“We Are an Accumulation of These Encounters”: Lynne Sachs on Her IDFA-Debuting Every Contact Leaves a Trace

Every Contact Leaves a Trace, its title alluding to a basic principle of forensic science, is the latest cinematic exploration from experimental filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs. Pairing this concept with seven (of the 600) business cards she’s collected over the years, Sachs embarks on an investigation into “how an encounter with someone seeps into your way of thinking” (as she explains in a VO that runs throughout the film). As a collage of words, sounds and images collide it becomes increasingly clear that Sachs’s mission to understand how each of these random contacts has changed her in some profound way is a heavy one. (Which doesn’t mean the film’s not fun. Rifling through her stack of cards looking for potential people to cast in the project, Sachs rules out folks like the first guy she slept with in college. And also the “goofy person” who “repairs feet — like ingrown toenails.”) And this journey to connect and reconnect with each contact that has left a trace on her being takes the peripatetic director to surprising individuals both near and far. There’s her hairdresser of six years, who the filmmaker realizes she knows both intimately and not at all. And Angela, the festival director in Germany she met decades ago — a meetup that leads Sachs to ponder German guilt, her relationship to Germany as a person with German Jewish ancestry, and finally her relationship to guilt vis-à-vis Gaza. “When I care for a stranger is it only because a stranger reminds me of myself?” she wonders. (Later Sachs recalls the founder of the Chinese Women’s Film Festival having had a cough when they initially met, which is what endeared her to the director — she was a stranger she could care for.) A discussion of a famous German poet leads to the sound of music inspired by the man’s poetry, which then becomes a parallel soundtrack to Sachs’s own stream-of-consciousness phrases and questions. “In the stream of ideology that Angela named, I am drowning,” the filmmaker admits. Indeed, Sachs’s choice to lay bare onscreen her own uncertainty, foibles and vulnerabilities makes Every Contact Leaves a Trace unexpectedly touching as well. The week prior to the film’s IDFA premiere (November 17th), Filmmaker reached out to Sachs, whose short This Side of Salina likewise debuted at DOC NYC (November 14th).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“The Ethical Work Hasn’t Stopped Now That the Film has Premiered”: Monica Strømdahl on Her DOC NYC-Premiering Flophouse America

Flophouse America is the unnervingly intimate feature debut of Monica Strømdahl, an internationally award-winning photographer who spent 15 years documenting the impoverished communities that have sprung up in rundown motels throughout the US. Which is how she met Mikal, an energetic, 11-year old boy who’s called home the hotel room he’s shared with his parents since the day he was born. Thus began a three-year cinematic collaboration, shot almost entirely in the aforementioned home, between the Norwegian director and the marginalized trio she captures through her quietly unwavering lens. Which allowed her, and now us, to serve as a silent witness to one family’s troubling struggles with poverty and addiction – and also their touching devotion to one another, their unconditional love above all. The week before Flophouse America’s North American premiere at DOC NYC (November 16th), Filmmaker reached out to Strømdahl to learn all about her beautifully shot and ethically fraught doc, which received a Special Mention in the DOX:AWARD competition at CPH:DOX and is a Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight Award nominee.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Her Archive Was Kind of a Trail...A Filmmaker’s Trail”: Alan Berliner on his DOC NYC-debuting BENITA

Recipient of DOC NYC 2024’s Lifetime Achievement Award (as well as the 2025 Pennebaker Career Achievement Award at the upcoming Hamptons Doc Fest), the “virtuoso of essayistic documentary” Alan Berliner (Letter to the Editor, First Cousin Once Removed) returns to this year’s fest with BENITA, an unconventional portrait of an even more unconventional artist. Benita Raphan was a NYC filmmaker (and a MacDowell fellow in 2004 and a Guggenheim fellow in 2019) best known for her own short portraits of eccentric artists, from John Nash, to Buckminster Fuller, to Emily Dickinson. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts, Raphan crossed the pond to earn her MFA from London’s Royal College of Art; and would go on to spend a decade as a graphic designer in Paris before returning home in the mid-’90s to teach at her alma mater. An accomplished creative in several mediums, her works are now in the collections of the Walker Art Center as well as the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Raphan was also a very early pick for Filmmaker‘s "25 New Faces" series, appearing on the list in 1998. That was the public face of Benita Raphan, who was also a beloved daughter, sister and lifelong friend to many who appear as interviewees in BENITA. These include Berliner’s wife, who first introduced her husband to the talented multi-hyphenate, who in turn became his own friend and protégé. Indeed, Raphan considered Berliner her key mentor; which is why, after she took her own life at the height of the COVID lockdowns in 2021, her grieving family turned to the master documentarian to finish her last film. It was an impossible task since, as Berliner put it, “I could never duplicate the mystery and beauty that Benita always brought to her work.” So instead of completing a final act, Berliner chose to craft a collaboration, a magical cinematic conversation of sorts, between himself and his mentee. (For Filmmaker‘s print edition, Berliner wrote about making BENITA while it was in production.) Through a jam-packed archival journey comprised of films, photos, notebooks, drawings, music and more, Berliner immerses us in the ups and downs of Raphan’s life, and in his own heartfelt struggle to piece together the puzzle of her death. A few weeks before the November 14th DOC NYC premiere of BENITA, Filmmaker reached out to the acclaimed director, whose own extensive oeuvre is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Diving Into the Mess and Chaos of Cinema Doesn’t Have to Exist Apart from Care and Ethics”: Gabrielle Brady on The Wolves Always Come at Night

Gabrielle Brady’s The Wolves Always Come at Night follows Davaa and Zaya, a rural Mongolian couple with four young daughters whose dream to continue the traditional herding way of life they’d always known is upended by a cataclysmic storm; which forces them, like so many of their friends and neighbors before, to finally relocate to the outskirts of the urban capital Ulaanbaatar in search of work. It’s a deceptively simple tale of loss — of both livelihood and identity — poignantly and cinematically captured by the talented Australian filmmaker’s lens. Yet what makes the docufiction drama, crafted with a primarily Mongolian team, so remarkable and powerful is that it’s actually co-scripted with its dedicated stars, who bravely recreate their real-life journey of displacement down to the emotional toll it takes on all. Filmmaker caught up with Brady (2018’s Island of the Hungry Ghosts) not long after the TIFF 2024-premiering film was selected as Australia’s entry for the 2026 Oscars (Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“The Film Is a Portrait of Amy Goodman, But It’s Also a Celebration of Resistance”: Carl Deal and Tia Lessin on their DOC NYC and IDFA-debuting Steal This Story, Please!

