IDFA 2021: World-Premiering Sociopolitical Docs to Watch For in 2022

Covering this year’s hybrid IDFA from home was both blessing and curse. On the downside, I wouldn’t be attending any screenings in one of the most gorgeous cinemas in the world – Amsterdam’s now century-old (and now “Royal Theater”) Tuschinski — nor experiencing all the new media wonders of IDFA DocLab. (Even with the free online exhibition running from November 19-28 I had to forego all VR as I don’t have a headset on hand.) Then again, I did avoid the city’s pandemic-induced partial shutdown (turned closing weekend lockdown) while still having access to the pretty packed P&I library. This included a wide-ranging selection of eye-opening sociopolitical docs from the premiere-only Frontlight section (dedicated to taking “an artistic approach to exploring the urgent issues of our time”). So after such a highly unpredictable 2021 it’s nice to have at least one sure bet: That the following four character studies – all world premieres – will be sparking thorny conversations throughout the fest circuit in the hopefully more “normal” year to come.

To read the rest visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Nelson Chamisa, 'President'

One of the timeliest films of this past year — having premiered in the World Documentary Competition at Sundance 2021 (where it would go on to win the Special Jury Award for Cinema Vérité Filmmaking) mere weeks after the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol — Camilla Nielsson’s President follows a 2018 campaign season filled with accusations of rampant voter fraud and a corrupt election commission, which ultimately culminates in an explosion of violence. Except in this particular case, the aforementioned nefariousness took place in the African country of Zimbabwe, where there is no “big lie”—only heartbreaking truth. And at the heart of President is one remarkable man on a dangerous mission to speak truth to power. Nelson Chamisa, leader of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), is on a Sisyphean quest to topple Emmerson Mnangagwa — aka “The Crocodile” — a one time ally, now nemesis, of the nation’s notorious former dictator, Robert Mugabe. Deploying listening, rather than speechifying, as his secret weapon, the young and charismatic Chamisa addresses his countrymen’s desire to be “led and not ruled,” and to upend Zimbabwe’s long history of “selection, not election.” So was Chamisa successful? And what does “success” even mean in an authoritarian state? Fortunately for Documentary, we were able to put several of our questions to the deep-thinking freedom fighter himself, who found time between his current campaign stops to serve as our December Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Post-Cold War Films and More at Amsterdam Documentary Festival

This year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) was (once again) a hybrid affair. Which left me, like many nonfiction aficionados attending remotely from around the globe, feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I really longed to return to covering in person — to see, say, Dziga Vertov’s newly restored “lost masterpiece” The History of the Civil War — screened only once before, exactly a century ago — at the grand Tuschinski (recently rechristened “Royal Theater”). Or to swing by De Brakke Grond for DocLab Live. (Though, to its credit, IDFA DocLab did provide a free online exhibition. That said, I still had to skip all those mind-blowing VR projects since I don’t have a headset at home). On the other hand, traveling all the way to The Netherlands to take in the world’s biggest documentary film festival during not just a raging pandemic but a partial shutdown (that turned into a lockdown by closing weekend) isn’t exactly the sort of memorable experience I typically sign up for. Fortunately, between the Press & Industry library, and the slew of screeners I hunted for and gathered from publicists, there was plenty to keep my mind busy — and my jaw dropping, starting with the no-brainer winner of the International Competition, which nabbed awards for Best Film and Best Editing. To be fair, Sergei Loznitsa’s humbly titled, riveting epic Mr. Landsbergis really should have put the master director in a category of his own.

To read all about it (and my other finds) visit Documentary magazine.

What I learned from watching Listening to Kenny G

Among the issues splitting Americans into tribal camps, perhaps only abortion and guns are more divisive than Kenny G. (Or maybe not. My left-leaning family members are pretty much in agreement on the first two. But when my mom exclaimed, “I love Kenny G! He got me through so many difficult times,” after I told her I’d just watched a doc about the musician, she might as well have told me she’d voted for Donald Trump.) Since 1986, when the man formerly known as Kenny Gorelick first burst onto the scene with the album “Duotones” – launching the much-derided and equally beloved “smooth jazz” genre – the saxophonist has pitted elite music critics against the masses that have made this endearingly (gratingly?) geeky Seattleite into a world-renowned phenomenon.

To read the rest visit Global Comment.

