IDFA 2021: World-Premiering Sociopolitical Docs to Watch For in 2022

Covering this year’s hybrid IDFA from home was both blessing and curse. On the downside, I wouldn’t be attending any screenings in one of the most gorgeous cinemas in the world – Amsterdam’s now century-old (and now “Royal Theater”) Tuschinski — nor experiencing all the new media wonders of IDFA DocLab. (Even with the free online exhibition running from November 19-28 I had to forego all VR as I don’t have a headset on hand.) Then again, I did avoid the city’s pandemic-induced partial shutdown (turned closing weekend lockdown) while still having access to the pretty packed P&I library. This included a wide-ranging selection of eye-opening sociopolitical docs from the premiere-only Frontlight section (dedicated to taking “an artistic approach to exploring the urgent issues of our time”). So after such a highly unpredictable 2021 it’s nice to have at least one sure bet: That the following four character studies – all world premieres – will be sparking thorny conversations throughout the fest circuit in the hopefully more “normal” year to come.

To read the rest visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Nelson Chamisa, 'President'

One of the timeliest films of this past year — having premiered in the World Documentary Competition at Sundance 2021 (where it would go on to win the Special Jury Award for Cinema Vérité Filmmaking) mere weeks after the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol — Camilla Nielsson’s President follows a 2018 campaign season filled with accusations of rampant voter fraud and a corrupt election commission, which ultimately culminates in an explosion of violence. Except in this particular case, the aforementioned nefariousness took place in the African country of Zimbabwe, where there is no “big lie”—only heartbreaking truth. And at the heart of President is one remarkable man on a dangerous mission to speak truth to power. Nelson Chamisa, leader of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), is on a Sisyphean quest to topple Emmerson Mnangagwa — aka “The Crocodile” — a one time ally, now nemesis, of the nation’s notorious former dictator, Robert Mugabe. Deploying listening, rather than speechifying, as his secret weapon, the young and charismatic Chamisa addresses his countrymen’s desire to be “led and not ruled,” and to upend Zimbabwe’s long history of “selection, not election.” So was Chamisa successful? And what does “success” even mean in an authoritarian state? Fortunately for Documentary, we were able to put several of our questions to the deep-thinking freedom fighter himself, who found time between his current campaign stops to serve as our December Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Post-Cold War Films and More at Amsterdam Documentary Festival

This year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) was (once again) a hybrid affair. Which left me, like many nonfiction aficionados attending remotely from around the globe, feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I really longed to return to covering in person — to see, say, Dziga Vertov’s newly restored “lost masterpiece” The History of the Civil War — screened only once before, exactly a century ago — at the grand Tuschinski (recently rechristened “Royal Theater”). Or to swing by De Brakke Grond for DocLab Live. (Though, to its credit, IDFA DocLab did provide a free online exhibition. That said, I still had to skip all those mind-blowing VR projects since I don’t have a headset at home). On the other hand, traveling all the way to The Netherlands to take in the world’s biggest documentary film festival during not just a raging pandemic but a partial shutdown (that turned into a lockdown by closing weekend) isn’t exactly the sort of memorable experience I typically sign up for. Fortunately, between the Press & Industry library, and the slew of screeners I hunted for and gathered from publicists, there was plenty to keep my mind busy — and my jaw dropping, starting with the no-brainer winner of the International Competition, which nabbed awards for Best Film and Best Editing. To be fair, Sergei Loznitsa’s humbly titled, riveting epic Mr. Landsbergis really should have put the master director in a category of his own.

To read all about it (and my other finds) visit Documentary magazine.

What I learned from watching Listening to Kenny G

Among the issues splitting Americans into tribal camps, perhaps only abortion and guns are more divisive than Kenny G. (Or maybe not. My left-leaning family members are pretty much in agreement on the first two. But when my mom exclaimed, “I love Kenny G! He got me through so many difficult times,” after I told her I’d just watched a doc about the musician, she might as well have told me she’d voted for Donald Trump.) Since 1986, when the man formerly known as Kenny Gorelick first burst onto the scene with the album “Duotones” – launching the much-derided and equally beloved “smooth jazz” genre – the saxophonist has pitted elite music critics against the masses that have made this endearingly (gratingly?) geeky Seattleite into a world-renowned phenomenon.

To read the rest visit Global Comment.

Totally Under Control: The Forever Prisoner

JUSTICE: Twenty years on Guantánamo Bay's first high-value detainee has still never been charged with a crime or allowed to challenge his detention. The Forever Prisoner is Alex Gibney’s latest infuriatingly insane expose of US government malfeasance, and yet it’s also a revisitation of territory the prolific documentarian tread long ago. (As have other equally prolific filmmakers – most notably Errol Morris with 2008’s Standard Operating Procedure.) Back in his 2007 Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, Gibney explored the case of Dilawar; an innocent Afghan peanut farmer turned taxi driver tortured to death at Bagram detention center nearly two decades ago. Now the director has decided to train his investigative lens on an even more problematic character and case – that of Abu Zubaydah, the first «high-value detainee» subjected to the CIA’s program of «enhanced interrogation techniques» (aka EITs, aka torture). Nearly two decades on, the terrorist whose actual name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn remains in custody and perpetual limbo at Gitmo – the result, as one talking head puts it in The Forever Prisoner, not of «what he did to us» but of «what we did to him.»