Steal This Story, Please! is a compelling and often unexpected look at the multi-award-winning investigative journalist (and author and syndicated columnist) Amy Goodman, best known as the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, which airs on over 1500 public television and radio stations worldwide. Since its inception nearly three decades ago, the daily, global news broadcast has been unwaveringly dedicated to telling the stories of those on the “end of the trigger.” And shockingly, it’s been doing so entirely supported by audience dollars: no government funding, corporate sponsorship, underwriting or advertising revenue required (or allowed). Just a lot of fearless gumption — and one giant finger to The Man. Co-directed by the Oscar-nominated team of Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water, The Janes), the film interweaves a treasure trove of archival material — footage from both studio and field, as well as from the personal archive of the unapologetic advocacy journalist — with heartfelt interviews with several longtime colleagues. (Co-hosts Juan González and Nermeen Shaikh make noteworthy appearances, along with proteges Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Jeremy Scahill, who landed at Democracy Now! despite having no background in journalism – indeed, no college education at all. Never underestimate the power of tenaciously begging for a job.) And of course forthcoming sit-downs with Goodman herself, the granddaughter of an Orthodox rabbi who credits her “Jewish education” — “You ask questions and you take nothing for granted” — with teaching her to approach the world with “intense curiosity,” and to always “stand by your principles.” In fact, one of the most memorable scenes involves not any US policy-upending (East Timor) or corporate complicity (Chevron’s role in the murder of two Nigerian activists) reporting, but Goodman trekking to Brooklyn to be interviewed by a boy named Daniel Seagan in preparation for his bar mitzvah. The eighth grader had chosen her as his “hero.” (Alas, I learned from the press notes that he ultimately went with Billy Crystal as his “role model,” citing Goodman’s work-life balance as a deciding factor.) Just prior to the film’s DOC NYC (November 13th) and IDFA (November 15th) debuts, Filmmaker caught up with Deal, a former investigative journalist and television news producer himself, and Lessin, a onetime labor organizer, whose first collaboration was “on a campaign to expose and disrupt the illegal US wars in Central America.” (Lessin’s bio also emphasizes her work on the Bravo/BBC satirical series The Awful Truth, which earned her “two Primetime Emmy nominations and one arrest.”)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Tip Jar

All tips appreciated!

“She Withheld Empathy From Everyone But Herself”: Andres Veiel on Riefenstahl

Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl is an arresting and deeply disturbing all-archival portrait of the titular Third Reich actor-director, responsible for some of the most innovative filmmaking of the 20th century as well as horrific war crimes (though Riefenstahl would go to her grave insisting she knew nothing of the mass murder taking place all around her, let alone the power of her propaganda). That said, Hitler’s cinematic mouthpiece would undoubtedly agree that great art requires great sacrifice — just not her own. The film is made up entirely of materials excavated from the 700 boxes Leni Riefenstahl bequeathed to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, which arrived only after the death of her husband Horst Kettner (40 years her junior) in 2016. That’s when the doc’s producer Sandra Maischberger reached out and struck a deal with the Foundation: her Vincent Productions would undertake an initial examination of the estate for the right to use the contents for a film. What her team ultimately discovered was a never-before-seen goldmine of personal photos and intimate letters, startling recordings and even home movies. All of which, when pieced together by Veiel’s innovative artistic hand, prove what Maischberger (also a prominent journalist in Germany who conducted one of the last interviews Riefenstahl gave before her death) calls the “Riefenstahl principle.” While it’s pretty easy to tell if someone is lying to your face, it becomes nearly impossible when the person has told that lie to herself for so long she believes it to be the one and only truth. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to sit down in person with Veiel in the lobby of the Perry Lane Hotel at this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 25 -November 1), where the German director participated in a post-screening Q&A and on the Docs to Watch Directors Roundtable.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“’We’re More Afraid of What Happens When We Stop Filming’”: Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman on The Alabama Solution

When Andrew Jarecki (HBO’s The Jinx, Capturing the Friedmans) and Charlotte Kaufman (a producer on The Jinx, Part Two) first stepped inside the secretive Alabama prison system they were there to shoot a revival meeting — an uplifting event that church ministries hold in prison yards throughout the state. What they stumbled upon instead was a far different story, one of horrific abuse, sweeping coverups and even murder at the hands of those charged to enforce the law. Making ample use of the evocative footage shot over six years on contraband phones by the incarcerated men who risked their lives to participate in this film, The Alabama Solution unspools in nail-biting real time, which gives the film a wrenching, can’t-look-away immediacy. The approach gives the film a refreshing feeling — that these human beings whose rights have been systematically violated for years, often decades, are finally in charge of the narrative and of their own lives. Filmmaker spoke with Jarecki and Kaufman during this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival, where the pair participated in a post-screening Q&A on October 28th, and also on the Docs to Watch Directors Roundtable the following day. The Alabama Solution is currently streaming on HBO.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Hot Springs 2025: Uncertainty and Camaraderie

Riding from the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock to Hot Springs, Arkansas to cover the 3rd annual Filmmaker Forum at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, I asked the only other industry attendee in the car what he’d be doing at the upcoming event. His response was both startling and perhaps an unsurprising sign of today's federal rescissions times: He didn’t know. A 17-year veteran of Alabama Public Television, Chris Holmes had initially agreed to participate on a panel with other public media reps. Unfortunately, Holmes had also just been let go as Vice President of Production & Digital Studios at APT, thus he wasn’t exactly sure of his role at the three-day filmmaker/industry conference (or job-wise back in Birmingham for that matter). Fortunately, the doc vet would end up being in good company, as grappling with seismic uncertainty proved to be the theme of this year’s event as well.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine.

“We Wanted to Run It Like a Normal Powwow”: Sky Hopinka on Powwow People

Sky Hopinka is one of those rare filmmakers who seems to possess an instinctual artistic eye. And his latest Powwow People is a “vérité-style documentary grounded in the rhythms, relationships, and lived experience of a contemporary Native gathering” according to its spot-on synopsis. It’s also a beautifully-crafted art film refreshingly not specifically made for the cinephile (i.e., East Coast liberal/Euro) gaze. Indeed, in order to avoid the extractive lens Hopinka, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño people, purposely did not parachute in to capture a powwow “National Geographic” style (as the event’s MC Ruben Littlehead jokes to the camera early on). Instead the MacArthur Fellowship-winning director and his collaborators staged the assembly from scratch themselves. It’s a cinematic project handmade with loving care with and for one’s own community. An experience had from the inside out. Soon after the doc’s Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival premiere (a month after its TIFF debut and before its IDFA premiere), Filmmaker caught up with the visual artist and filmmaker, who was also one of our “25 New Faces 2018.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

