“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.

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“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.

“What’s Remarkable To Me About the Story of the American Public Library is How Much of It Cuts Across Political Lines”: Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon on Free for All: Inside the Public Library

Nearly 12 years in the making, Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon’s Free for All: Inside the Public Library is a heartfelt journey into the history of an institution that went from a radical idea (the “Free Library Movement”), to an entity taken for granted, to a present-day site of ginned up controversy. It’s also a contemporary cross-country celebration of the (overwhelmingly female) librarians then and now who fought, and continue to fight, for the right to knowledge for all. A few weeks before the doc’s April 29th debut on PBS’s Independent Lens, Filmmaker reached out to the co-directors, both lifelong library lovers (indeed. Logsdon had visited over 100 libraries in nearly every state by the time she was 12 thanks to her road-tripping teacher-parents) to learn all about their thorough chronicling of what the duo deem “the last truly public commons.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“An Invitation to Connect More Deeply with Our Environment, Ourselves, and Our Collective Power”: Sasha Wortzel on Her Hot Docs-Premiering River of Grass

"Nature will always win in the end,” notes Native American environmental activist Betty Osceola, one of several intriguing characters, human and not, that star in River of Grass, Sasha Wortzel’s highly personal love letter to a region both she and the Miccosukee tribal member call home. In fact, Osceola, a fiery grandmother, has dedicated her entire life to protecting her family — the Everglades itself. (Another thoughtful protagonist, a Miccosukee environmentalist and poet, likewise refers to his tropical surroundings as relatives, adding that “Chosen family is a survival strategy.”) As the strong-willed Osceola sees it, the question is really, “Do we want to win with her?” This would, of course, necessitate us realizing that we are indeed a part of nature, acting as a self-destructive force; a wakeup call first issued to Florida’s white settlers (and tourists) by one of their own nearly 80 years ago. Back in 1947 Marjory Stoneman Douglas published the surprise bestseller The Everglades: River of Grass, and it is through this book’s pioneering lens that Wortzel has chosen to tackle the existential topic of our times. Sort of. Because Wortzel is an artist in her own right, she’s taken the words of the conservationist author (who arguably instigated the project by appearing to the director in a dream) and threaded them with her own narration, along with Osceola’s deep insights. Then wedded the voiceover to poetic imagery that features arresting archival footage, including of a sharp-witted (and tongued) nonagenarian Stoneman Douglas, as well as contemporary verité that takes pains to give equal weight to all residents of the “swamp.” For in Wortzel’s cinematic Everglades, humans are merely one fleeting creature in a far more complex ecosystem, a world where birds, reptiles, plants and water are there to show us the care-taking way. If we choose to stop, look and listen. A few weeks prior to the picture’s international Hot Docs premiere on April 28th (almost exactly two months after its True/False world premiere), Filmmaker reached out to the director-producer-editor and interdisciplinary artist, whose companion video and series of lightbox film stills will be on display at The International Center for Photography through the beginning of May. (In partnership with ICP, the American Museum of Natural History is also showing the film on May 4 as part of the Margaret Mead Film Festival.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“What is Remembered… Is a Political Act that Can Be Weaponized”: Vicky Du on Light of the Setting Sun

Vicky Du’s Light of the Setting Sun is both intimate and expansive, tragic and hopeful. It’s a globetrotting look at the filmmaker’s own family across three generations and a trio of countries: the U.S., where Du grew up; Taiwan, where her parents hail from and where many of her relatives still reside; and China, where 95 percent of the clan was massacred during the Cultural Revolution. It’s also a delicate unearthing, and a piecing together of personal history through archival footage and interviews with family members – some more reluctant than others to address the inherited trauma forever looming like an unacknowledged shadow. That is until Du uses her camera to coax it into the light. A week prior to the April 18th DCTV premiere of Light of the Setting Sun, Filmmaker reached out to the queer, Taiwanese-American director, whose eclectic CV includes several years as a worker-owner of Meerkat Media and a BA in Biological Anthropology from Columbia.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Most of Us Went to the Front for the Sake of our Children’s Future”: Alisa Kovalenko on her CPH:DOX-debuting My Dear Théo