Totally Under Control: The Forever Prisoner

JUSTICE: Twenty years on Guantánamo Bay's first high-value detainee has still never been charged with a crime or allowed to challenge his detention. The Forever Prisoner is Alex Gibney’s latest infuriatingly insane expose of US government malfeasance, and yet it’s also a revisitation of territory the prolific documentarian tread long ago. (As have other equally prolific filmmakers – most notably Errol Morris with 2008’s Standard Operating Procedure.) Back in his 2007 Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, Gibney explored the case of Dilawar; an innocent Afghan peanut farmer turned taxi driver tortured to death at Bagram detention center nearly two decades ago. Now the director has decided to train his investigative lens on an even more problematic character and case – that of Abu Zubaydah, the first «high-value detainee» subjected to the CIA’s program of «enhanced interrogation techniques» (aka EITs, aka torture). Nearly two decades on, the terrorist whose actual name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn remains in custody and perpetual limbo at Gitmo – the result, as one talking head puts it in The Forever Prisoner, not of «what he did to us» but of «what we did to him.»

To read the rest of my essay visit Modern Times Review.

“The Film is One Big Conversation. I Could’ve Cut it Ten Different Ways and It Would Still Be the Same Conversation”: Sterlin Harjo on His Netflix Doc Love and Fury

Sterlin Harjo is a longtime Sundance alum who’s directed two docs, three dramatic features and a slew of shorts. He’s also a founding member of Native American comedy quintet The 1491s, and his first comedy series (for FX and streaming on Hulu), the terrifically titled Reservation Dogs, boasts a team exclusively made up of Indigenous writers, directors and series regulars (including EP Taika Waititi who co-wrote the first episode). In other words, Harjo’s identity is solidly Native American (Muscogee Creek/Seminole) and solidly creative artist. Which may make Love and Fury the veteran director’s most personal film yet. (Not to mention his most far-reaching as Harjo, who shoots almost exclusively in his home state of Oklahoma, spent a year-plus, pre-pandemic, traveling across the country and overseas.) The film, which I caught at last year’s Hot Docs, and subsequently got picked up by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY, follows a fascinating slew of insightful Indigenous creatives working in a variety of mediums: from musicians and composers, to visual artists, to poets and writers (including our current US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo). We meet an installation artist whose bead-based project serves as an ode to missing and murdered Indigenous women. (He explains that it “weighs one ton,” but is even heavier to put up every time.) A dancer speaks of her choreography as being all about love, but that doesn’t mean her pieces are “nice.” Another artist notes that her nephew is both “conscious and unconscious” of his heritage: proud to wear his Native dress at ceremonies, yet also bent on being a “Navajo man” for Halloween. A poet reads that, “every american flag is a warning sign even the one my grandfather was given as a code talker.” Or as the bead artist bluntly puts it, the idea that Native Americans are even still here is mind-blowing. And it’s precisely what gives him hope. To find out what gives Harjo hope – and more pessimistically, whether he views “inclusion” as the new whitewash – Filmmaker reached out to the busy director the week before the doc’s Netflix release on December 3 (just in time for National American Indian Heritage Month, naturally).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Would Find Myself Wondering Why My Face Hurt So Much at the End of a Shoot Day, and It Was Because I’d Been Smiling the Whole Time”: Penny Lane on Listening to Kenny G

As with all of Penny Lane’s films, Listening to Kenny G, the idiosyncratic auteur’s TIFF-premiering, DOC NYC-opening, exploration of the beloved/reviled “smooth jazz” saxophonist and his globally ubiquitous sound (to this day “Going Home” signals closing time throughout China) turns a straightforward subject into an unexpected philosophical inquiry. In this case, Lane begins her journey down the G-hole with a simple question: Why does the bestselling instrumentalist of all time, our most famous living jazz musician, “make certain people really angry”? Using interviews with G as well as elite jazz critics and academics as well as archival footage, Lane arrives at some answers — what the director discovers, perhaps not so surprisingly in hindsight, says less about Kenny G than it does about us. Just prior to the doc’s HBO debut on December 2, Filmmaker caught up with Lane to find out more about the film – including, of course, what it was like to listen to a lot of Kenny G.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Wanted People to See the Commonality of the Human Experience Through the Unique Perspective of a Near Mythical Figure”: Christopher Frierson on his HBO Music Box Doc DMX: Don’t Try to Understand