"Global Warming ‘Knows No Ideology, No Political Boundaries'”: Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk on The White House Effect

Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk’s The White House Effect is an intriguing all-archival trip back in time to the precise moment in US politics when we arguably could have turned the page on climate change. From 1988-1992, Yale grad and oil company founder George H.W. Bush was commander-in-chief; not only did Bush. Sr. improbably make vocal his belief that global warming (“The Greenhouse Effect”) was real, but promised to employ “the White House effect” to counter it. Which included appointing as EPA chief Bill Reilly, an avid conservationist and veteran of Nixon’s Presidential Council on Environmental Quality and the World Wildlife Fund. Unfortunately, the 41st president would also employ as chief of staff former NH governor John Sununu, who Time magazine once called “Bush’s Bad Cop” and whose laser-like focus on the American economy likewise meant championing Big Oil at all costs. (It’s no spoiler alert to say the bad guy won. And we all lost.) The week before the doc’s October 31st Netflix release, Filmmaker reached out to the co-directing trio to learn all about digging into the late 20th century past to promote action today.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Where Life and Death Coexist: Vitaly Mansky on Time to the Target

The title of Vitaly Mansky’s Time to the Target refers to “the flight time of a missile or the interval between the departure of an enemy aircraft to perform a combat mission until it reaches the specified target of destruction.” (This we learn at the end of Mansky’s masterful three-hour epic. The text card is followed by the dedication: “With love to my hometown Lviv.”) But the Russian-Ukrainian director’s latest, which will next play IDFA, is much less a “war doc” than a grand cinematic study of a specific place, western Ukraine’s largest city Lviv, where life and death coexist out of necessity. It’s a place where selfie-taking fashionistas casually share the cobblestone streets with men with missing limbs. (“If you give the Russians a finger, they’ll bite your hand off,” scoffs a soldier.) Where gravediggers complain about working conditions, and a mother in a labor ward speaks of needing to replace the ones who are dying with the newly born. A musician in the Band of the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Ground Forces Academy admits to having no plans for the future, since who knows what tomorrow might bring; indeed, he might very well be on the frontlines. And from there we cut to an outdoor dance party that could be a nighttime rave almost anywhere — if not for the little kid determinedly engaged in target practice. (Putin’s face has become the new bullseye.) And still, the funeral-tasked orchestra plays on. Two days before the February 17 premiere of Time to the Target in the Forum section of this year’s Berlinale, Documentary spoke with the award-winning documentarian (2020’s Gorbachev, Heaven, 2018’s Putin’s Witnesses) and founder of the original ArtDocFest, which was forced to cease activity in 2022 due to Russian censorship and the unjust war. Special thanks to Daria Buteiko for providing translation throughout the Zoom interview.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Shooting from the Heart: Craig Renaud and Juan Arredondo on Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

As I wrote in my capsule review for this year’s SXSW curtain raiser, Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud is a film that Craig Renaud, Brent’s brother (and my friend for the past dozen years, ever since I met the tight-knit siblings covering their now defunct Little Rock Film Festival) should never have had to make and instigated by an event no family should ever have to live through. And that puts Brent’s loved ones in the grieving company of untold numbers of families around the world — the very same people the award-winning conflict zone documentarian (alongside his younger sibling) dedicated his life to, a life he lost on March 13, 2022 while covering Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s a stunning 37-minute eulogy, made all the more palpable through Brent’s own words and cinematography, to a brother and lifelong filmmaking partner, a dogged journalist and ultimately a victim of war. In turn it’s also a powerful tribute to all conflict zone journalists and to all victims of our never-ending wars. The week before the doc’s October 21st HBO debut, Filmmaker caught up with Craig and producer Juan Arredondo, a Colombian-American photojournalist who was seriously injured in the March 13th attack, at the Hot Spring Documentary Film Festival (where Craig presented the siblings’ mentor Jon Alpert with the Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award) to hear all about cinematically honoring Brent, a multi-award-winning documentarian who like his brother preferred to remain firmly offscreen.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Deception Was Inherent to Teacher Wang’s work, and We Had to Figure Out How to Handle This from an Ethical Perspective”: Elizabeth Lo on Mistress Dispeller

Perhaps one of the strangest and most captivating docs of the year, Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller centers on a middle-aged wife and husband, the latter of whom is having an affair that the former is desperate to end. Enter Wang Zhenxi, one of a growing number of China’s professional “mistress dispellers.” For a fee, Teacher Wang will orchestrate scenarios that allow her to get to know the man and his mistress in order to discern how she can best manipulate a breakup – one in which all parties hopefully emerge for the better. A series of staged deceptions that add up to a real-life emotional journey. A few weeks prior to the doc’s Oscilloscope release (October 22nd in NYC, October 24th in LA), Filmmaker reached out to the Hong Kong director-producer-DP (and “25 New Faces” 2015 alum) to learn all about crafting a film in which some level of subterfuge was necessary on both sides of the lens.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Ripple Effect: Brent and Craig Renaud's Vérité Filmmaking in Pursuit of Peace

Sacrificing one’s life for a higher cause is not a lone pursuit. Heroes are shaped and buoyed by supportive families who share the risks — emotionally if not always physically — alongside their loved ones. It’s a painful truth that resonates throughout Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, a brutal and beautiful 37-minute tribute from Craig Renaud to his elder sibling and lifelong filmmaking partner, who was gunned down by Russian soldiers at the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The film itself embodies the verité principles the brothers championed throughout their career. Built from footage from the veteran filmmakers’ standouts, such as 2005’s 10-part Discovery series Off to War, it’s also heavily reliant on outtakes from projects like the Chicago-set 2015 Last Chance High and their reporting trips from Central America and Haiti. Due to their verité commitment, outtakes were often the only way Craig could locate moments with Brent’s voice.

To learn more about Brent and my friend Craig (who I first met a dozen years ago covering the tight-knit siblings’ now defunct Little Rock Film Festival) read my profile at Documentary magazine.

