Subjective truth: Subject

DOCS: Some of the biggest non-fiction films of the past years go under the microscope, investigating the ethics of documenting trauma. As a film journo who’s spent the past half-decade interviewing the characters (or protagonists – as I’ve had a prickly aversion to the word «subject» since long before its colonialist connotation became generally accepted) in front of the nonfiction lens for my «Doc Star of the Month» column at Documentary magazine, Jennifer Tiexiera, and Camilla Hall’s Subject was a no-brainer to catch. And lucky for me, the tongue-in-cheek-titled film, world-premiering in the Documentary Competition at the 2022 Tribeca Festival (June 8-19), turned out to be one of those rare selections that actually lives up to its «essential viewing» synopsis hype. Tiexiera and Hall, who met at Tribeca Festival 2017 (with the premieres of A Suitable Girl and Copwatch, respectively), have now joined forces to highlight the highs and lows of the real-life, flesh-and-blood folks who’ve put their mental, physical, and emotional health on the line in five of the genre’s highest-profile (sometimes controversial) docs: The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square; while also interviewing a wide array of insightful academics, experts and, most notably, fellow documentary directors (though, in the smartest of twists, none behind the aforementioned quintet).

To read my entire essay visit Modern Times Review.

“I Can’t Afford to Let Cliches Live in the Cinema I Make”: Leilah Weinraub on Shakedown

Leilah Weinraub’s 2018 Shakedown, which began playing Metrograph on June 17th (and has been held over through June 30th due to high demand), has been touted by Variety as the “the first-ever non-adult film” to be picked up by Pornhub. Yet it could also be called the sex site’s first-ever Berlinale-premiering and Tate/ICA/MoMA PS1/Whitney Biennial-screened acquisition. And likely the smut streamer’s first-ever labor of love release as well. Indeed, Shakedown is a film that defies any easy categorization. Ostensibly a longform cinematic exploration (crafted over 15 years starting in 2002) of the titular, mid-city, Los Angeles, Black lesbian strip club, the doc is likewise a study in the invention of identity, family and community — especially for those marginalized by both blood relatives and society. It’s also a heck of a risk-taking endeavor: Neither a feminist film nor an easily digestible depiction of Black women for that matter, the true (and unapologetically self-proclaimed) stars of the doc are just as comfortable expressing sexual fluidity (the legendary dancer Egypt reminisces about the time before she was gay) as they are popping a bare booty for the lens.

So to read my interview with the intersectional industry vet behind the lens - a NYC-based native of LA whose unconventional career has taken her from being mentored by Tony Kaye, to working with Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, to serving as CEO of the street-wear fashion brand Hood By Air - visit Filmmaker magazine.

True Crime Nuance: HBO’s “Mind Over Murder”

On its surface, Mind Over Murder – the titillatingly titled six-part doc series that debuted June 20 on HBO – might seem merely the latest addition to a bloated, true-crime juggernaut. And yet in the critically acclaimed hands of Nanfu Wang (In the Same Breath, One Child Nation, Hooligan Sparrow) the Vox Media Studios-produced project becomes infused with an element rarely seen in our current corporate documentary age: nuance. Indeed, this in-depth exploration of a notorious case in which six men and women – all poor and white with two struggling with severe mental issues – were convicted (and subsequently exonerated) for the 1985 murder of Helen Wilson, a grandmother and beloved member of the Beatrice, Nebraska community, contains neither heroes nor villains. Just a lot of sad and tragically imperfect human beings. So what led five of the “Beatrice Six” to confess to a crime in which not a shred of DNA evidence would ever be found to connect them? And why to this day is both the small town and Wilson’s family fiercely divided over their actual innocence? And why on earth would a filmmaker born and raised in China set out for the US heartland to try to understand the motives behind this horrific crime, its unorthodox investigation, and the decades-spanning trials and exonerations (followed by two civil suits)? Not to mention the making of the local playhouse’s production based entirely on court transcripts.

To find out read my essay at Global Comment.

