“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.