CIFF 2026: Family Affairs

Having spent over a decade and a half mining cinematic nonfiction gems on the festival beat, only a handful of doc fests remain on my bucket list (Thessaloniki, I’m available). Which is why it was a bit of a thrill to finally be able to visit the Camden International Film Festival, an impressively content slop-free three-day event (September 17-20) in scenic Maine that takes place in an eclectic array of venues across Camden and neighboring Rockland, a 15-minute ride away. Fortunately for non-drivers like myself, the festival shuttle/school bus connecting the two towns ran frequently between the grand Camden Opera House, which also housed the Points North Forum, and the laidback YETI Lounge at the Yellow Barn in Rockland. (The Festival Hub at the Arctic Tern Sanctuary was also helpfully only a few minutes walk from the outdoor lifestyle brand-sponsored lounge, the spot to hit for free food, drinks and live music between screenings.)

To read all about it visit Hammer to Nail.

Social Landscapes

Jonas Meier’s Social Landscapes, which debuted at CPH:DOX earlier this year, is a fantastical cinematic trip to some of the most coveted and unexpected tourist spots around the world. It’s also a hilariously innovative dive into the minds of those who visit them — or rather review them as we’re all critics now. Indeed, while the images might be intoxicating (and Meier’s purposeful use of AI controversial) you wouldn’t know it from the entirely Tripadvisor-sourced narration, which includes critiques ranging from “they should cut all the trees down” (at a forest) to “the beach is too sandy.”

To read the rest and subscribe for free visit Beyond Nonfiction on Substack.

Black Zombie

“Turning someone into a zombie is like putting them back into slavery. Forever,” a Haitian voice says at the start of Maya Annik Bedward’s Black Zombie, a compelling and eye-opening investigation into the true story behind the pop culture monster. Combining clips from classic Hollywood horror films with fictional historic reenactments shot in dramatic B&W, the comprehensive doc, which opens in select theaters September 11th, also includes interviews with a diverse array of talking heads. Indeed, we hear from historians, Black and white alike; Vodou practitioners in Haiti, New Orleans and Montreal; and several zombie fans, including Zombie Walk founder Thea Munster and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. (John Russo, co-writer of George A. Romero’s 1968 cult flick Night of the Living Dead, and Romero’s makeup and special effects artist Tom Savini even make memorable appearances.) It all adds up to a thorough retracing of the modern zombie narrative back to its birth in Haitian Vodou, and in the process transforms the rapacious creature from a symbol of irrational evil to that of resistance against enslavement.

To read the rest and subscribe for free visit Beyond Nonfiction on Substack.

Teenage Wasteland

“Someone has to keep track of where everything is buried. It’s not just poison in the earth, it’s poison of the spirit as well,” notes Fred Isseks, an unconventional high school English teacher in Middletown, New York, a city 70 miles north of Manhattan that few New Yorkers have ever heard of (as confirmed by decades-old footage of a younger Isseks conducting man-on-the-street interviews). He delivers this missive while rifling through boxes of videotapes in his basement right at the start of Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s (Girls State, Boys State) September 4th Netflix-premiering Teenage Wasteland, a film I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of since Sundance 2025, where it debuted with the more mundane but perhaps less confusing title Middletown.

To read the rest and subscribe for free visit Beyond Nonfiction on Substack.

The Balkan Cowboy

Premiering at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (August 14-21), The Balkan Cowboy is a magical doc feature debut from acclaimed visual artist Dragana Jurišić, an “exile not an expatriate” long based in Ireland. Returning to the site of her homeland that vanished “like Atlantis in the realm of imaginary places and people,” as she narrates in VO, Jurišić captures the fracturing of Yugoslavia through the story of Harry Jackson, a cult director of Westerns, family friend and childhood hero (despite her iconoclastic idol repeatedly noting that she had “such an ugly name for such a pretty girl.” Though she goes on to explain that her distinctly Serbian moniker was bestowed by her dad just to piss off his Croatian nationalist father, and that rather than change it she decided it was wiser to change the country).

To read the rest and subscribe for free visit Beyond Nonfiction on Substack.

Yugo Goes to America

I’ve now taken my Sisyphean battle against streamer slop to Substack as well, posting pieces on an inspiration-strikes timeline! For my inaugural exclusive I’ve decided to review one of the most bonkers docs I've seen so far this year. The road-tripping Yugo Goes to America, in which a trio of buddies from Belgrade make their way across the US in a Soviet-era Yugo (widely deemed the worst car ever built), next plays the Sarajevo Film Festival. Note to US fests and distributors: Please import. (Note to readers: Please read for free and subscribe.)

Revolutionaries Never Die — Mohanad Yaqubi [Locarno ’26 Review]

Mohanad Yaqubi’s Revolutionaries Never Die is the Palestinian filmmaker and archivist’s cinematic “answer” to the pioneering Lebanese journalist and filmmaker Jocelyne Saab’s invitation to collaborate, a request sent via email in 2018. Unfortunately, Yaqubi was unable to respond before Saab passed away several months later, leaving behind a storied career spanning documentary and fiction (and docu-fiction) filmmaking, as well as photography and video art.

To read the rest visit In Review Online.