Doc Star of the Month: Marshall Ngwa aka BeBe Zahara Benet, 'Being BeBe'

World-premiering at the 2021 Tribeca Festival, Emily Branham’s Being BeBe is a revealing walk (uh, sashay) down memory lane with the titular BeBe Zahara Benet, the very first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, back in 2009. Well, not exactly. Rather, BeBe’s equally charismatic conjurer — a Minnesota transplant from Cameroon named Marshall Ngwa — actually takes the lead in guiding us through 15 vérité-captured years of the artist’s creatively fulfilling/financially devastating (though fortunately, family-supportive) life — from her humble amateur drag beginnings in Minneapolis in 2006 (when Branham, whose sister was a backup dancer for the performer, began filming) to the heights of reality-show fame, and then back down to the brutal reality of the murder of George Floyd and a COVID lockdown-stalled career. Until naturally, this unrelenting champion of “Queer Black Excellence” ultimately rises, phoenix-style, in fabulous heels once again. All of which makes Ngwa/Benet the quintessential fit for Documentary’s June Pride Doc Star of the Month. Being BeBe premieres June 21 on Fuse (and OUTtv in Canada).

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“I Never Saw This as a ‘True Crime’ Series”: Nanfu Wang on HBO Docuseries Mind Over Murder

One of the more surprising revelations in the provocatively titled six-part docuseries Mind Over Murder has nothing to do with the sad tale presented onscreen of the “Beatrice Six,” as the three men and three women convicted (and ultimately absolved) of killing a beloved grandma in Beatrice, Nebraska back in 1985 came to be known. Instead, the surprise comes when the end credits disclose the story is being revisited by none other than critically-acclaimed director Nanfu Wang (In the Same Breath, One Child Nation), not exactly a usual suspect for the sensationalist true crime genre. Then again, Wang doesn’t seem much interested in adhering to any tabloidesque playbook, tossing cinematic tropes of both heroes and villains straight off the screen, a choice that ingeniously swings Mind Over Murder in a far more consequential — and ultimately existential - direction. Unlike the current crop of sleuthing journos bent on becoming the next Errol Morris, Wang is not looking to prove or disprove anything. The case has already been exhaustively laid out in numerous, decades-spanning trials and investigations (from which she deftly deploys footage), resulting in a 2009 DNA acquittal for every single member of the Beatrice Six. Rather, Wang’s come to the small-town scene of the crime to conduct contemporary, on-the-ground interviews, patiently probe the minds of all the living players and document the amateur players in a local theater production as they develop, wholly from courtroom transcripts, what they hope will be a source of truth and reconciliation. The real mystery that Wang has set out to solve is how both a community and a victim’s family can be split on the question of a person’s innocence even in the face of solid exonerating evidence — and whether it’s ever possible to dislodge a false narrative once it’s become insidiously ingrained in an individual’s identity. Denial, after all, is a form of self-preservation, whether you’re a grieving relative desperate for closure, an (in-over-your-head) investigator desperate to provide it for that loved one or a wrongly accused individual prone to manipulation by a desperately self-preserving authority figure. To try to get at some answers, Filmmaker turned to the empathetic, China-born-and-raised documentarian herself (who happens to know a thing or two about believing in false narratives propagated by self-preserving authority figures). Episodes of Mind Over Murder began dropping on HBO June 20.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Heard Shots Behind Me, Turned Back and Saw Killers Approaching”: Lesya Kalynska on Tribeca Premiere A Rising Fury

In Ukraine, Russian disinformation has finally met its lie-dismantling match in the information warfare sphere — which, ironically, within the larger landscape of our head-spinning, 24-hour news cycle, only serves to muddy the waters of “truth” even further. Fortunately, the besieged nation has a thriving documentary scene with a habit of taking the patient and longterm vérité approach. Out of that tradition comes Lesya Kalynska and Ruslan Batytskyi’s feature debut A Rising Fury, world-premiering at Tribeca Festival, the culmination of an often fraught, messily complicated eight-year filmmaking journey. This breathtakingly cinematic explainer of current events follows the young patriotic Pavlo, a soldier from the Donbas region where the war began in 2014, and activist volunteer Svitlana, a single mother who the infantryman met and fell in love with on the frontlines of the Maidan Uprising. Over the course of nearly a decade the pair’s hopes and passionate idealism is tested on the battleground of Russia’s insidious hybrid warfare, changing the couple and their beloved country forever — as it has the Ukrainian filmmakers behind the lens. A few days prior to the Tribeca launch on June 10, Filmmaker caught up with NYC-based, Kyiv native Kalynska (who heartbreakingly had to include a dedication in the film to her mom after she passed away post-evacuation from Bucha); while Batytskyi was understandably unreachable, too busy filming with the troops back in Ukraine.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“This is a Transgressive Force that Springs from the Imagination”: Rodrigo Reyes on his Tribeca-Premiering Doc Sansón and Me

