“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!