“Seduction: the Cruel Woman Was Banned for 18 Years”: Monika Treut on her Queer Trailblazing Career

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade since I last interviewed queer film pioneer Monika Treut. At the time trans identity was just starting to become tentatively accepted. Fifty Shades of Grey (a story centered around two straight, white, privileged cisgender protagonists into BDSM) had been released earlier that year, and was well on its way to becoming a glitzy Hollywood franchise. In other words, marginalized subjects the German filmmaker had been deeply and cinematically exploring for over three decades — Seduction: The Cruel Woman (Verführung: Die grausame Frau) hit screens in 1985! — were just beginning to enter the mainstream consciousness. Which inevitably proved to be both a blessing and a curse. And that’s why it’s an honor to catch up once again with Treut, whose eclectic oeuvre also includes docs like 2001’s Warrior of Light, a portrait of the human rights activist Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, and 2012’s The Raw and the Cooked, a dive into Taiwan’s culinary traditions, just prior to the Anthology Film Archives run of “Female Misbehavior: The Films of Monika Treut” (October 11-19), a seven-film retrospective of the icon’s recently restored early works.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“A ‘Classic’ of a Film You Never Knew Existed”: Aaron Brookner on His NYFF-Debuting Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars

While many (likely most) maverick artists have at least one unrealized moonshot project, few have a record of the high stakes drama of development behind the scenes of that lost dream. And even fewer have a record that’s as cinematically riveting as Howard Brookner’s Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, a fascinating look at the titular theater legend as he goes about crafting — artistically, managerially, financially — the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down, his massive, multinational, 12-hour opera for the 1984 Summer Olympics. And far fewer documentarians have a nephew like Aaron Brookner, who’s spent the past dozen years painstakingly restoring his uncle Howard’s long-unseen film. Premiering at this year’s New York Film Festival, the newly restored version (from a surviving 16mm print) is a deft interweaving of clips of Wilson’s outsized stage works with up-close interviews with both collaborators and the surprisingly transparent theater titan himself, sometimes in laidback settings, such as squeezed between former neighbors on a couch in his childhood hometown of Waco, Texas. Indeed, it’s Howard’s truly intimate access -— an overused term when it comes to docs -— to his lead character that humanizes this abstract avant-garde world. You really get the sense that Wilson’s just hanging out unfiltered with a friend who happens to have a camera, which was probably the case. There’s Philip Glass, who in response to Howard’s questions about Einstein on the Beach, says that it’s hard to describe something with words that wasn’t based on language to begin with. And Wilson’s partner on the German script, Heiner Müller (disciple of Brecht and member of The Berliner Ensemble), who aims to create a “theater of experience,” not a “theater of discourse” – one in which “you might only understand what you saw weeks later.” At one point Wilson even confesses that the older he gets the more he realizes that he has to make compromises, an unexpected admission coming from a detail-obsessed man for whom paring down seems an utterly foreign concept. Just prior to the Lincoln Center debut (September 29th) of Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, Filmmaker reached out to Aaron Brookner, who we last caught up with to discuss his Locarno-debuting Nova ’78). In addition to pursuing a home for his uncle’s archives, Brookner is now also busy developing his own films and series as co-director of Pinball London.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Put All the Magical Emphasis on the Stork World”: Tamara Kotevska on Her Toronto (and Venice) debuting “The Tale of Silyan”

The Tale of Silyan is the latest painstakingly crafted cinematic endeavor from Tamara Kotevska, co-director of the 2019 Sundance-winning (in three categories) and 2020 Oscar-nominated (in two) Honeyland; it’s a film certain to continue the awards-nabbing streak. Set in the village with the greatest number of white storks in Macedonia, the title refers to a 17th century folktale featuring a rebellious boy named Silyan whose father curses him for wanting to flee the hard work on the family farm — turning him into a stork, condemned to a life of eternal migration. The title also refers to one of the real-life protagonists of the documentary, a white stork with “strong black wings” and eyes “reminiscent of Egyptian pharaohs” (per Silyan’s participant bio) who’s been injured and abandoned by his family at a landfill. The white stork is subsequently rescued and rehabbed by a human named Nikola, whose own loved ones have left him and their farm to work abroad. It’s an ingenious interweaving of ancient myth and modern-day reality, a melding of past and present seen and heard through nonintrusive cinematography and a soundtrack heavily reliant on nature’s own ambient score. And a beautifully subtle reminder that through protecting our ecosystem we can actually heal ourselves as well. The week of The Tale of Silyan’s Toronto premiere, following on the heels of Venice, Filmmaker reached out to the globetrotting North Macedonian director (who studied documentary filmmaking in Chattanooga on an exchange student scholarship in 2010), currently in post on her fiction debut Man vs. Flock; and who is set to follow Dolgan mammoth tusk hunters all the way to the northernmost area of the Siberian tundra for her next nonfiction foray.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“A Form of Primal Theater”: Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini on their Venice-debuting Waking Hours

Waking Hours is the auspicious, Venice-premiering feature debut of cinematic collaborators Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini, graduates of the Experimental Center of Cinematography in Palermo. With Cammarata handling camerawork, Foscarini on sound, the duo have been working as a two-man team since their 2020 award-winning, mid-length doc Tardo Agosto. And their less-is-more approach shows (and then some). The film stems from the simplest of premises: a group of Afghan smugglers who’ve set up camp along the border between Serbia, Croatia and Hungary spend their nights smoking and chatting by the fire (the only source of light) when not discussing prices and working out operational details over the phone. Shot from a respectful distance in near-total darkness, and with the ambient sounds of the forest serving as soundtrack, the doc forces us to adjust our eyes in order to see the shapes emerging from the blackness onscreen; and to witness a nocturnal existence in which time is suspended, the hushed tedium punctuated only by distant gunshots. In other words, to look and listen differently. Just prior to Waking Hours’s Critics’ Week debut (September 4th), Filmmaker reached out to the co-directors to learn all about crafting a doc that “proposes a poetic and civic counter-investigation, not seeking culprits but creating listening.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

A Conversation With Scott Cummings (REALM OF SATAN)

“Hey, this isn’t Ken Burns” – Scott Cummings on Realm of Satan. The feature-length directorial debut of veteran editor Scott Cummings, Realm of Satan is equal parts visually stunning and (no pun intended) wickedly funny. Not to mention remarkably different from Penny Lane’s Hail Satan?, the last US indie filmmaker-Satanist collaboration to premiere at Sundance (an observation screaming to be coopted by the Christian right). Politics-free and artistically rendered, Realm of Satan is basically a meticulously framed series of strange staged tableaus – from Satanists face-painting, to communally worshiping, to mundanely hanging laundry. (And also my hands down favorite, simply standing beside a lawn sign touting a reward for the arrest of the arsonist that torched the Church’s headquarters – to the tune of $6,660.) It’s all the oddball result of the director behind Buffalo Juggalos – Cummings’s first experimental nonfiction/fiction dive into a much-maligned band of outsiders – having spent 7 years getting to know the various members, including current leaders, of the Church of Satan as intimately as any nonbeliever might. (And for those nonbelievers who can’t keep your Satanists straight, I should clarify that the Church of Satan is Anton LaVey’s creation – not The Satanic Temple of Lane’s 2019 doc. That said, the grassroots political activist pranksters Lane portrayed do seem to share a similar penchant for approaching life with a theatrical wink.)