"Kids and sweet love are the most important thing. And not all this stuff – trenches and war. But if we’re not here there won’t be any kids or sweet love,” a grizzled Ukrainian special forces commander tells one of his charges, a fellow soldier fighting alongside him on the frontline of a seemingly never-ending war. It’s a heartfelt scene made all the more poignant by the identity of the comrade with a camera he’s addressing, a mother named Alisa Kovalenko whose young son Théo has been evacuated to France (along with the filmmaker’s mother and French partner). My Dear Théo, which premiered last week at CPH:DOX, is made up of little moments like these that add up to a portrait more profound than any battle. It consists of a deft combination of letters Kovalenko penned to her son when not holding a gun, video chats (once Starlink became operable) in which every word the director speaks comes with the knowledge that it might be her last, and on-the-ground footage capturing every aspect of war — insects in the trenches, wandering cows on a bombed farm, a soldier practicing yoga. Every aspect that is, except for the reason they’re there. Which makes sense since Kovalenko has succeeded in her mission to craft something she’d never seen before: a “war documentary narrated from a parent’s perspective.” A few days prior to the doc’s March 23rd debut, Filmmaker reached out to the award-winning director (2023’s Berlinale-premiering We Will Not Fade Away) and soldier who has not ruled out returning to war.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

SXSW 2025: Made in the USA

Film festivals are all about discoveries, but in recent years, it’s gotten ever so hard to find true under-the-radar gems in U.S. nonfiction filmmaking. While Sundance long provided the latest crop of American documentaries to rave about, it’s now SXSW that increasingly seems to be taking up the national mantle. To be clear, Sundance is still the first stop for top-notch international surprises on these shores. And yet attendees can easily become frustrated with all the streamer-attached — or aesthetically designed to become streamer-attached — feature-length selections overwhelming the lineup historically dedicated to the “American indie.” Indeed, it’s hard to justify spending 90 minutes of limited festival time watching a doc the world will soon catch on HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and so on in the blink of an eye. Which is not the case with SXSW. While the Austin behemoth undoubtedly has its share of buzzy (i.e., some combination of the true crime, music, and celebrity genre) documentaries, navigating through the admittedly unwieldy program can also be a fun treasure hunt. In the end, you’re likely to be gifted with at least a handful of inspiring U.S. nonfiction films no one is talking about yet.

To read the rest of my dispatch visit Documentary magazine.

“Artistically Reflecting on Women’s Rights Within Religion is an Act of Resistance Itself”: Arash T. Riahi and Verena Soltiz on Their CPH:DOX-Premiering Girls & Gods

Arash T. Riahi and Verena Soltiz’s Girls & Gods is a stylishly crafted philosophical investigation that addresses an intriguing question both timely and timeless: Can feminism and religion coexist? The brainchild of Inna Shevchenko of the Ukrainian collective FEMEN, also credited as writer, the doc takes us on a whirlwind tour throughout Europe (and NYC) with Shevchenko serving as our inquisitive guide, allowing us to listen in as she deeply converses, debates, and gathers wisdom from other women. And not just atheist activists like herself, fighting religion as a vestige of patriarchal oppression, but true believers: theologians, priests, imams and rabbis, all of whom are also activists, either defending religion as a feminist act or reforming it to better align with its original intent. In other words, Girls & Gods is an arthouse “debate film” in which the questioning, not any hard answers, is the point, as it should be with art and religion both. To learn all about the globetrotting, eye-catching (and ear-catching, with Pussy Riot and Baby Volcano featured on the soundtrack) doc, Filmmaker reached out to the Austrian co-directors a few days before the film’s March 23rd premiere.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Getting Along with Bodyguards is Crucial!”: Tommy Gulliksen on His CPH:DOX Opening Night Film Facing War

Tommy Gulliksen’s Facing War follows Jens Stoltenberg in the final year of his decade-long stint as Secretary General of NATO, a position he’d been looking forward to relinquishing until, in 2023, President Biden asked him to stay on for another 12 months. And it’s easy to see why. The energetic, glad-handing, back-slapping politico seems to treat every world leader as his absolute favorite bestie (Emmanuel! Viktor!), even as he strategizes with his comms team to text the perfect thank you reply. (Though that’s probably standard operating procedure for every commander forced to deal with Trump.) And yet this former Prime Minister of Norway is so personable and sincerely committed to his cause that every dog and pony show comes across as downright genuine — a necessary skill for the job, as is enjoying the highly choreographed pomp and circumstance. (The latter is a benefit not given to the non-elite workers toiling away in obscurity behind the scenes. Luckily, Gulliksen does catch a few oddball moments that pierce the charade, like a guard standing at attention in full state regalia who can’t seem to stifle a yawn, or the frantic woman in Lithuania, vacuum cleaner strapped to her back, clumsily rushing to clean the red carpet.) For whether it’s bartering with Erdoğan in order to welcome Sweden into the alliance, or convincing Orbán to simply stand down while the rest of the members handle Ukraine’s bid to join, the stakes for all are just too high. A few days before Facing War opened this year’s CPH:DOX, Filmmaker reached out to the Norwegian director (who co-produced the batshit Laibach-in-North-Korea doc Liberation Day back in 2016) to learn how he got such phenomenal access to the NATO “war room,” as well as what was strictly off-limits to his lens.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Night Is Not Eternal

Delighted to have reviewed Nanfu Wang's Night Is Not Eternal for Documentary magazine's latest collaborative Screen Time!