To read the rest of my essay visit Modern Times Review.

“The Film is One Big Conversation. I Could’ve Cut it Ten Different Ways and It Would Still Be the Same Conversation”: Sterlin Harjo on His Netflix Doc Love and Fury

Sterlin Harjo is a longtime Sundance alum who’s directed two docs, three dramatic features and a slew of shorts. He’s also a founding member of Native American comedy quintet The 1491s, and his first comedy series (for FX and streaming on Hulu), the terrifically titled Reservation Dogs, boasts a team exclusively made up of Indigenous writers, directors and series regulars (including EP Taika Waititi who co-wrote the first episode). In other words, Harjo’s identity is solidly Native American (Muscogee Creek/Seminole) and solidly creative artist. Which may make Love and Fury the veteran director’s most personal film yet. (Not to mention his most far-reaching as Harjo, who shoots almost exclusively in his home state of Oklahoma, spent a year-plus, pre-pandemic, traveling across the country and overseas.) The film, which I caught at last year’s Hot Docs, and subsequently got picked up by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY, follows a fascinating slew of insightful Indigenous creatives working in a variety of mediums: from musicians and composers, to visual artists, to poets and writers (including our current US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo). We meet an installation artist whose bead-based project serves as an ode to missing and murdered Indigenous women. (He explains that it “weighs one ton,” but is even heavier to put up every time.) A dancer speaks of her choreography as being all about love, but that doesn’t mean her pieces are “nice.” Another artist notes that her nephew is both “conscious and unconscious” of his heritage: proud to wear his Native dress at ceremonies, yet also bent on being a “Navajo man” for Halloween. A poet reads that, “every american flag is a warning sign even the one my grandfather was given as a code talker.” Or as the bead artist bluntly puts it, the idea that Native Americans are even still here is mind-blowing. And it’s precisely what gives him hope. To find out what gives Harjo hope – and more pessimistically, whether he views “inclusion” as the new whitewash – Filmmaker reached out to the busy director the week before the doc’s Netflix release on December 3 (just in time for National American Indian Heritage Month, naturally).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Would Find Myself Wondering Why My Face Hurt So Much at the End of a Shoot Day, and It Was Because I’d Been Smiling the Whole Time”: Penny Lane on Listening to Kenny G

As with all of Penny Lane’s films, Listening to Kenny G, the idiosyncratic auteur’s TIFF-premiering, DOC NYC-opening, exploration of the beloved/reviled “smooth jazz” saxophonist and his globally ubiquitous sound (to this day “Going Home” signals closing time throughout China) turns a straightforward subject into an unexpected philosophical inquiry. In this case, Lane begins her journey down the G-hole with a simple question: Why does the bestselling instrumentalist of all time, our most famous living jazz musician, “make certain people really angry”? Using interviews with G as well as elite jazz critics and academics as well as archival footage, Lane arrives at some answers — what the director discovers, perhaps not so surprisingly in hindsight, says less about Kenny G than it does about us. Just prior to the doc’s HBO debut on December 2, Filmmaker caught up with Lane to find out more about the film – including, of course, what it was like to listen to a lot of Kenny G.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Wanted People to See the Commonality of the Human Experience Through the Unique Perspective of a Near Mythical Figure”: Christopher Frierson on his HBO Music Box Doc DMX: Don’t Try to Understand

The title tagline “A Year in the Life of Earl ‘DMX’ Simmons” is a rather anodyne description that belies the emotional rollercoaster ride that filmmaker (and podcaster) Christopher Frierson takes us on in his riveting debut feature DMX: Don’t Try to Understand, which currently plays on HBO as part of the channel’s Music Box series. Filmed during what would turn out to be the last year of the acclaimed rapper’s life, the doc moves with lightning speed from packed concerts to corporate conference rooms, from meaningful meetups with fans to intimate reconciliations with family members. It’s a whirlwind of a life, jam-packed with demands that would be taxing on even the most resilient individual. And Simmons is undoubtedly that. But the powerful musician — who seems to be on a mission to save others, often at the expense of his own mental health – is also a fragile human being who just got out of prison after serving a year for tax evasion. And one with a lifetime of baggage battling drug addiction. In other words, and to put it bluntly, there’s a ticking time bomb of self-destruction ready to go off. Which ultimately renders DMX: Don’t Try to Understand both a heartfelt celebration of a flawed hero and a tragic postmortem. Filmmaker reached out to Frierson, who made headlines of his own last summer for having the wherewithal to keep his camera rolling as the NYPD pepper sprayed him during a racial justice protest, to find out all about the doc, getting his start, and nailing that goosebump-inducing final scene.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.