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.

“The Nova Convention… a Free Artistic Experiment”: Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias on Nova ‘78

Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias’s Nova ’78 centers around the Nova Convention, a late ’70s avant-garde extravaganza that took place at NYC’s now defunct Entermedia Theater (Second Avenue and 12th Street) in honor of William S. Burroughs’s return to the U.S. after living more than 20 years abroad. It was also a great excuse to gather a who’s who roster of counterculture icons to perform in the presence of the postmodern wordsmith who’d profoundly impacted them all. That would include Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, Laurie Anderson and Julia Heyward, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, John Cage, Jackie Curtis, Robert Anton Wilson, Terry Southern, Frank Zappa and the list goes on. Quite the happening indeed! (Even without Keith Richards, who had to cancel at the last minute and was replaced with Zappa. Needless to say, no ticket-holders in the jam-packed audience took Smith up on her offer of a refund.) And just as remarkable is the fact that footage of the three-day event — shot on 16mm by Howard Brookner, Tom DiCillo and Jim Lebovitz with Brookner and Jim Jarmusch on sound — was only recently discovered in 2022 by an archivist at the John Giorno Foundation. Who then naturally placed a call to Aaron Brookner (Uncle Howard), who’s long been on a restoration endeavor, from 1983’s Burroughs: The Movie to 1986’s Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars (screening at the upcoming NYFF), to keep his late uncle’s all-too-brief body of work forever in the public eye. Soon after the film’s Locarno debut Filmmaker reached out to the Europe-based co-directors to learn all about Nova ’78 and the challenges of bringing a lost film to the big screen.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

A Conversation With Rex Miller (HARLEY FLANAGAN: WIRED FOR CHAOS)

Rex Miller’s Harley Flanagan: Wired for Chaos, which premiered at last year’s DOC NYC, centers on the titular frontman of the NYC hardcore band Cro-Mags, who began his punk rock career at the unlikely (very unhealthy) age of 11, beating drums for the Stimulators (founder and guitarist Denise Mercedes is Flanagan’s aunt). Indeed, to say that Flanagan grew up too fast is a vast understatement. Not so much raised as allowed to run wild on the gritty Lower East Side of the 70s and 80s – the pioneering musician’s free-spirited “Warhol Factory “it” girl” mom believed children were better off sans parental guidance – Flanagan was surrounded by sex, drugs and rock and roll pretty much from infancy; and also by a who’s who of downtown artists, musicians and writers. (His mother’s close friends included Allen Ginsberg and Lucy Sante – who appears throughout the doc.) It’s a heck of a life, made all the more palpable by Miller’s deft use of archival footage from the era, along with more recent interviews with the bassist-vocalist’s eclectic array of notable friends and fans – everyone from Flea, to Ice-T, to Michael Imperioli and the late Anthony Bourdain. Surprisingly, Flanagan, now in his late 50s, still performs – and still practices the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for which he earned a black belt. He’s also the happily married father of two sons – perhaps the forged-by-fire survivor’s most remarkable accomplishment of all. The week of the film’s streaming debut Hammer to Nail caught up with Miller, who’s also a veteran DP and producer, to learn all about capturing such a tumultuous life – and making sense of the chaos.

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.

“The Greatest Gift We Have is Community, Which is Such an Integral Part of the Human Experience”: Ebs Burnough on Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation

Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation is a smartly unconventional look at the 1957 novel that captured a counterculture and continues to resonate with outsiders and inner journey seekers to this very day. Directed by Ebs Burnough (The Capote Tapes), the peripatetic doc includes “never-before-seen material” from the personal archive of Jack Kerouac (born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac to French-Canadian immigrants in the small town of Lowell, MA) along with images that provide much-needed context to the sexy author’s postwar milieu. But rather than centering the mythologized man or his alter ego Sal Paradise, Burnough instead takes the inspired decision to focus on the much bigger picture of legacy. And beyond interviewing the requisite academics and surviving friends (David Amram) and lovers (Joyce Johnson), Burnough gives equal weight to today’s no name “on-the-roaders” that we tag along with, and a diverse slew of big name Kerouac fans that sit for the director’s lens. That includes everyone from Josh Brolin and Matt Dillon, to W. Kamau Bell and Natalie Merchant, to Jay McInerney and Kim Jones – the designer who paid tribute to On the Road with his Fall 2022 collection for Dior. (Kerouac admirer Michael Imperioli also makes an offscreen appearance as the ear-catching voice of Jack.) Interestingly, Burnough, a Black gay man who grew up in the South, has an outsider’s perspective on this quintessential outsider’s life that allows him to prompt some truly revelatory insights. In one wonderfully telling scene Johnson recalls how Kerouac encouraged not only her writing but also for her to get out and take a solo road trip of her own — an insanely clueless suggestion considering the risks to a single woman on the road. Not only might she die at the hands of a predator, she could lose her life if she needed an abortion. When Burnough asks what the consequences were for men at the time, Johnson seems startled before firmly declaring, “None.” (Stand-up comic and On the Road fan W. Kamau Bell, a Black man raised in the South but also in Massachusetts, finds the book fascinating almost as an anthropological study, pointing out that it’s an exclusive journey made possible by white male privilege.) Just prior to the doc’s August 1st theatrical premiere, Filmmaker reached out to the multi-hyphenate director, currently the CEO of Hatch House Media, a visiting scholar at Oxford, and a former Senior Advisor to Michelle Obama who served as the Deputy White House Social Secretary.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Put Ourselves in the Center of the Universe Without Thinking of the Other Creatures and Species Around Us”: Victor Kossakovsky on Architecton

A film starring rocks should not be this thrilling. But in the meditative hands of master documentarian Victor Kossakovsky (2018’s Aquarela, 2020’s Oscar-shortlisted Gunda), Architecton, which premiered at this year’s Berlinale, is an epic and hypnotic stone-centered quest to answer the existential question, “How do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?” And the original precursor to today’s concrete — the most-used substance in the world after water — seems to provide a surprisingly sensible answer. With Italian architect Michele De Lucchi as our bedrock, we’re swept into a visually striking, globetrotting excursion that takes us from the bombed-out buildings of Ukraine, to the earthquake-shattered cities of Turkey, and all the way back to Lebanon’s temple ruins in Baalbek, which have been around since AD 60, manmade and natural disasters be damned. Which ultimately returns us to the renowned architect, whose works have been acquired by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and perhaps his greatest legacy-defining design of all: a landscape project based around a circle that no human will ever be allowed to enter. A green reminder that we are not the center of a universe that puts people and pebbles on equal footing. Whether we’ll remain on firm ground is up to us. Just prior to the film’s August 1st theatrical premiere, Filmmaker reached out to the Russian director, whose political views and refusal to work within a corrupt film industry caused him to leave his homeland over a decade ago. (And whose citizenship nevertheless prevented him from actually shooting in Ukraine.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Created the Film to Address How Journalism Was Perpetuating Anti-Trans Bias”: Sam Feder on Heightened Scrutiny