“It Felt As If She Were Actually Speaking to Me About This Film”: Rachel Mason on Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna

Rachel Mason’s Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna makes its point crystal clear from the title: Halyna Hutchins, the talented DP who landed on American Cinematographer’s list of “10 up-and-coming directors of photography who are making their mark” in 2019, will not be upstaged by the celebrity who in 2021 accidentally shot and killed her (and injured director Joel Souza) during the filming of the western Rust. Which makes sense since Mason was a close friend of Hutchins, and was asked by her devastated widower to take on the project. And while the film is rightly a celebration of the Ukrainian cinematographer and her diverse body of work (over 30 features, shorts and miniseries), it’s also a search for hard answers. Through public records as well as interviews with the Rust cast and crew, Mason attempts to retrace the sometimes contested missteps that allowed for a real bullet to make its way onto a movie set in Santa Fe, taking the life of a beloved wife and mother. Or I should say bullets, as perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge was that investigators found a total of six mixed in with the dummies. (Then again, as someone who used to live in Santa Fe, I admittedly have a hard time trusting the pronouncements of any New Mexico authorities, not always the brightest bulbs in the witness box. This assessment is evidenced by the prosecution’s Dr. Seuss-like opening statement that probably helped the shooter get off scot-free from the start.) So to learn all about filming a highly personal doc she hadn’t set out to make, Filmmaker reached out to Mason (Circus of Books, the HBO docuseries An Update on Our Family) the week of the doc’s Hulu premiere (March 11).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

‘Creede U.S.A.’ Review: An Engaging Documentary Sees a Small Colorado Town as a Model to Restore American Civility

SXSW: Creede, Colorado is only home to 300 people, but Kahane Corn Cooperman's finds hope for the future in the community — and the theatre — this politically diverse town has built together. Kahane Corn Cooperman’s engaging and heartwarmingly hopeful “Creede U.S.A.” stars the residents of Creede, Colorado, a sparse place (population: 300) so remote I had to look it up on Google Maps, only to discover that it’s just a three-hour drive west of where I was raised.

To read my entire review visit IndieWire.

“… The Visual Approach of the Documentary is Deeply Influenced by Amish and Mennonite Norms”: Elaine Epstein on her SXSW-Premiering Arrest the Midwife

As its nonsensical title might imply, Elaine Epstein’s Arrest the Midwife centers on the plight of three certified professional midwives who, after the death of a newborn (ironically, at a hospital one of the midwives rushed her client to the minute she noticed complications), find themselves in the crosshairs of their local authorities in upstate New York, one of only 11 states where midwifery is either illegal or highly restricted. (NYC midwives might consider moving to progressive Alabama.) And while the tale is quite harrowing, it’s also unexpectedly empowering. For what the (male) police and prosecutors didn’t quite bargain for was a “radical uprising” from the rural community the trio of conservative birthing providers serve – Amish and Mennonite women willing to fight for their right not to engage with the medical industrial complex of the outside world. (Onward, Christian soldiers!) To learn all about the film – including how a Brooklyn-based, gay, Jewish, South African documentarian even got access to this cloistered community – Filmmaker caught up with the award-winning director (State of Denial, Nothing Without Us: The Women Who Will End Aids) the day before the doc’s March 9th SXSW debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Women Like Gail are Often Vilified in the Media as Cold-Blooded Killers and Even Monsters”: Jessica Earnshaw on her SXSW-Debuting Baby Doe

Baby Doe is the latest from Jessica Earnshaw, whose Jacinta won the Albert Maysles Best New Documentary Director Award at Tribeca 2020. While that film followed a mother-daughter relationship bound up in drugs, incarceration and generational trauma, Baby Doe stars a happily married mother and grandmother who likely never even smoked a cigarette or garnered a speeding ticket. Indeed, Gail Ritchey was an unassuming conservative Christian living in rural Ohio until the magic of DNA matched the fifty-something to “Geauga’s Child,” a newborn left abandoned in the woods three decades ago. Which soon led to an arrest for murder (though Ritchey claims the baby was stillborn), a close-knit family’s unimaginable anguish, and one overriding question: How can a young woman be so traumatized by an unwanted pregnancy that she refuses to believe she’s even carrying? Until nine months later denial clashes with inescapable reality. The day of the film’s SXSW premiere (March 7th) Filmmaker caught up with Earnshaw to learn all about what psychologists term “pregnancy denial,” and embedding with a traumatized family still living its consequences.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

19 Films We’re Anticipating at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival

With SXSW underway, here are 19 picks (including a few of my own discoveries) to get you through the nonstop days!

