“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.