The title tagline “A Year in the Life of Earl ‘DMX’ Simmons” is a rather anodyne description that belies the emotional rollercoaster ride that filmmaker (and podcaster) Christopher Frierson takes us on in his riveting debut feature DMX: Don’t Try to Understand, which currently plays on HBO as part of the channel’s Music Box series. Filmed during what would turn out to be the last year of the acclaimed rapper’s life, the doc moves with lightning speed from packed concerts to corporate conference rooms, from meaningful meetups with fans to intimate reconciliations with family members. It’s a whirlwind of a life, jam-packed with demands that would be taxing on even the most resilient individual. And Simmons is undoubtedly that. But the powerful musician — who seems to be on a mission to save others, often at the expense of his own mental health – is also a fragile human being who just got out of prison after serving a year for tax evasion. And one with a lifetime of baggage battling drug addiction. In other words, and to put it bluntly, there’s a ticking time bomb of self-destruction ready to go off. Which ultimately renders DMX: Don’t Try to Understand both a heartfelt celebration of a flawed hero and a tragic postmortem. Filmmaker reached out to Frierson, who made headlines of his own last summer for having the wherewithal to keep his camera rolling as the NYPD pepper sprayed him during a racial justice protest, to find out all about the doc, getting his start, and nailing that goosebump-inducing final scene.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

IDFA DocLab Presents Liminal Reality: 5 New VR Projects (And One Encore Experience) I’m Hoping To Catch In 2022

For the past decade and a half the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world’s largest nonfiction fest, has both incubated and showcased our digital future through its perennially impressive IDFA DocLab. And this latest hybrid edition’s Liminal Reality program (which ran November 19-28) continued that trend. In addition to a wealth of in-person experiences and live events in the Netherlands’ capital (well, until the country went into pandemic lockdown on the final weekend), there was also a free online exhibition. Which is always great news not only for XR fans and obsessive gamers on a budget, but also for those of us travel-restricted and/or festival-gathering hesitant in the US and beyond. And while no gear was required for many of these projects (only Google Chrome browser and a desktop computer or laptop recommended), hardcore VR aficionados with headsets on hand especially seemed to have gratis entry into a wide array of mind bending worlds. So with this in (sound) mind, here’s an eclectic selection of new experiences from around the globe – plus one oldie but goodie that rocked my world a half decade back – that I’m guessing, if the following program synopses are any indication, will cause much more than a ripple when they hit this side of the pond. To read my recommendations/plea to US-based new media programmers visit Hammer to Nail.

"We Found Ways to Combine Drama Therapy with Filmmaking into Something New”: Director Robert Greene on the Netflix Documentary Procession

At the root of the word “procession” is “process” — really a fitting description for any Robert Greene film. But the title of the nonfiction veteran’s latest foray into character-collaborative doc-making has other meanings. It nods specifically to the Holy Spirit’s procession and also to the dictionary definition of people moving forward, a march that includes the risk-taking filmmaker himself. Procession (which premiered at Telluride and just hit Netflix November 19) is perhaps Greene’s boldest cinematic move yet. Once again the director (and “filmmaker-in-chief” at the University of Missouri’s Murray Center for Documentary Journalism) blurs the lines between narrative and nonfiction, casting six male survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests and clergy in a creation of their own making. It’s “a radical experiment in therapeutic collaborative filmmaking” — one specifically designed to return power to the victims. Supported by a crew that includes a trained drama therapist with a background in sexual assault prevention and education, the mainly midwestern men painfully and painstakingly mine memories, dreams — and, for one, still raw anger at a woefully inadequate legal system — to stage a series of often inspired fictional scenes. (Another uses All That Jazz, Fosse’s fake take on real life, as a touchstone.) Shortly before the streaming release of Procession, Filmmaker reached out to Greene to learn more about the film and, yes, his own process, but also whether we might see more instances of “therapeutic cinema” in the future.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“While I Knew the Music Inside Out There Was So Much I Didn’t Know About the Story Behind the Album”: Alison Klayman on Jagged

As perhaps one of the few people on the planet who managed to nightclub through the ’90s without any awareness of shooting star Alanis Morissette (her music just didn’t penetrate my punk/goth/new wave bubble) I came to Alison Klayman’s latest doc Jagged, part of HBO’s new Music Box series, with a positively clean slate. The film is an in-depth look at the Canadian-American musician-singer-songwriter-actress through an exhaustive amount of archival material, juxtaposed with straightforward interviews with the mercurial Morissette herself. (For those also in a Morissette-defying bubble, this would be a good time to state that the musician is not all that thrilled with the final product – something I find truly perplexing. My big takeaway from Jagged? Morissette is shockingly down-to-earth normal for a global rock star.) Prior to the film’s HBO debut on November 18 (it received its U.S. premiere at DOC NYC after world premiering at Toronto) Filmmaker reached out to Klayman to learn more about Jagged; and how she got from Ai Weiwei (2012’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry), to Steve Bannon (2019’s The Brink – which really should be required viewing for Errol Morris on how not to get played), to the feminist force behind 1995’s industry-upending album “Jagged Little Pill.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival presents Wonder Women: Below the Line

Taking place on a Thursday morning in late October at the Gutstein Gallery (or online for pass-holders who didn’t care to brave the rain), the Wonder Women: Below the Line panel at this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 23-30) felt like a breath of fresh air. Moderated by Variety’s Jazz Tangcay, the participants included talent agent June Dowad, editor Pamela Martin (King Richard, Battle of the Sexes, The Fighter), and production designers Diane Lederman (CODA, The Americans, The Leftovers) and Ina Mayhew (Queen Sugar, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, Second Generation Wayans): All fiercely self-assured, middle-aged women with a wealth of knowledge. Not to mention careers long enough to allow them to bluntly call BS on a still gender-biased system.