“Maybe an Individual is Only as Interesting as the Energy Surrounding Them”: Angelo Madsen on His True/False-debuting A Body to Live In

Angelo Madsen’s A Body to Live In is a doc as unconventional in form as its leading man. Comprised of various formats (16mm, VHS, archival, 2K) overlaid with underground voices (Annie Sprinkle and Ron Athey are probably the best known), the film takes us on a winding journey through the life and philosophy of photographer-performance artist-ritualist Fakir Musafar, one of the founders of the modern primitive movement. With the archival Musafar (born Roland Loomis in 1930) as our guide we’re introduced to an unheralded slice of LGBTQ+ history that includes gay BDSM parties, the first piercing shop, body modification as a balm during the AIDS epidemic, and of course body-based performance art. And this is all while never really getting to know the queer Korean War vet, whose anthropological fascinations led to dabbling in flesh hook suspension by the mid-’60s. (Musafar eventually married BDSM educator and ritualist Cléo Dubois, who remained by his side till his death in 2018.) But this elusive quality is as it should be when it comes to celebrating a mysterious artist for whom seeking, not answers, was the point. A week prior to the doc’s February 27th True/False debut, Filmmaker caught up with the director and interdisciplinary artist to learn all about A Body to Live In and making art from life.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“He Realized It Was Useful to Stop Running From the 500 Pound Maus Chasing After Him”: Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin on Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!

Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin’s Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse! centers on a legendary cartoonist who’s long struggled with being eclipsed by his own creation. Decades ago Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, Holocaust-focused, autobiographical graphic novel Maus launched the underground artist into mainstream fame, and its success prompted him to follow up with the explanatory MetaMaus so he could finally stop having to publicly dissect the most painful time in his family’s history. (Needless to say, the plan backfired spectacularly.) Fast forward to today, when calls to ban Maus — and other “uncomfortable” books — make the moral of the story more relevant than ever, and the perennial antifascist spokesman even more in demand. (Cut to a panel with the caption “Oy.”) Nevertheless, Spiegelman is a game participant in this study of his life, influences (Mad magazine of course) and eclectic oeuvre (the 9/11-themed In the Shadow of No Towers is probably better known than Garbage Pail Kids); as are the assorted literary scholars, fellow cartoonists and critics (including J. Hoberman), all some combination of fans, friends and colleagues. But perhaps the most memorable moments occur when reflection is a group activity, such as the intimate scene around the dinner table with Spiegelman and his spouse and collaborator Françoise Mouly eating and chatting comics with a strikingly bland Robert Crumb and his late wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb — the burden of Maus temporarily lifted by graying domesticity. A few days prior to the theatrical release (February 21st at Film Forum) of Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!, Filmmaker reached out to the veteran co-directors whose 2013 doc Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay likewise received PBS’s American Masters imprimatur.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Meredith Understood That I Needed the Freedom to Create My Own Interpretation of Her Work and Life”: Billy Shebar on his Berlinale-Premiering Meredith Monk Doc, Monk in Pieces

Billy Shebar’s Monk in Pieces stars Meredith Monk, an artist so singular as to be unclassifiable. (A collage of Zoom-interviewed academics who expound on the titular composer-singer-director-choreographer – and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations – is like watching proverbial blind men describing an elephant.) A progenitor of what we now call “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance,” Monk began her career in the downtown NYC art scene of the ’60s and ’70s — a time and place not all that kind to female boundary busters. (Indeed, New York Times reviews ranged from scathing to the downright patronizing.) Then again, who cares what stuffy elites like Clive Barnes think when none other than Monk contemporary Philip Glass declares, “She, among all of us, was – and still is – the uniquely gifted one.” Divided into discrete sections, the film makes ample use of Monk’s own vast archive and of the octogenarian herself, still working in the same Tribeca loft she’s had for over half a century. It also includes notable talking heads (literally in the case of David Byrne). And yet despite this familiar structure, there’s a compelling dissonance between the audio and visual that renders Monk in Pieces nearly experimental. It’s a creative choice that deftly reflects Monk’s own approach to her iconoclastic art, forcing us to listen with a different ear, to look closer not away. A few days prior to the Berlinale premiere of Monk in Pieces (February 18th in the Panorama Dokumente section), Filmmaker caught up with the doc’s Emmy-nominated director-writer-producer and founder of 110th Street Films.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It Carries the Weight of Improvisation but Also Inevitability”: Liryc Dela Cruz on his Berlinale-premiering Where the Night Stands Still (Come la Notte)

