Doc Stars of the Month: Aldo Lopez-Gavilan and Ilmar Gavilan, 'Los Hermanos'

Aldo López-Gavilán and Ilmar Gavilán, the sibling protagonists at the heart of Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider’s Los Hermanos (The Brothers), are two Cuban-born virtuoso musicians, now in their 40s, whose lives have forever been at the mercy of ideological politics. While still in his early teens, elder brother Ilmar was sent to the former Soviet Union to perfect his string instrument talent — eventually ending up as a chamber violinist in the US, never to live in Cuba again. Meanwhile, kid brother Aldo stayed home to train with some of the most respected classical and jazz pianists on the island, becoming a musical force in his own right. Yet through the years the brothers nurtured a shared dream of combining their musical talents in person — which proved ever more elusive as the decades passed. And then, to everyone’s surprise, the Cold War-era ice began to crack. Seizing opportunity, Documentary enlisted the renowned duo as our May Doc Stars of the Month. Speaking via phone the week of the film’s premiere, the siblings were gracious enough to give us the scoop on growing up in separate worlds, sidestepping politics, and finally coming together as grown men and as artists. And doing so in front of the lens.

To read my interview with the musical twosome visit Documentary magazine.

“Our Aim Was to Document a Reconciliation Process Led by Kurdish Women”: Alba Sotorra on Human Rights Watch Film Festival Doc The Return: Life After ISIS

Terrorist or victim? That seems to be the animating question behind Alba Sotorra’s The Return: Life After ISIS. Premiering at SXSW, and selected for the Special Presentations section at this year’s virtual Hot Docs (April 29-May 9), the film is an up close and personal look at a group of Western women caught in nightmarish limbo in a detention camp in northern Syria. All left behind First World lives – in the US and Canada, the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands – with online propaganda-shaped dreams of rescuing fellow Muslims and finding shared community. And all ultimately became disillusioned and disavowed the terrorist organization after years of war zone trauma. But no matter. Regardless of country of origin, not a single government will allow any to come home. Barcelona-based Sotorra (Commander Arian) fortunately found time just prior to the film’s upcoming run at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (May 19-27) to fill Filmmaker in on venturing into this Kurdish-controlled camp of Kafkaesque last resort. And on how she and an all-female crew managed to cut through the media sensationalized takes to capture the nuanced stories of those caught up in a shameful global game of political hot potato.

To read all about it check out my interview at Filmmaker magazine.

“What We Were Met with During the Filming Were the True Difficulties and Trauma that Can be Associated with Migrating”: Amman Abbasi on his CAAMFest-selected short Udaan

A mother and daughter bond on a balcony, soaking in the sights and sounds of Karachi with a strange sort of pre-nostalgia, before embarking on a new life in the US. This is the opening of Amman Abbasi’s beautiful Udaan, which screens this week in the Hindsight Shorts program of CAAMFest (May 13-23). (CAAM, in partnership with Firelight Media and Reel South, launched the Hindsight initiative to provide “funding and support for diverse BIPOC filmmakers from the American South.”) Rendered with loving care and utmost nuance the scene is a reminder of something we in the US so often forget – that immigrants never leave home lightly. That America is only the land of opportunity for those who lack opportunity at home. Abbasi (Dayveon) follows that daughter as she moves to Paragould, Arkansas to pursue her college education. All while living with an aunt and uncle, wearing a hijab, and attending online classes during a pandemic. That she does all this with unbridled optimism is not just a testament to immigrant resilience. It’s also a portrait of responsibility and humility completely at odds with the American entitlement that seems to have corrosively replaced the American Dream. To find out more Filmmaker reached out to the Little Rock-based director/writer/editor/composer — and 25 New Face — the week of the short’s premiere.

