Doc Star of the Month: Vivian Anderson, 'On These Grounds'

Though abolishing the police is still viewed as a fringe idea here in America, what happened to a Black female student in South Carolina is exhibit A for doing just that, in at least one public institution. Pulled from her desk and dragged across the floor by a white officer, the shocking act was immortalized in a viral video back in 2015. Which in turn sparked outrage, but also changed lives. And one life in particular - that of healer-activist Vivian Anderson, who subsequently left New York City for Columbia, South Carolina. And there she stayed, single-handedly taking on the Herculean task of supporting not just the survivor of that particular police brutality but all Black girls in the community, while also facing the deputy and attempting to take down the system behind him with the same unrelenting force he’d used on a traumatized teen. Documentary is honored to shine a spotlight on the protagonist of Garrett Zevgetis’ SXSW-premiering On These Grounds, which follows Anderson on her quest to just say no to the status quo. On These Grounds, an IDA Fiscal Sponsoree, hit virtual and physical theaters on September 24, courtesy of Gravitas Ventures, and is accompanied by a juvenile justice impact campaign.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

The VOD Effect on Distribution: A Nordic-European View

"From Pre-Pandemic Flashback to Post-Pandemic Visions of Documentary Distribution" was the long and winding title of a thankfully succinct, nuts-and-bolts discussion held during this year’s edition of CPH:DOX’s all-digital CPH:CONFERENCE. Occurring on the day designated REDISTRIBUTE:ECONOMY (the other four themes were REBUILD:DEMOCRACY, REPRESENTATION:POWER, REBELLION:CLIMATE and RESILIENCE:CULTURE), this insightful, all-white and primarily Scandinavian panel nevertheless included an array of diverse perspectives. And leading the talk was moderator Karolina Lidin of Norway’s Nordisk Film & TV Fund, who was joined by her countryman Christian Falch, a producer at UpNorth Film; Ulla Simonen, director of Finland’s AVEK; Signe Byrge Sørensen, a producer at Denmark’s Final Cut for Real (and probably best known on these shores for having worked with both Joshua Oppenheimer and Yance Ford); Commissioning Editor Axel Arnö of Sweden’s SVT; and Martin Dawson, Deputy Head of Unit, Creative Europe MEDIA in Italy.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine.

Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)

One of the most revelatory “social issues” docs to hit theaters this year (NYC and LA on September 17) is the provocatively titled Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are), the latest from veteran filmmaker Rachel Boynton (Big Men, Our Brand Is Crisis). Executive produced by an all-star team that includes Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sam Pollard and Brad Pitt, the film is a multi-year, multi-state historical journey spanning two (polar opposite) presidential administrations and several (equally segregated) cities from the liberal North to the conservative South. And by going places rarely seen onscreen – such as the McCallie School for Boys in Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Holmes County Central High School in Lexington, Mississippi – Boynton is able to give us all a lesson in radical empathy, allowing audiences to learn right alongside the director as she searches for answers from high school students as much as from academic scholars.

To read all about it visit Global Comment.

“The Terms ‘Diversity’ and ‘Inclusion’ Inherently Center Power and Privilege….”: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers on Her Camden International Film Festival-Debuting Doc Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy

Winner of both the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award and the Rogers Audience Award at this year’s Hot Docs, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is the latest documentary from multifaceted artist Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which was picked up by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY after its 2019 Berlinale premiere and is available to stream on Netflix). A writer, director, producer and actor – she currently stars in Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders, which just debuted at TIFF – Tailfeathers is also a member of the Kainai First Nation in Alberta. It’s a community that continues to be ravaged by the opioid epidemic, much like many across Canada and here in the US. But for the people on this Blackfoot reserve, unlike the populace of non-Indigenous small towns, the addiction crisis is just the most recent scourge in a never-ending series of generational traumas. Connecting the dots from colonization to abusive residential schools and a state-sanctioned cultural genocide would be a worthy cinematic endeavor in itself. But with Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy Tailfeathers does such and then goes much further, linking the names and faces of those on both sides of the healthcare frontline today — including the reserve’s stoic and compassionate physician Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, the director’s mother — with their ancestors whose traditional approaches to wellness in body and soul seem much more sane and civilized. The result is a soaring portrait of tragedy and resilience, yes, but also a handbook for healing that those of us in the privileged classes could learn a lesson or two from. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with the prolific Tailfeathers soon after TIFF and just prior to her doc’s next stop at the Camden International Film Festival (September 16-26).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Don’t Think Black People Should be Expected to Carry All the Weight of Grappling with America’s History of Racism and White Supremacy”: Rachel Boynton on Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)

Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are), the latest doc from Rachel Boynton (Big Men, Our Brand Is Crisis) unfolds in a series of revelations. The project was sparked in the wake of the slaughter of Black parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC during President Obama’s last year in office,and continued right through the domestic terrorism of the Trump administration. During that time Boynton took a historical journey, traversing the US from Massachusetts to Mississippi, with a singular question in mind: What’s the story of the Civil War? Or more precisely, What’s your story of the Civil War? Boynton began by approaching (all-white and all-Black) classrooms in Chattanooga and Lexington, and found that history is not so much written by the victors but interpreted by point of view. If the story of the Civil War is being taught exclusively from the POV of the white slave holder (centered on his uncontestedly immoral justifications on economic and religious grounds) – or alternately, wholly from that of the enslaved – then these two tales become, in head scratching fashion, both diametrically opposed and simultaneously true. In other words, what the director discovered was a nation not just divided but comprised of two sides completely talking past one another. Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are) is Boynton’s heroic – and surprisingly successful – attempt to actually bridge that gap. Filmmaker reached out to Boynton, one of 2005’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” just prior to the doc’s September 17th theatrical (NYC’s IFC Center and LA’s Laemmle Santa Monica) release.

To read my eye-opening interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“How can you be sure that everybody who had a K-15 in their hands was someone truly evil?”: Gian Cassini on his TIFF-Premiering Doc Comala

A son’s search for a father he never knew is an emotional and complicated journey in even the best of circumstances. When that dad is a smalltime hitman murdered in Tijuana who left behind another family, including a son who likewise embraced criminality and his own father who supposedly fought for Castro (and also worked for the CIA), that investigation can become something infinitely more complex. And if that child is a brave and thoughtful filmmaker like Monterrey-based Gian Cassini it transforms into a journey much greater than the sum of its tabloid-sensational parts: a study of intergenerational violence, machismo culture, and the collective collateral damage experienced by an entire traumatized society. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with the Mexican director (and writer/editor/producer) just prior to the September 13th TIFF world premiere of his debut feature Comala, its title a reference to the ghost town in Juan Rulfo’s “Pedro Páramo,” naturally a novel about one man’s quest to connect with a long lost dad.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We had no bulletproof vests, no armored jeep, just our smiles and good nature”: Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty on their TIFF-Debuting Doc The Devil’s Drivers

Filmed over the course of nearly a decade The Devil’s Drivers is a modern-day “1970s car chase thriller” shot mainly from inside the weathered vehicles of human traffickers. But in Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty’s edge-of-your-seat feature these daredevil smugglers prove a far cry from any Hollywood baddie. Zooming through the West Bank desert on their lawbreaking quest to transport desperate Palestinian workers across the border into Israel, the Bedouin drivers bravely dodge occupying forces day in and day out, risking serious jail time for a pittance. Bonded with their cargo in economic need, in the desire just to feed families and to simply survive, choosing illegality in the face of immorality, however, is really no devil’s bargain at all. Filmmaker reached out to Berlin-based Abugeth and LA-based Carsenty, both TV journalists who’ve worked for Arte among other European media outlets, to discuss the long and winding road to their harrowing TIFF world premiere (September 12).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doing the right thing: Spike Lee’s NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½

Like the majority of Americans of a certain age – and citizens around the globe – I witnessed the disaster movie-level events of September 11, 2001, unfold in surreal fashion across a TV screen. Unlike the majority of Americans, however, my television screen was in Brooklyn. I’d been tuned in to my local NY1 News station as I was every weekday morning, simultaneously readying for work while catching "weather on the ones" (abundant sunshine), subway updates (no major delays heading downtown), and the primary day politics (Mark Green looked to be the next NYC mayor). And then anchorman Pat Kiernan cut away to an image as likely as King Kong scaling the Empire State Building. In other words, for me – as for fellow New Yorker Spike Lee, whose latest four-parter for HBO Max NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½ is both epic (7½ hours!) and utterly magnificent – 9/11 wasn’t an international or even a national news story. This shit was personal.

To read the rest of my love letter to Lee's masterwork visit Modern Times Review.

Handling the Truth: On Spike Lee’s inclusion (and subsequent removal) of 9/11 Truthers from NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½

Twenty years on, perhaps the one thing our highly polarized American electorate can agree upon is that A) We don’t have the full truth about 9/11 (hence the public demand to release the government documents). And B) That that truth includes some sort of coverup (exhibit A – Saudi Arabia). But the idea that this likely nefariousness thus means that only a bunch of white, privileged, Silicon Valley dudes with engineering degrees – “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth,” which I’m guessing doesn’t include anyone who ever set foot inside the WTC (heck, I’m more of an expert on that front) – are the sole possessors of “the truth” seems the height of arrogant nonsense.

To find out why visit Global Comment.