Liryc Dela Cruz’s Where the Night Stands Still (Come la Notte) takes the simplest of storylines and renders it infinitely complex. Three Filipino siblings, all domestic workers in Italy who’ve not seen each other for years, reunite at an extravagant villa the elder sister inherited after the death of her longtime employer. They reminisce about childhood over Filipino delicacies the younger sister and brother have brought, and stroll the vast grounds that the new owner meticulously preserves as if she were still a servant and not the lady of the house. But as the languorous day draws to a close tensions build, conversations turn, and buried grievances emerge. All of which is meticulously captured in haunting B&W, the ghosts of the past present in every striking frame. A few days prior to the February 15th Berlinale premiere of Where the Night Stands Still (Come la Notte), Filmmaker reached out to the film’s director (and producer, writer, editor and DP), an artist with roots in both the Philippines and Rome, about his thrillingly auspicious feature-length debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

‘Cutting Through Rocks’ Review: A Sharp Documentary Profiles a Motorcycle-Loving Woman Who Takes on the Patriarchy in Rural Iran

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s precisely lensed “Cutting Through Rocks“ is a deftly shaped work of cinematic nonfiction that opens with a literal bang, as we cut from a black screen to a middle-aged, headscarf-clad woman wrestling with a metal door that’s become unhinged; eventually she decides to buzzsaw through the surrounding stone enclosure to make it fit back in. It’s an apt metaphor for the formidable Sara Shahverdi, a longtime divorcee in a deeply religious region of northwest Iran — a woman who’s spent most of her life flouting gender norms and giving the finger to convention. The former midwife is also a vocal advocate for the empowerment of women and girls, which includes access to education and an end to child marriage. And, of course, she’s also an advocate for the right to ride a motorcycle, her greatest passion of all.

To read the rest of my review visit IndieWire.

“Societal Failures Are Dictating What People Do”: Reid Davenport’s ‘Life After’ Connects Assisted Dying With a Fear of Disability

I interviewed Reid Davenport for the Doc Star of the Month column in 2022, the year the Stanford-trained TED fellow nabbed the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at Sundance for his remarkable debut feature, I Didn’t See You There, which he termed a doc “about disability from an overtly political perspective.” Now the award-winning director returns to Park City with Life After, another doc about disability from an overtly political perspective —though the politics are complicated when the subject is assisted dying. As Davenport himself put it in his director’s statement: “I’m a filmmaker in New York City, living in a progressive milieu where conversations about the ‘right to die’ hinge on treasured values of choice and bodily autonomy. But as a disabled person, I can sense people’s undisguised fear of disability just below the surface. What’s a hot-button dinner party topic for some is utterly sinister for me, as I see people in my life exhibit a higher tolerance for the deaths of disabled people than for non-disabled people.” It’s through this personal lens that we’re introduced to the story of Elizabeth Bouvia, a disabled Californian who in 1983 sought the “right to die” in a courtroom, sparking a media frenzy that morphed into a contentious national debate. And then, as so often happens with human beings hijacked for causes, she up and disappeared. This mystery prompted Davenport, who like Bouvia has cerebral palsy, to set out to investigate her whereabouts today. Through her story, Davenport explores the contemporary legal status of assisted dying and how legislation is crafted while disregarding input from disabled advocates. Documentary caught up with Davenport the week before the film’s U.S. Documentary Competition premiere on Life After’s aesthetic choices, the necessity of disabled perspectives in storytelling, and the political entanglement of the “right to die” with the refusal to support conditions of life.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“Making Films in Iran Is Not an Easy Task at All”: Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni on their Sundance-debuting Cutting Through Rocks

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi, a middle-aged divorcee in a remote and extremely conservative region of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What makes the scenario rather remarkable that Shahverdi is neither pariah nor wallflower in her tiny town. On the contrary, the onetime midwife, who quite literally brought an entire generation of her village into the world, is also a loud motorcycle-riding rebel who ran for a seat at the government table and won. And now, as the first elected councilwoman, a woman who finds herself at the center of an incompetent bureaucracy, one in which the proverbial glass ceiling just might be made of stone. A few days prior to the film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition debut on January 27th, Filmmaker caught up with the married co-directors to learn all about their seven-year journey with Shahverdi, including staying safe through the “rare knowledge” of their formidable star.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It Was More Pointedly a Satirical Look at …’The Peace-Building Industry'”: Amber Fares on her Sundance-Premiering Coexistence, My Ass!

