Coming of age under fire: 5 Seasons of Revolution

SYRIA / Under bombs, an aspiring video journalist finds herself facing self-reckoning as the unexpected narrator of her own destiny. Until the Putin regime launched a reign of terror upon its neighbour, the ongoing civil war in Syria was perhaps the most documented conflict in recent (western) media. This inevitably made it prone to the usual dumbed-down, foreign-lensed tropes: Baddie Bashar propped up by the aforementioned baddie while launching his own parallel reign of terror against a Syrian populace longing to be free. But what happens when the lens gets widened to include Damascus’s rather prosperous and intact urban base in addition to the bombed-out and struggling cities of Homs and Aleppo? What happens when the picture shows a still bustling capital filled with folks who would just as soon get on with their middle-class lives and look away? Until, also inevitably, they can’t. Luckily, we have Lina (who, for safety reasons, goes only by her first name) and her stunning Sundance debut, 5 Seasons of Revolution, which brings an unexpectedly new perspective to a decade-plus-old story.

To read the rest visit Modern Times Review.

Ondi Timoner Chronicles Her Father’s Quest for Dignified Death

Last Flight Home is a warts-and-all account of assisted death best viewed by the terminally ill and their loved ones. Ondi Timoner’s Sundance-debuting Last Flight Home is both a celebratory tribute to, and a shockingly intimate portrait of, a hardworking business and family man, whom adversity rendered a mensch. Indeed, the nonagenarian entrepreneur at the heart of this vérité doc — a Miami native who founded Air Florida, the fastest-growing airline in the world during the 1970s — was living an idyllic life until a neck cracking by a masseuse left the vibrant extrovert partially paralyzed at the age of 53. To compound the tragedy, this freak accident occurred before the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, thus allowing the upstart air carrier to legally force out the man responsible for building it. Nonetheless, with Sunshine State optimism, grit, and drive — and the love and support of an adoring family, including a filmmaker daughter named Ondi — Eli Timoner managed to create a joyful, independent, and dignified life for himself. Which is why he ultimately decided to end that life, on his own terms.

To read the rest of my review visit Hyperallergic.