"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.

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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.