Amber Fares’s Sundance-premiering Coexistence, My Ass! takes its fabulous title from a one-woman show of the same name, a piece developed (at Harvard of all places) by the doc’s star, “activist-comedian” Noam Shuster Eliassi. The daughter of an Iranian Jewish mother and a Romanian Jewish father, Shuster Eliassi grew up in “Oasis of Peace” (Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam), a utopian community purposely comprised equally of Jews and Palestinians, where she would become “the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process” and eventually a co-director of the UN’s Interpeace organization by the time she was in her early 20s. But then disillusionment with the impotence of institutions set in as well as her realization that, when you’re a Hebrew-Arabic-English-speaking,Mizrachi-Ashkenazi Jew often mistaken for an Arab — with a Palestinian best friend who could pass for Ashkenazi — you’re sitting on a potential comedic gold mine and perhaps a way to build bridges one punchline at a time. Until, that is, October 7th, 2023 put idealism itself to the test. Just prior to the doc’s January 26th Sundance debut, Filmmaker caught up with Fares (Speed Sisters) to learn all about the ups and downs of a five-year, multilingual, country-hopping journey with an Israeli wisecracker raised to defend peace at all costs.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“You’d Be Surprised How Happy People Are to Talk About the Best Times in Their Lives”: Elegance Bratton on His Sundance-Debuting Doc, Move Ya Body: The Birth of House

"A good party knows no fucking sexual orientation, no race, no socioeconomic background,” notes Vince Lawrence, the very first person to record a house song and the main protagonist in Elegance Bratton’s Sundance-debuting Move Ya Body: The Birth of House. That a global movement could be traced back to a rather nerdy Black youngster raised in the segregated world of Mayor Daley’s Chicago is just one surprising element in this lovingly crafted music history lesson. (Less surprising is the number of white folks who would also like to take credit.) But perhaps most remarkable is that through a combination of eye-catching archival imagery, dance floor beats, a wealth of interviews with the sound’s pioneering artists and DJs – and even reenactments – Bratton has managed to create a time capsule of an all-inclusive community, while keeping the party going loud and proud onscreen. The week before the doc’s January 26th (Premieres section) Sundance debut, Filmmaker caught up with the director-writer-producer-photographer, who was last on the festival circuit with his TIFF-premiering 2022 narrative feature The Inspection.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Editorially It Was Similar to Quilt-Making”: Brittany Shyne on her Sundance-Debuting Seeds

While “stunning directorial debut” is an overused description that seldom lives up to the Sundance hype, in the case of Brittany Shyne’s Seeds it’s also quite precise. The lush, B&W-shot doc is a gorgeous portrait of what may very well be the last in a long line of generational Black farmers in rural Georgia, one in which Shyne’s camera serves as both portal and means of preservation. By quietly and patiently embedding with two extended families in the small town of Thomasville, Shyne is able to capture everything from the languid rhythm of daily work, from harvesting cotton to repairing machinery; to a feisty elderly woman sharing sweets with her young granddaughter in the backseat of a car; to a touching moment of a sturdy octogenarian soothing his tiny great-grandchild to sleep. Though later we likewise see that same tender man express frustration bordering on outrage to Biden admin reps who are all talk and no financial help to farmers — unless they’re white. “I voted for Joe Biden,” he pleads in exasperation. (Black farmers now own but a fraction of the 16 million acres of land they had in 1910.) In other words, Seeds manages to encapsulate all the little things that add up to a heartbreakingly fast-vanishing — and rarely seen onscreen — way of life. A few days prior to the film’s January 25th U.S. Documentary Competition premiere, Filmmaker caught up with the Dayton-based director-cinematographer and recipient of the 2021 Artist Disruptor Award from the Center of Cultural Power to learn all about the making of Seeds (and learning from her mentors Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Filmed It, and I Posted It. Now, Watch”: David Borenstein on His Sundance-Debuting Mr. Nobody Against Putin

