“How Do You Build Trust with People Who… Do Not Remember They Have Ever Met You?”: Louise Detlefsen on Her Hot Docs Debuting It is Not Over Yet

A feel-good film about end-of-life care for those whose minds have already departed might strike some as a radical notion. But no more so than the philosophy behind the Danish retirement home at the heart of Louise Detlefsen’s uplifting It is Not Over Yet, world-premiering at this year’s Hot Docs (April 29-May 9). With this latest project Detlefsen — whose last doc Fat Front delved into another unconventional subject, Scandinavia’s feminist body-positive movement — embeds, almost imperceptibly, in a female-founded, women-run facility. And one that covertly gives the finger to Big Pharma and corporate nursing homes by going back to basics and deploying “compassion as treatment.” Indeed, far from depressing, the residents of this joyful haven spend their final days drinking fine wine and nibbling chocolate cake, visiting the chickens out back in the coop — even in the middle of the night if they so choose (though a helper will probably ask if they’d might like to put on a coat). Rather than dictate, to impose “acceptable behavior” or (our collective version of) reality on these folks with dementia, the caregivers simply listen intently and adjust “reality” to the residents’ version of it. It’s a process so gloriously humane – and sane – as to expose the true madness, that of drug-led geriatric capitalism. Filmmaker reached out to Detlefsen the week before the doc’s digital debut to learn more about this Florence Nightingale-inspired oasis and how she received permission to film from its tenants that can’t consent.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“To Cut Through the Stigma of Wuhan Being This ‘Virus City’": Yung Chang on His Hot Docs-Premiering Wuhan Wuhan

I last interviewed Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze, China Heavyweight) before the TIFF premiere of 2019’s This Is Not a Movie, which follows the uncompromising humanitarian war correspondent Robert Fisk (who died just this past October) on his eternal mission to give the lie to bothsidesism. And while Chang’s latest doc Wuhan Wuhan – an on-the-ground account of life during lockdown from the perspective of several brave and traumatized frontline workers – might seem a breaking news departure, it’s actually very much in line with the multiple award-winning filmmaker’s character-first approach. Whether tackling issues of capitalist exploitation, controversial righteous journalism, or the birth of a global pandemic, it’s the people Chang frames in painterly detail that always take centerstage. Filmmaker was able to catch up with the Canadian director prior to a Toronto debut once again — the world premiere of Wuhan Wuhan at this year’s virtual Hot Docs (April 29-May 9).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Decolonization Has to Work in Both Directions; Both the Colonized and Colonizer Have to be Decolonized”: Camilla Nielsson on President

Currently competing for both the Dox:Award and the Politiken Danish:Dox Award at this year’s hybrid CPH:DOX (April 21-May 5), Camilla Nielsson’s President is a riveting followup to 2014’s Democrats, which centered on two political rivals in a Sisyphean quest to transform Zimbabwe from a corrupt dictatorship into a fledgling democracy. It’s also a film Nielsson never intended to make. But that was before a ban, a military coup, and the rise of two new political rivals led the undaunted director to pick up her camera once again.


 To read my interview with the fearless doc-maker visit Filmmaker magazine.

CPH:DOX 2021: A Man And A Camera

Guido Hendrikx’s work is similar in spirit to master provocateur Kazuo Hara’s cinema of confrontation – a style that places the director’s role as “accomplice and collaborator” front and center. Or perhaps it’s a highbrow version of the might-just-get-punched-in-the-face antics of the Jackass franchise. Either way, with his latest A Man and a Camera, a brisk 64-minute film world-premiering in the Dox:Award competition at this year’s CPH:DOX, the Dutchman behind the equally spontaneous and unnerving Stranger in Paradise (CPH:DOX 2017) takes the cinéma vérité conceit to its logical absurdist extreme. A man (who we never see, as we witness all from his POV) roams a small village with a video camera, recording everything from plants and animals to people – often ones whose doorbells he’s randomly rung. But rather than engage with the dwellers who answer in confusion the director just keeps on shooting while remaining unbudgingly mute – acting as the very embodiment of the “neutral” objective lens (and of course simultaneously upending the pretense of fly on the wall passivity). So what could possibly go wrong?

To find out read my review at Hammer to Nail.

Doc Star of the Month: Larry Krasner, 'Philly D.A.'

To say that longtime civil rights attorney Larry Krasner was a long shot to become the very head of the agency that had been his most despised nemesis is an understatement. As one skeptical progressive puts it in in Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar’s riveting, eight-episode docuseries, Philly D.A. (Prods.: Nicole Salazar, Josh Penn, Michael Gottwald; Exec. Prod.: Dawn Porter), he had about as much of a chance as David Duke taking the reins of the ACLU. And yet not only did Krasner win his election campaign back in 2017, he did so in a landslide. And that’s when the real drama began.

To get the scoop direct from the unlikely prosecutor (and April Doc Star) himself visit Documentary magazine.

Live from CPH:DOX 2021: What to Attend Virtually (And for Free!)

"Reset!,” the theme of this year’s CPH:DOX, signals a focus “on a number of the most significant structural crises the world is facing today, but also on opportunities that arise and new solutions that present themselves.” This according to a recent press release quoting CPH:DOX CEO Tine Fischer, who will soon be leaving the festival she founded all the way back in 2003 to become the new director of the National Film School of Denmark. To say that Fischer is going out on a high – and highly ambitious – note is an understatement. Having ushered the 2020 edition seamlessly through its last-minute, pandemic-driven pivot to digital, Fischer and her topnotch team will now be presenting a hybrid fest comprised of artist talks, immersive experiences, 40 live debates and 180 films.

To read all about my (free to stream) picks visit Filmmaker magazine.

CPH:DOX 2021: Live and Inter:Active

After a full year of attending virtual fests – CPH:DOX 2020 marked the start – I can honestly say that the most exciting and unexpected upside has been the democratization of the film festival experience. A surprising number of fests have not only thrown open the gates of exclusivity, allowing non-jet-setting cinephiles to stream films at a reasonable cost from home, but also gone out of their way to make select portions of their programs free to the general public. And though it’s long been at the forefront of accessibility, the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (which takes place in a hybrid edition April 21-May 5) has decided to step up its own game this year, offering its usual wide array of topnotch panels free of charge, while also transforming the Inter:Active section into a globally available, all-live-event affair. 
 And of the XR program’s 14 “one-off social experiences that are different each time they are presented,” a good half I’ve tagged as intriguing must-sees – allowing participants to do such things as dive under Greenland ice to a Cold War research lab, explore the nature of Icelandic folklore with a Huldufólk, or even become a microorganism. No overseas travel required.

To read all my cyber suggestions visit Filmmaker magazine.