As someone who started calling myself “bigendered” decades ago, trans visibility has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s a relief to no longer have to explain being nonbinary to puzzled and often dubious cisgender folks (gay and straight alike). On the other hand, it’s infuriating to watch as one’s existence is then abruptly erased and turned into an “ideology” by right-wing transphobes. And it’s downright demeaning to have one’s identity suddenly hijacked and transformed into a hip “cause” by cisgender liberals. (The dehumanization inevitably leading to dangers like the NYTimes breathless bothsidesism reporting on trans issues by cis reporters — though no doubt the equivalent would have occurred had the BLM movement been covered exclusively by white folks.) Everyone from haters to allies are so obsessed with pronouns and bathrooms (prurient clickbait) that the crucial bigger picture of bodily autonomy gets swept aside in the larger cis discourse. Which is why it’s so refreshing and empowering to sit through Sam Feder’s Sundance-debuting Heightened Scrutiny, an up-close look at levelheaded ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he embarks on a high-stakes journey preparing to become the first known transgender person to make oral arguments before the most consequential platform of all: the Supreme Court of the United States. And while the recent outcome of U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which SCOTUS upheld a Tennessee state law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors (though treatment for other medical reasons is still permitted), is disappointing, Feder is smartly less concerned with keeping score on the trans rights battlefield than with who is representing the team. Finally we, through Strangio, are the dignified adults in charge, taking the narrative back into our own hands and acting as the spokespeople for our own bodies, ourselves. (Here’s to the tattooed advocate following in ACLU board member Thurgood Marshall’s shoes.) Just prior to the doc’s July 18th opening at DCTV, Filmmaker reached out to Feder, who we last caught up with to discuss Disclosure, the director’s 2020 deep dive into how trans individuals have historically been depicted onscreen.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

‘Life After’ Review: Reid Davenport’s Powerfully Constructed Look at Right-to-Die Policy

Davenport is dead-set, so to speak, on putting the blame for a broken system where it belongs. Reid Davenport’s Life After is about bodies, specifically the inconvenient bodies that society is seemingly bent on eliminating rather than accommodating. Case in point is Elizabeth Bouvia, the quadriplegic portal through which Davenport dives deep into a topic that both liberals and libertarians love to champion: assisted dying. The documentary opens with early-’80s footage of the fiercely determined California woman navigating her electric wheelchair through a courtroom where she fights for her “right to die.” It’s a battle she would ultimately lose, and one imagines that her subsequent disappearance from public view was partially informed by her having to endure condescending questions from the likes of a “creepy Mike Wallace,” as Davenport spot-on notes at one point. What happened to the media-friendly, if reluctant, activist had been a mystery nagging at Davenport, who likewise has cerebral palsy, for a decade. Which in turn launched this very personal investigation to locate Bouvia or her family to find out if she was still alive, and, if so, if she was doing okay. Perhaps, then, Davenport could even pose to her a question that a straight, white, non-disabled 60 Minutes host would never think to ask: Would she have chosen “death with dignity” if society had offered her “life with dignity” instead?

To read the rest of my review visit Slant Magazine.

The latest episode of the Deadline and Nō Studios podcast Doc Talk is out!

And this week co-hosts John Ridley (Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave) and Matt Carey (Deadline's Documentary Editor) talk early Oscar doc predictions with a Hollywood clueless guest: Me.

Listen here.

“Mierle Does Not Fit Neatly Into Any Box”: Toby Perl Freilich Discusses Her Tribeca-Premiering ‘Maintenance Artist’ Starring Mierle Laderman Ukeles

It’s fitting that Mierle Laderman Ukeles is not a household name. The pioneering activist-artist has devoted her entire life and career to showcasing the behind-the-scenes labor—and laborers—crucial to any art project. By her way of thinking, manual labor in all its forms should be celebrated as an artistic endeavor. Toward the end of Toby Perl Freilich’s Maintenance Artist, its title a reference to Ukeles’s own as the first artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation, Ukeles says: “art can manifest the agency of individual citizens.” Rich with archival imagery, Freilich’s Tribeca-debuting doc is comprised of interviews with the now octogenarian (and not-so-retired) Ukeles, alongside various academics and fans. It’s a fascinating look at an undeterred feminist and advocate for the working class who constantly defied such easy labels. A conceptualist inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Ukeles is also a happily married Orthodox Jewish mother who declared in her 1969 Manifesto for Maintenance Art that the cleaning and caregiving that went into housekeeping and childrearing was itself a museum-worthy performance. As is the maintaining of communities as a whole, which led her to form what would become a decades-long artistic alliance with NYC’s often ignored and even derided sanitation workers in the 1970s. (Which in turn led to a backlash among certain feminist artists who wanted to keep that label male-free.) Just prior to the film’s documentary competition debut, Documentary caught up with Freilich (2010’s Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment and 2018’s Moynihan, co-directed with Joseph Dorman) to learn how she ended up collaborating with this unconventional and unusually empathetic character, who urges us all to “cherish the work of taking care.” For ultimately, “We are all maintenance workers.”

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“An Exploration of Whiteness and the Flattering Illusions of History”: Suzannah Herbert on her Tribeca-Winning Natchez

Suzannah Herbert’s Natchez is a multilayered, character-driven look at the titular town in Mississippi (U.S.), which is wholly dependent on a declining industry. In this case, the manufacturing is of whitewashed tales that have turned into hardened history. For generations, Natchez has been financially dependent on its antebellum tourism industry, in which hoop-skirted docents in grand mansions regale visitors with, as one knowing character puts it, a “Southern construct” that’s “used to sell tickets.” Unfortunately for Natchez’s bottom line, though fortunately for its Black residents and others eager to reckon with the past, fewer and fewer folks these days seem to be buying the Confederate dream. The film is a sensitive, sympathetic portrayal of a Gone with the Wind-cinematic city that initially made the Memphis-born Herbert feel “uncomfortable to the point of wanting to look away.” Just prior to the film’s Tribeca Documentary Competition premiere, Documentary caught up with Herbert (Wrestle) to learn all about her stellar sophomore feature. Last week, Tribeca announced that Natchez won not only the best documentary feature prize but also special jury awards for cinematography (to Noah Collier) and editing (Pablo Proenza).