David Borenstein’s Sundance-premiering Mr. Nobody Against Putin stars Pavel “Pasha” Talankin (also credited as co-director), an “unlikely hero” in an even more unlikely collaboration. A jokey primary school teacher in his Ural Mountains hometown of Karabash (which has the dubious distinction of being one of the most polluted cities on the planet), Pasha spends many days mentoring the kids who use the thirty-something’s open door office as a hangout/safe haven. That is, when he’s not documenting their young lives as the school’s videographer. Which is why things get rather complicated for this pro-democracy, but non-activist, educator. For once Putin decides to launch his “special military operation” life is turned upside down in this toxic mining town a world away, over a thousand miles from cosmopolitan Moscow — especially when a new “patriotic education” is mandated, swapping out the usual subjects for revisionist history, the singing of the State Anthem of the Russian Federation, and marching drills. All of which must be filmed by the school’s videographer, of course, as both proof of adherence and ammunition in the Kremlin’s propaganda war. Which is how Pasha found himself with a trove of truly remarkable footage, equal parts absurd and terrifying. And then he made the momentous decision to keep covertly shooting while smuggling it all out to an expat American filmmaker he just happened to get connected with online (after he’d pitched a Russian reality tv show seeking accounts of how the war had impacted everyday citizens) — a filmmaker who, in turn, shaped the story while gaining even more insight into his accidental protagonist through an exhausting, two years-plus of chatting over encrypted phone calls. Indeed, as Pasha succinctly puts it in his co-director’s statement, “Everyone was exhausted, but the orders kept coming: film it, post it. ‘Film it and post it.’ Well, I filmed it, and I posted it. Now, watch.” Filmmaker reached out to the award-winning, Copenhagen-based journalist and filmmaker (2016’s Dream Empire, last year’s Can’t Feel Nothing) a few weeks prior to the doc’s January 25th Sundance debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Playing Three-Dimensional Chess”: Balancing Personal Lives and the Status Quo in Violet Du Feng’s ‘The Dating Game’

At the start of Violet Du Feng’s Sundance-debuting The Dating Game we learn that, due to the former one-child policy, China now has 30 million more men than women, an eye-catching number that presents dire implications for the country. But behind the cold facts are flesh and blood human beings — and potential clients for a dating coach named Hao. Hao trains lovelorn males in the techniques of “strategic deception”, such as makeovers, enhanced social media profiles, and cagey communication skills. It’s into this faux glamorous world that three rural wife-seekers step. Zhou, Li, and Wu are all shy but willing to try as they take part in Hao’s fast-paced, week-long dating boot camp. They begin to question what to wear, who to pursue — and most importantly, how far on the spectrum between truth and lies they’re willing to go to meet their match. While the doc is specific to China, it’s also universal in its critique of how capitalism, consumerism, and social media collide to create a generation that assumes everyone is faking who they are and therefore concludes that they too must “fake it to make it.” As the film progresses, we learn that Hao’s just a village boy who made it in the big city, and even managed to land the stylish Wen (herself a dating coach for women whose advice couldn’t be more at odds with that of her husband’s). In other words, what Hao is really selling is the eternal rags to riches story, the forever elusive Chinese dream. A week before the film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition premiered today, Documentary reached out to Feng, whose Peabody and Emmy-nominated Hidden Letters (2022) tackled gender stereotypes from the female side.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“There Was a Fair Amount of Us All Killing Each Other”: Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls on Grand Theft Hamlet

Grand Theft Hamlet, which took the Documentary Feature Jury Award at last year’s SXSW, is groundbreaking cinema to say the least. The first documentary to win an Innovation Award at The Stage Awards in London back in 2022, the film’s production probably also marked the first time a filmmaker jumped into an online avatar and then shot her doc entirely within a video game (one in which conditions often resembled a war zone to boot). The project was born out of the UK’s third Covid lockdown in 2021, when abruptly out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane (who co-directed along with his veteran documentarian wife Pinny Grylls) and Mark Osterveen found themselves in existential distress, the former wondering how he’d support his young family, the latter physically and emotionally alone. Desperate for connection as many of us were, the two friends turned to Grand Theft Auto for camaraderie and escape, where one day they happened upon an amphitheater. Which led to a eureka moment that, safe to say, most of us never in a million years would have: Why not stage a full production of Shakespeare within GTA? Indeed, inside GTA all the world really is a stage. Which naturally only led to more questions (like how to cast a troupe. Or how to avoid getting gunned down during a soliloquy). Fortunately, Filmmaker was able to pose a few to the busy co-directors, both Oxford grads who cite Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I as a touchstone, to learn all about their inspired production process; and crafting a work perfectly balanced between the heartfelt and the poignant — while being also batshit crazy hilarious. Grand Theft Hamlet opens today in theaters from MUBI.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It Was Crucial to Bring a Native Lens into Each Area of the Creative Roles”: Jonathan Olshefski and Elizabeth Day on Without Arrows