So to read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

The drug dealers in suits and coats: The Crime of the Century

DRUGS: From Big Pharma to Big Government, Alex Gibney explores the causes of the American opioid epidemic. Alex Gibney is fast becoming America’s foremost cinematic chronicler of high-level malfeasance so batshit insane as to be hysterical were it not downright lethal. And with his latest, the two-part, nearly four hour, The Crime of the Century for HBO (presented in association with The Washington Post) he turns his lens on an easy, though long slippery, target: Big Pharma. It’s an interesting decision, to say the least. At a time when corporate brands like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (the «kingpin in the opioid crisis», according to the doc, having industrialised the poppy cultivation process in Tasmania, right down to genetically altering the plant for increased potency) are rightly being hailed as lifesaving Covid-19 vaccine heroes on these shores, Gibney delivers a sprawling and devastating counter-narrative. One that intricately traces how an entire drug industry has, for decades, evaded accountability for the opioid-related deaths of half a million. Indeed, it’s enough to make one wonder if the shots-in-arms success, like «vaccine diplomacy», will ultimately prove to have disturbing, reputation-laundering side effects as well in the years to come.

To read my entire critique visit Modern Times Review.

“We Decided to Make a Film in Which We Would Overcome the Narrative of Our Own Preconceptions”: Renato Borrayo Serrano on His CPH:DOX/Hot Docs Co-Debut Life of Ivanna

World-premiering at the hybrid CPH:DOX (April 21-May 12), and co-presented with the all-digital Hot Docs (April 29-May 9), Life of Ivanna is one preconceived-notion-upending film. The story of an Arctic woman struggling to raise five young children as her often abusive husband spends more time drinking than working is a situation sure to strike concern in the hearts of many — alhough the chain-smoking, no-nonsense protagonist at the heart of this particular tale would likely scoff at anyone’s condescending sympathies. Indeed, with steely will the titular, tough-as-nails member of the Nenets of the tundra is able to stare down whiteouts and subzero temperatures inside a single-room, reindeer-drawn dwelling (as hubby attempts to make ends meet at a gas plant back in the city). And she does so with a quintet of hyperactive kiddies in tow. And capturing four years in this unlikely feminist’s extraordinary world is the likewise intrepid Renato Borrayo Serrano. A Guatemalan residing in Russia, the globetrotting director found time to give Filmmaker the scoop on both Life of Ivanna and his own rather uncharacteristic backstory soon after the film’s Hot Docs premiere.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Whose revolution?: As I Want

FEMINISM: Following a string of sexual assaults, As I Want documents a burgeoning women’s rebellion. Samaher Alqadi’s As I Want is a much-needed corrective to the feel-good stories we like to tell ourselves about those on the frontlines of righteous rebellion. On the second anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian uprising that brought down the government of Hosni Mubarak, another gathering in Cairo’s infamous square ignited a second reckoning. One that forced many of the country’s citizens, including the filmmaker herself, to ask a difficult question: Whose revolution?

To find out read my critique at Modern Times Review.

Youth, migration, and documentary decolonisation: Don Edkins and Tiny Mugwe discuss the Generation Africa project

Could one small step for African doc-makers lead to one giant leap in the decolonisation of nonfiction filmmaking itself? That seems to be the premise behind Generation Africa, "a documentary film project to produce a new narrative on migration through stories made by African filmmakers." Comprised of 25 films (of various running times) from 16 mainly West and East African countries, this cinematic brainchild of STEPS (Social Transformation and Empowerment Projects) in South Africa is currently making its global mark through two extraordinary features. Malian director Ousmane Zoromé Samassékou’s The Last Shelter (screening both CPH:DOX, winning its Dox:Award, and Hot Docs) is a rich glimpse inside the House of Migrants, a way station on the edge of the Sahel desert where hopeful travellers headed to Europe cross paths with those returning home lugging dashed dreams. Aïcha Macky’s (Visions du Réel and CPH:DOX-selected) Zinder – its title taken from Niger’s second-largest city from which the filmmaker herself hails – is an eye-opening dive into the lives of a group of lawless bodybuilders (raised to embrace a toxic masculinity perhaps best exemplified by naming themselves the Hitler gang). To find out more about Generation Africa, from origin story to global distribution strategy, Modern Times Review reached out to STEPS. And via email from several time zones away, the project’s executive producer Don Edkins and producer Tiny Mungwe graciously gave us the scoop on this righteous Pan-African cause.

To learn all about it read my interview at Modern Times Review.