courage to Trust my Intuition...”: Petra Costa on Her Oscar-nominated Doc The Edge of Democracy

Access, access, access — be it physical, emotional, or preferably both — is the doc filmmaker’s equivalent of location. And Brazilian director Petra Costa manages to get it in spades. Currently streaming on Netflix, her Oscar-nominated epic The Edge of Democracy, the third film in a personal, award-winning trilogy that began with the 2009 short Undertow Eyes, followed by her debut feature Elena three years later, is easily Costa’s most ambitious to date. 

With fly-on-the-wall camerawork, and guided by her eloquent voiceover narration, Costa captures up close and in real time the democratic car wreck of recent corruption scandals in Brazil that led to the impeachment of one president (Dilma Rouseff), the jailing of another (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), and the election of a military dictatorship-glorifying strongman (Jair Bolsonaro). And, as if shooting in the presidential palace as the nation’s first female leader’s belongings are unceremoniously packed up, or filming as Lula hunkers down in an office awaiting potential arrest weren’t enough, Costa adds to the drama by deftly weaving in archival images encompassing the country’s fraught history, including her family’s own complicated role in it.

To read part two of my conversation with Costa visit Filmmaker magazine.