Delwin Fiddler Jr., star of Jonathan Olshefski (a “25 New Face” of 2017) and Elizabeth Day’s Without Arrows, grew up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota, where he found his calling as a grass dancer (which led to championships on the pow-wow circuit and eventually even international fame. His work can be seen not only in the film but also in a continual loop at the Museum of the American Indian in D.C.). And then he spent over a decade in Philadelphia, making more money if not a better living. Having had enough of big city life, Fiddler eventually decided to return home to rekindle relationships, particularly with his aging mom and dad, and to reconnect with his culture and absorb the family history. However that’s where things got complicated, for the rez is a place of beauty and unconditional love but also dark generational trauma. Remarkably, it was in this intimate space that Fiddler and his family allowed two outsiders with cameras to film for 13 years, one of whom (Ojibwe filmmaker Day) was born on the Leech Lake Reservation and raised in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. So to learn how the co-directors crafted a film that celebrates heritage without sugarcoating the inheritance of genocide, Filmmaker caught up with the duo the week before the doc’s PBS debut. (January 13th on Independent Lens.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

A year of surprises: my top 5 documentary film discoveries of the last 12 months

To read all about them visit Global Comment.

“Examining Their Eyes, Hands, Hair, Mouths, and Posture”: Darius Clark Monroe on the Intimacies of Docuseries ‘Dallas, 2019’

Darius Clark Monroe has been on my radar for a decade, ever since his feature debut Evolution of a Criminal, a revisitation of the robbery the filmmaker committed when he was a teenager and its impact on both loved ones and victims, which world premiered at SXSW back in 2014. (Later that year it took top honors at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, where I programmed the film.) Since then Monroe has been on an artistic evolution as well, continuing with such unconventional projects as the 2018 Tribeca-debuting short Black 14, once again EP’d by Evolution executive producer Spike Lee, which explored the story of 14 African American student athletes dismissed from the University of Wyoming football team back in 1969 for speaking out against racism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and the doc quadtych Racquet, which played the Whitney Biennial the following year. Monroe’s eclectic CV also includes writing and directing for Terence Nance’s Peabody Award–winning HBO series Random Acts of Flyness (2018). Now Monroe has returned home, with the five-part docuseries Dallas, 2019 bringing the Houston native back to the Lone Star State for a “five week observation of the city of Dallas and its people.” Each episode tackles subjects ranging from environmental racism, injustice in the criminal justice system, to education and beyond, all through a chorus of characters that breathe life into those cold abstract concepts. To learn all about the series, which premiered over two nights on Independent Lens on January 3 and 4, Documentary reached out to the Brooklyn-based filmmaker.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

A Conversation With Josh Fox (THE EDGE OF NATURE)

While Josh Fox might be best known for his documentaries – from 2010’s Oscar-nominated surprise hit Gasland right through to 2017’s Awake, A Dream From Standing Rock (made in collaboration with Doug Good Feather and Myron Dewey, who also served as EP on this latest) – filmmaking for the veteran director-writer-environmental activist has always been more means to an end than conscious pursuit. Indeed, Fox is a live performer at heart, and continues to serve as the producing artistic director of International WOW Company, which he founded nearly thirty years back (and has since toured with throughout Europe, Asia and of course the US). Which makes The Edge of Nature, a documentary theater piece that had its world-premiering run at La MaMa in NYC, an artistic culmination rather than diversion. (A critically-acclaimed one at that. Reviews even included a “great work” quote from Bernie Sanders, who Fox wrote parts of the Democratic platform on energy and environment for in 2016; Fox also receives funding from The Sanders Institute.) It’s also a wildly ambitious, and surprisingly successful, attempt to connect seemingly disparate subjects: long Covid – which prompted Fox to seek healing in his beloved Pennsylvania woods, isolated with only a camera and a variety of forest friends; the Native American genocide (of which the late Myron Dewey of the Walker River Paiute Tribe was a survivor); the Holocaust (Fox’s father fled the Nazis as a child, thus making him a survivor); and ongoing environmental devastation (save for the period of the “anthropause,” the first six to eight months of pandemic lockdown that resulted in worldwide emissions being reduced enough to actually halt climate change. Yes, the environment can survive if we prioritize). The multimedia spectacle likewise includes an 11-member ensemble from International WOW, who along with the banjo-playing Fox, use American folk music (score by musician-composer-producer Dougie Bowne of the Lounge Lizards) to guide us through the first-person documentary journey that unfolds onscreen above the stage, hovering like a cinematic conscience for us all.

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.