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“So Many Sequins!”: Penny Lane on Her Tribeca-Debuting Docuseries Mrs. America

Kudos to Anonymous Content and Fremantle for putting together a project focused on the most wholesome of beauty pageants and thinking, “We need the director of Hail, Satan? for this!” Indeed, while the idea might seem absurd on its surface, it’s no more so than the notion of married women from 18 to 80 (and up) going toe to toe (or heel to heel) in evening gowns and swimsuits, sacrificing precious time and exorbitant amounts of money for the chance to wear the Mrs. America crown. And veteran filmmaker Penny Lane, whose 2023 doc Confessions of a Good Samaritan followed her own quest to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger, if nothing else has a knack for always deploying patience and compassion in the face of the seemingly absurd. A few days before the June 8th world premiere of market title Mrs. America (parts one and two of a four-episode series, screening as a work in progress) Filmmaker caught up with the busy director who’s currently in production on her HBO doc Flaco, starring the titular Eurasian eagle-owl that broke free from the Central Park Zoo.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It Became More a Story About How the Artwork, and All the Commotion Around It, Affected His Mental Health”: Ole Juncker on His Tribeca-Debuting Take the Money and Run

Ole Juncker’s Tribeca-premiering Take the Money and Run follows Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist to whom the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg loaned $83,000 — money that was to be tangibly incorporated into a specific commission for their 2021 group exhibition centered on the future of working life. (Which was not so creatively titled “Work it out.”) Unfortunately for the museum, Haaning decided to incorporate the dollars into his own personal life instead, though he did deliver a piece called Take the Money and Run — a pair of empty frames — along with an email explaining the artwork’s intent to spotlight the terrible working conditions that artists face. Needless to say, when Haaning subsequently refused to actually return any of that borrowed moola the Kunsten Museum called it something else and promptly sued. Cut to the international media circus, which couldn’t get enough of the art world’s David-versus-Goliath dispute, particularly the sordid accusations of con artistry and countercharges of corporate exploitation. (And extortion once Take the Money and Run went viral. Sensing a million-dollar opportunity, the museum offered to drop the lawsuit in exchange for taking permanent ownership of the work.) Though fortunately, behind the scenes was another Danish creative, a filmmaker with intimate access to the impish and erratic Haaning as well as the incredible patience and wherewithal to tag along on the unpredictable artist’s wild (and often self-generated) rollercoaster ride. A week before the film’s June 6th debut in the Spotlight Documentary section, Filmmaker caught up with Juncker, a graduate of both the Danish School of Journalism and the University of Missouri, who seems to have a nose for unusual stories. (Juncker’s 2023 doc The Most Remote Restaurant in the World focused on the chefs of the Michelin-starred KOKS as they set up shop in Ilimanaq, Greenland: population 53).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Artists are complicated”: S/He is Still Her/e – The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary review

Even if you’re not familiar with the experimental art/music groups Throbbing Gristle or Psychic TV, the synopsis for David Charles Rodrigues’s S/He is Still Her/e – The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary makes a one of a kind case for viewing: “Featuring William Burroughs, Brion Gyson, Timothy Leary, Alice Genese (Psychic TV), David J (Bauhaus/Love and Rockets), Nepalese monks, African witch doctors, and a special cameo by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.”

To read all about it visit Global Comment.

‘Militantropos’ Review: Another Staggering Ukrainian Documentary About What War Actually Looks Like

Cannes: Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith, and Simon Mozgovyi’s mesmerizing vérité documentary is another entry in the unfortunately burgeoning Ukrainian nonfiction new wave. It’s heartbreakingly ironic that, as Vladimir Putin continues his messianic battle to wipe Ukraine from the map, the country’s documentarians are fighting back the one way they know how — by creating films that seem to just get better and better with every bomb dropped. Simply put, what began for many as a way to keep track of war crimes has now transformed into nothing less than a new way of seeing. In fact, because of the heightened stakes on the ground — the ever-present tightrope-walking between existence and nonexistence — life, and thus the recording of life, is now lived in 3D. There’s a heightened sensitivity to every sound and image encountered during wartime, a hyper-awareness that translates with precision onto the screen. In other words, this uber-focus is a result of their own metamorphoses as filmmakers and as human beings. Great art has become a byproduct of war.

To read the rest of my review visit IndieWire.

“How War Becomes Part of the Human”: Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith, and Simon Mozgovyi on their Cannes-Premiering ‘Militantropos’

Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith, and Simon Mozgovyi’s riveting Militantropos, its title a mashup of “milit" (soldier in Latin) and “antropos” (human in Greek), is a striking verité look at how people don’t just fight wars but become “absorbed into war.” Indeed, through a series of meticulously framed images, along with a visceral sound design, we’re taken on a swift-moving trip through the surreality of today’s Ukraine — from the training of everyday citizens in lethal weaponry, to wandering cows on a decimated farm. But also children picnicking in a field, and farmers meticulously tending to their crops, bombs in the distance be damned. If there’s one thing the “militantropos” can count on, it’s that amidst ever-present death, the cycle of life carries on. A week prior to the film’s Directors’ Fortnight premiere, Documentary caught up with the co-directing trio, all members of the prolific indie production company Tabor (its CEO, producer Eugene Rachkovsky, also chimed in briefly). Tabor was founded by a group of Ukrainian filmmakers and artists in 2013, the year before Russia annexed Crimea and set the path to the ongoing war.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“At the Same Time that We’re Fighting for our Lives, We Are Also Agents of Exploitation, of Domination, of Violence”: Pedro Pinho on his Cannes-Premiering I Only Rest In The Storm

Pedro Pinho’s Cannes-premiering I Only Rest In The Storm follows Sergio, a naive do-gooder who, as the film’s title implies, finds inner peace in places of chaos. In this case it’s the hurly-burly of Guinea-Bissau, where the Portuguese environmental engineer has been hired to produce an impact report that will pave the way for a road-building project to commence. There he meets two charismatic characters, party-loving besties Diara and Guillermhe, the former a native, the latter a Black Brazilian expat. And thus begins a bizarre triangle of love-hate attraction – fueled by a colonialist past, a capitalist present, and an uncertain future for them all. Just prior to the film’s Un Certain Regard debut, Filmmaker reached out to the Portuguese director and cinematographer whose documentary projects (2008’s Bab Sebta, co-directed with Frederico Lobo, and 2014’s Cidades e as Trocas/ The Cities and the Exchanges, co-directed with Luísa Homem) likewise explored the heavy themes of capitalism and migration in today’s supposedly postcolonial world.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“A Human-Ghost Relationship Perfectly Fits Within a Queer Framework”: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke on his Cannes-Premiering A Useful Ghost

