Tine Fischer and Niklas Engstrøm on CPH:DOX's Past, Present and Future

An unapologetically progressive fest since its 2003 inception, CPH:DOX has never been content to merely showcase films. From the start, it set out to push the parameters of the documentary format, to redefine the festival ecosystem itself (while always questioning and challenging its own role in the process). Perhaps reflecting founder Tine Fischer’s own interest in contemporary art (Fischer is a partner at Copenhagen’s Andersen’s Contemporary), CPH:DOX was the first fest to take heat for thoroughly embracing artistic experimentation, for coloring outside the accepted lines between fiction and “reality.” Back at a time when most festivals, particularly here in the US, were still focused on “issues” docs (jam-packed with “serious” talking heads), the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival was unabashedly championing what would later be trendily referred to as “hybrid” films (and long before that became cinematic geek chic). Indeed, 2009’s CPH:DOX Award went to none other than Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers — a project that many critics contended wasn’t even a film, let alone a documentary. And now a dozen years (and one pioneering, pandemic-driven pivot to digital) later, CPH:DOX is undergoing yet another radical transformation. Tine Fischer, about to make her mark on the next generation of Danish filmmakers as the new director of the National Film School of Denmark, is handing the reins over to longtime colleague Niklas Engstrøm, the fest’s head of programming since 2015. Which is why Documentary thought this a fine time to, in accordance with the 2021 edition’s theme of “Reset!”, look back, look forward and reassess with the daring duo.

To read all about them visit Documentary magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Valerie Taylor, 'Playing with Sharks'

Valerie Taylor has lived a life rife with unintended consequences, contradictions and double-edged swords. A pioneer in both shark research and underwater filmmaking, the champion spearfisher-turned-apex-predator-protector often made headlines as much for her bikinis and “Bond girl” looks as she did for her fearless talent. Which allowed the intrepid Australian to bring more attention to her emergence as a sort of Jane Goodall of the seas. Taylor likewise became a media sensation — along with her husband and lifelong collaborator, Ron — for having created the work that inspired both the book Jaws and the 1975 Spielberg film for which she and Ron were brought on to shoot the live shark scenes. That summer blockbuster subsequently sparked a nationwide panic over great white sharks, as well as a near-genocidal slaughter of the species, forcing the conservationist, now an octogenarian who still dives, on a shark redemption crusade that she continues to lead. Luckily for Documentary, the indefatigable star of Sally Aitken’s Playing with Sharks (acquired by National Geographic at this year’s Sundance and premiering July 23 on Disney+) took time out of the water and away from her advocacy activities to graciously serve as July's Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“If Something Gives Me the Chills, or If I Ever Think, ‘Is This Too Much?’, Then I Know I Have to Use It”: Michelle Handelman on the 25th Anniversary Rerelease of BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism

Filmmaker/video artist/photographer/performance artist/writer/professor Michelle Handelman is a 2011 Guggenheim fellow and 2019 Creative Capital awardee whose work is featured in collections from Napa, California to Paris to Moscow. But back in the early 90s Handelman was simply an explorer with a video camera, diving headlong into a San Francisco Leatherdyke scene that would pave the way for today’s gender nonconformity movement as we know it. Her resulting film, 1995’s BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism – just rereleased last month with bonus extras by Kino Lorber – is an artistic amalgam both of its time and surprisingly timely. Scenes from leather pageants are interspersed with frank discussions with players (topics include topping from the bottom and being a macho femme), and accompanied by an in-your-face punk and post-industrial soundtrack by beloved bands like Frightwig and Coil. There are also an abundance of non-sugarcoated interviews with politically inconvenient pioneers. Writer Patrick Califia (before he began identifying as a bi trans man) and Queen Cougar (1993’s Ms. SF Leather and one of the few Black faces in a seemingly overwhelmingly white scene) are especially vociferous about securing visibility and acceptance. And this at a time when their unabashed embrace of BDSM horrified both left-wing feminists (who saw sadomasochism as a self-loathing extension of the patriarchy) and right-wing organizations like the American Family Association (which used clips from the film in its fight to defund the NEA). Not to mention the stance of the American Psychiatric Association, which only stopped classifying kink as a mental disorder less than a dozen years ago. The genre-defying Handelman – who according to her provocative bio creates “confrontational works that explore the sublime in its various forms of excess and nothingness” – found time to fill Filmmaker in on the rerelease, and also on how far queer culture has come in the past quarter century. And how far we’ve yet to go.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“What is Our Duty Today as Viewers?”: Abdallah Al-Khatib on Cannes (ACID program)-Selected Documentary Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege)

A movie could be made out of the making of Abdallah Al-Khatib’s heartbreakingly poetic Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege), screening in the ACID program at this year’s Cannes. The film’s title refers to Yarmouk, a district in Damascus that served as the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 until its destruction in 2018. In 2013 the Al-Assad regime set up a siege, depriving Yarmouk’s residents of food, medicine and electricity while haphazardly dropping barrel bombs on what it deemed a rebel stronghold. An accidental filmmaker, Al-Khatib — born and bred in Yarmouk until ISIS expelled him in 2015 — was a sociology major at the University of Damascus when the revolution broke out in 2011. He only started documenting daily life around him after his filmmaker friend Hassan Hassan, one of the protagonists of 2013’s The Shebabs of Yarmouk, left the camp and left Al-Khatib with his camera. Subsequently, Hassan was tortured and killed by Syrian forces, while Al-Khatib was eventually smuggled out, leaving the hard disks behind to avoid the risk of confiscation. Al-Khatib only saw the footage again once he’d arrived safely in Germany. (The camera returned to Syria to keep filming without him.) Fortunately for Filmmaker, Al-Khatib (with an assist from his translator) found time just prior to the poignant doc’s Cannes debut to fill us in on the intersection of sociology and cinema, the role of media in conflict zones and the importance of asking hard questions before providing any solutions.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Presents “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors”

"If I could log in right now I would,” Dawn Porter raved in one of the many enthusiastic testimonials sprinkled throughout Full Frame’s engaging “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors,” an online launch/celebration of the BIPOC Documentary Editors Database. Expertly edited (surprise surprise), the swift-moving event (approximately an hour long) took place on June 3rd but is still well worth checking out. Whether you’re a veteran producer looking to hire beyond the usual (white) suspects or a student just beginning to build your reel, this database instruction manual/guide to best BIPOC hiring practices/panel discussion/showcase of the diversity of BIPOC work (completely forgot that Jason Pollard edited Dylan Bank and Daniel DiMauro’s Get Me Roger Stone) is jam-packed with stellar advice. (Not to mention entertainment. The “Editor Habits” segment includes a breakdown of “Must-Have Snacks”: “Does coffee count as a snack?” “Cheetos with chopsticks – otherwise your keyboard gets dirty.”)

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.