“The illusion of immortality”: A Photographic Memory

Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s A Photographic Memory is a very intimate investigation into the life of a globetrotting journalist (and photographer and filmmaker) whose interviews with legendary lensers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks and Lisette Model formed the basis for a trailblazing audiovisual series you’ve likely never heard of. Though “Images of Man” was produced with the renowned International Center of Photography founder Cornell Capa and Scholastic, the eight-part program (each episode pairing a photographer’s images with descriptions of their philosophies in their own words) had been time-capsuled in the ICP archives since 1979; at the behest of the journo’s grieving widower, Time-Life photographer Brian Seed, who sent the raw materials to the center for safekeeping upon the sudden death of his wife at the age of 42.

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.

‘My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow’ Review: A Scary and Riveting Portrait of Russia’s Last Independent News Channel

“Sadism disguised with the lacework of words” is how Anna Nemzer, a talk show journalist with TV Rain, Russia’s last independent news channel, describes Putin’s twisting of phrases in “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.” And “being at the right place at the right time — or the wrong place at the wrong time,” is how “The Loneliest Planet” director Julia Loktev has described the circumstances that led to the documentary she’s made about Nemzer’s work. First conceived as a look at the daily lives of reporters who’ve been branded “foreign agents” by their own government, the essence of the project — now a five-part, five-and-a-half-hour epic — was profoundly transformed four months into production, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion against Ukraine.

To read the rest of my New York Film Festival review visit IndieWire.

Reality Show: Julia Loktev on ‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow’

It’s been a while since the acclaimed director-screenwriter-video artist Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night) last traversed the nonfiction landscape with her 1998 feature debut Moment of Impact. That Sundance Documentary Directing Award-winning doc, shot on Hi8 and edited by Loktev herself, dealt with the aftermath of an accident that left her father severely disabled and forced her mother to give up her career as a computer programmer in order to care for him. It was yet another life-changing event for the Russian immigrant couple who, along with their young daughter, traded Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) for northern Colorado. And now Loktev returns to her roots in more ways than one, with an epic doc titled My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (part two is yet to be released). Unspooling in five discrete chapters, the film brings Loktev back to familiar territory to tag along with her friend Anna Nemzer, a talk show journalist for TV Rain, and her fellow “foreign agents,” who are also independent media makers branded such by the Kremlin. They navigate the ever-twisting reality of dictatorship in the run-up to and aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A few weeks prior to the NYFF premiere of My Undesirable Friends, Documentary reached out to Loktev to learn all about the project.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

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‘A Sisters’ Tale’ Review: An Iranian Woman Pursues the Musical Dreams Her Country Is Determined to Stifle in an Affecting Doc

Leila Amini’s “A Sisters’ Tale” centers on the filmmaker’s sister Nasreen, a Tehran housewife with a traditional husband, two young kids, and one big unrealized dream to sing. It’s an unfulfilled desire she shares with many a fellow “sister” in Iran, all of whom have been banned from expressing themselves through public singing since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. And it’s a story Amini followed closely with her camera as a not neutral observer for seven years, forever rooting for Nasreen to pursue her passion while simultaneously fearing the consequences if she in fact succeeds.

To read the rest of my Toronto Film Festival review visit IndieWire.

‘Viktor’ Review: Powerful Documentary on Russian Assault in Ukraine Plays with Silence

“Silence is not emptiness. It is not the absence of something. It is the presence of the self, and nothing else,” says the riveting titular protagonist in “Viktor.” “In this silence, I find my peace.” One of the unexpected gems of this year’s fest, “Viktor” is a (Darren Aronofsky-produced) doc from the multi-award-winning director/DP Olivier Sarbil, a globetrotting conflict photojournalist who’s now chosen to set his latest in Ukraine. (Sarbil is also behind the 2019 Frontline doc “On the President’s Orders,” co-directed with James Jones (“Antidote”), a nail-biting investigative look at the former Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs” through both its mostly addict victims and chillingly remorseless perpetrators.) But what makes the film so extraordinary is that the ongoing invasion is not the focus but merely backdrop for a window into a truly unique POV on the Russian assault.

To read the rest of my Toronto Film Festival review visit IndieWire.

The Feedback: Emily Packer’s Many Forms of Hybridity in ‘Holding Back the Tide’

In Holding Back the Tide, Emily Packer’s “docu-poetic meditation on New York’s oysters,” the humble bivalve becomes much more than the sum of its pearls. Indeed, the experimental filmmaker has inventively chosen to reimagine the once ubiquitous mollusk as a queer icon, and cast the gender-fluid creature alongside a host of other thought-provoking characters, both real and fictional. We’re introduced to folks like Moody “The Mothershucker” Harney (real), who’s bringing oysters back to the average diner through his cart, taking inspiration from Thomas Downing, the 19th-century Black Oyster King of New York. And Pippa Brashear of SCAPE Landscape Architecture, which is harnessing the oyster to protect Staten Island’s Tottenville neighborhood through its Living Breakwaters project. Even former WNBA star Sue Wicks has gotten in on the mollusk action, having retired to her Violet Cove Oyster Co. farm (where she knows each of her bivalves by name). Between scenes with these colorful individuals in their natural environment are staged encounters with Packer’s gender-unbounded collaborators, who pass along the cinematic baton through striking visuals and lyrical words. A woman emerges from a shell on a beach. Diners feasting on oysters discover a new identity. Social constructs like race and binary categorizations fall by the wayside, ultimately swept out to sea by the power of “we.” Or as the director themself optimistically puts it, “We took inspiration from the oyster, which thrives when connected and fails when isolated.” Before its theatrical debut, Documentary recently caught up with Packer to learn all about Holding Back the Tide, from its Hurricane Sandy origins to the intersectional queer production process.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.