The latest from “25 New Faces” alum Rodrigo Reyes, who we last spoke with for 2020’s Tribeca-selected 499, might also be his most personal and potentially fraught. The journey to Sansón and Me began a decade ago, when the Mexican-American filmmaker’s day job as a Spanish court interpreter in rural California took a turn for the tragically unexpected. Sansón Noe Andrade was a “quiet and super-polite” 19-year-old who was behind the wheel when his (even younger) brother-in-law decided to open fire on a rival from the passenger side of Sansón’s car. As a result, both teens were charged with murder. And Sansón, perhaps unaware that the US criminal justice system runs on plea deals, decided to take his chances at trial — a decision, perhaps inevitably, that led to his being found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. Cut to Sansón thanking his interpreter with a handshake before being cuffed and whisked away by bailiffs, an image that’s haunted the helpless Reyes ever since. To learn how this chance encounter ultimately led to a sprawling cinematic collaboration between Reyes, Sansón, and the incarcerated man’s struggling family members still down in small town Mexico — as well as tricky ethical landmines — Filmmaker reached out to the director just prior to the doc’s June 12 world premiere in the Viewpoints section of this year’s Tribeca Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Decided To Rewrite All of Our Consent Releases So That They Were More Favorable to Participants”: Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall on their Tribeca-premiering doc Subject

"Catnip for the cinephile” boasts the program synopsis for Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s Subject, which makes its world debut on June 11 in the Documentary Competition at this year’s Tribeca Festival. It’s a pretty spot-on claim for a doc that probes the post-screen afterlives and reflective minds of some of nonfiction cinema’s most recognizable stars. By juxtaposing contemporary interviews with characters from Capturing the Friedmans, Hoop Dreams, The Staircase, The Wolfpack, and The Square as well as interviews with acclaimed documentary directors (though smartly, none behind any of the aforementioned), academics and various experts on non-fiction ethics, a bigger and deeper picture emerges. As does a cascade of troubling questions about documentary storytelling — many of which will likely never be fully resolved. To learn all about documenting the documented, Filmmaker caught up the week prior to Tribeca with co-directors Tiexiera (A Suitable Girl) and Hall (Copwatch), who along with Rita Baghdadi (Sirens) formed the doc production company Lady & Bird just last year in order to give voice to underrepresented stories both at home and abroad.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Knew We Had to be Nude to Participate in this Space of Mutual Trust”: Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan on their Tribeca Festival-debuting doc Naked Gardens

The latest from husband-and-wife team – and 2016 25 New Face alums – Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan (Pahokee), Naked Gardens is a nonsexual skin flick of sorts, a season-long vérité look at the residents of family nudist resort Sunsport Gardens. Tucked away in the Florida Everglades, and run by a hippieish, Gandalf-like owner named Morley, the paradisiacal enclave draws folks from around the country – those opposed to society’s strict clothing mandate, but also just gung-ho for the place’s cheap rent. A virtual melting pot of nonconformity, Sunsport Gardens is likewise a bipartisan haven where a family with kids from conservative Kentucky, a recently widowed lesbian, and an Afro-coiffed free spirit can together live their truest selves away from the world’s harsh judgment. And perhaps even escape from any personal demons. At least until reality sneaks up like sunburn. Fortunately for Filmmaker, the duo behind this beautifully crafted cinematic portrait found time just prior to their Tribeca Festival Documentary Competition premiere (June 10) to give us the scoop over email on everything from guaranteeing uncensored onscreen nudity (a prerequisite for characters to even consent to participate in the doc) to agreeing to shoot in the nude.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.