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes-premiering A Useful Ghost is a multilayered cinematic extravaganza (and feat) that manages to seamlessly combine several deep themes: toxic pollution, soulless capitalism, the perils of prioritizing self-interest over the good of the community, and the beauty of unconventional romantic relationships. And that’s all while doing so in the guise of a love story equal parts poignant and bonkers involving a man named March and his recently deceased wife Nat, who has now taken the form of a very sleek vacuum cleaner. Just prior to the film’s Cannes’ Critics Week premiere, Filmmaker caught up with the Bangkok-based writer-director to learn all about crafting a film that also takes on Thailand’s bloody colonial and postcolonial history (as well as the erasing of that history) while leaving ample running time for a knock-down-drag-out fight between haunted household appliances.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED

Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson’s Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted stars three aging musicians living the good life in a San Fernando Valley bachelor pad (with a rundown pool in need of painting). That such a premise could be the makings of one of the most gonzo docs of the year is a testament to the imagination and talent on either side of the lens. Indeed, the uber inventive film focuses on Jerry Williams – better known as the titular Swamp Dogg – a singer-songwriter-performer-producer-A&R man whose 65-year career has brought him “soul genius” status; as well as his multihyphenate roommates – fellow octogenarian Guitar Shorty, a blues guitarist-singer-songwriter who influenced Jimi Hendrix, and Moogstar, a younger hyper-creative savant with the ability to master any instrument he chooses.

To read the rest of my review visit Hammer to Nail.

“One of our Biggest Challenges Was Painting the Pool”: Isaac Gale on Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted

Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson’s Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted is a gonzo doc that perfectly reflects its trio of carpe diem stars — fun-loving musicians who reside in a bachelor pad in the hedonistic San Fernando Valley (aka the capital of porn). That Swamp Dogg, Guitar Shorty and Moogstar also happen to be in the AARP demographic (two of the three octogenarians) only adds to the unconventionality of it all. As does the filmmakers’s choice to forego the usual biopic route, which they clearly could have taken. The titular star, born with the far more staid name Jerry Williams, has spent the past 65 years as a singer and songwriter, performer and producer (and A&R man), earning him revered cult status in the music industry. Indeed, Swamp’s also been called “the soul genius time forgot,” though the OG Dogg probably couldn’t care less about being “forgotten” — he’s too busy jamming with his friends and hanging by the pool with “neighbors,” fans like Johnny Knoxville and Mike Judge who swing by unannounced. (And, yes, that’s the pool that’s being painted.) Instead we’re treated to personal reflections and heartfelt praise from Dr. Jeri Williams (Swamp’s neurologist daughter) along with a series of gloriously batshit scenes: an infomercial for Swamp Dogg’s cookbook “If You Can Kill It I Can Cook It” (1-866-DOG-FUD); Guitar Shorty killing it on “The Gong Show”; Moogstar relaying a goofy tale, rendered as a Scooby Doo cartoon, about visiting Evel Knievel’s grave with a group of strangers after a gig that develops into something much more poignant. (And also weirder as an opera singer bursts into song, and a naked lady cavorts in a waterfall at McDonald’s.) Just prior to the theatrical release of Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted (May 2nd in LA, May 9th in NYC), Filmmaker caught up with director-writer Gale to learn all about the years-long collaboration and cinematic celebration. As well as the film’s charismatic protagonist whose secret to life is, “Overall, just be cool. And it’s also fun just being yourself. That’s fun like a motherfucker. But you got to find yourself.” (Here’s hoping for a Tao of Swamp Dogg sequel.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“The Film Asserts a Clear Political Analysis of Zionism, and Simultaneously Does So While Asserting That No Human Beings are Villains”: Tatyana Tenenbaum on Everything You Have Is Yours

Tatyana Tenenbaum’s Everything You Have Is Yours centers on NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia, specifically her coming to terms, through her chosen art form, with the colonialism and cultural appropriation that birthed the Israeli folk dances she was raised on in Hawaii (by way of Israel/Palestine) and which she still deeply loves. It’s a maddening conundrum that likewise could be applied to the Jewish state itself. As Ahuvia reflects towards the end of the intriguing doc, “Palestinians’ lives are at risk. And Israelis’ lives are at risk because Palestinians’ lives are at risk.” And while much of the film is focused on the acclaimed dancer and educator’s process, including the uncertainty and doubt that goes into creating any form of art, Tenenbaum has smartly chosen to expand her lens to also give voice to those who are quite literally on the other side. As a founder of Freedom Dabka Group, a Palestinian-American performance troupe that, per their mission statement, “use[s] the traditional Dabka dance as a means to connect to their community, their culture and each other,” puts it, “Freedom of movement is to be human.” In this case he’s referring to the situation faced by his own parents: whereas his Jerusalem-born mom can travel anywhere, his West Bank-reared dad can’t even leave the territory. Cut to the Staten Island-based artists performing at a wedding, reveling in their shared ancestral heritage. Not unlike the conflicted Ahuvia, currently in rabbinical school and still bent on squaring the dance circle. A few weeks before the DCTV premiere of Everything You Have Is Yours (May 2nd), Filmmaker caught up with the director-cinematographer-editor-EP to learn all about turning a decade-long artistic friendship into a feature debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Radiation Became a Presence—Almost Like a Mythical Force”: Zhanana Kurmasheva on We Live Here

"Some places on Earth carry a weight that is almost impossible to put into words” is how Zhanana Kurmasheva puts it in her director’s statement for We Live Here, which world-premiered at CPH:DOX and next screens in the World Showcase section at Hot Docs. Fortunately, Kurmasheva has a way with images that allows her to artistically convey both the gravity and eerie specificity of the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Set in the breathtaking Kazakh steppe, it’s an otherworldly place where the Soviets spent over four decades — until 1991 when Kazakhstan gained its independence — conducting a whopping 456 nuclear tests; from which the radiation, unsurprisingly, continues to linger in the air, water and soil today. Indeed, more remarkable is the fact that, as the title alludes, folks live — and have always lived — nearby for generations (including the filmmaker’s mother who carries the stigma of being born in a test site-adjacent village). And by focusing on the ecologists struggling to map the fallout, along with one particular family — a grandfather documenting collective memories, a son fighting for government intervention to keep his daughter alive, and a tween girl who’s never known a non-nuclear existence — a bigger picture of cataclysmic environmental damage emerges. One that will eventually come for us all. A few weeks before the doc’s North American debut (May 2nd), Filmmaker reached out to the Kazakh director to learn all about this uniquely personal and political film (and how a documentarian goes about crafting such with funding from an authoritarian government).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.