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

What (I Plan) To See At DOC NYC

For a doc geek like me there’s no such thing as a DOC NYC shortlist. Indeed, my original screener request document contained close to 40 feature films – which to be fair is only a third of this year’s feature-length lineup (so I guess I can’t be accused of being all that greedy). That said, since there’s only 24 hours in a day I find it practical to prioritize according to my own idiosyncratic categories. Which basically breaks down into three (often overlapping) sections: Nonfiction Auteurs, Intriguing Character Studies, and Weird Shit. The following is just a baker’s dozen of my highly personal, admittedly incomplete, DOC NYC must-sees. (DOC NYC, “America’s largest documentary festival,” runs in person November 10-18 and online nationwide November 19-28.)

To read my eclectic suggestions visit Hammer to Nail.

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival presents Wonder Women: Producers

A perennial highlight at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 23-30), this year’s back-to-in-person (and virtually for pass-holders) Wonder Women: Producers panel was jam-packed with industry insights from a refreshing range of female perspectives. Engagingly moderated by SAGindie executive director Darrien Gipson, the event took place at the cozy Gutstein Gallery late on a Friday morning. On hand were Alison Owen (Harlots, Ghosts, Elizabeth), Seanne Winslow (The Lego Movie, The Life of Pablo/Yeezy Season 3 and The Falconer, which took Best Narrative Feature at the fest), Kaila York (a producer working mainly with Lifetime, Hallmark and Netflix), Jaclyn Moore (Dear White People, Love Life, Queen America), and Katie Spikes (a CBS vet and senior story editor at 60 Minutes).

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

Nine Best of the Fests Must-Sees at DOC NYC

This year’s DOC NYC is actually two consecutive fests. From November 10-18, vaxxed and masked fans of nonfiction cinema will be able to gather in person for the 200-plus films and events at IFC Center, SVA Theatre and Cinépolis Chelsea. And for those outside NYC (but still in the US) or pandemic hesitant, most of the more than 120 features will be available virtually from November 19-28. In other words, “America’s largest documentary festival” is also now one of its most accessible. And while both US and world premieres abound at this 12th edition (60-plus by my last count), DOC NYC has also selected a number of films that rocked my world on the 2020-2021 festival circuit. So for those looking for foolproof viewing chockfull of cinematic risk-taking, with the following you can’t go wrong.

To read my recommendations visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Al Victory, 'Attica'

Fifty years ago, an uprising at a prison facility in upstate New York changed the course of history. And yet today the word "Attica" might more easily bring to mind Al Pacino’s infamous line from Dog Day Afternoon. Which is a shame — although also perhaps inevitable. For what turned out to be the largest prison rebellion in US history — culminating in "the deadliest violence Americans had inflicted on each other in a single day since the Civil War" — was also a media spectacle that played out for five days across TV screens around the world. But for the incarcerated — and all the families on the outside — who experienced the cataclysmic event in real time, "Attica" is not a meme. And one of those formerly imprisoned men is Al Victory, who was only 27 in September 1971. Shot twice, then later beaten and thrown down a set of stairs (and ultimately threatened in an attempt to get him to cooperate with authorities and "lie against fellow inmates"), Victory has for decades been on a righteous mission to ensure that the lessons of Attica not be relegated to some dustbin of fictional Hollywood history. He sees parallels to the protests sparked in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, as well as to today’s calls for racial justice and police accountability. And notably, he’s also one of the few white faces to appear in Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry’s Attica, a masterful revisitation of the uprising and its aftermath. The film premieres November 6 on Showtime. Documentary is thrilled Victory found time to chat with us about the doc, what’s changed over the past half-century and what has not — and to agree to take the spotlight as our November Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Transformations in Non-fiction Filmmaking: The SCAD Savannah Film Festival presents the 8th Annual Docs to Watch Roundtable

This year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival – the “largest university-run film festival in the world,” which ran from October 23-30 – was a conveniently hybrid event that also marked my own return to the in-person festival circuit. Admittedly, as someone residing in a blue state with a strict mask mandate in place, traveling to the Deep South was a somewhat disorienting experience. And a stark reminder that the U.S.’s politicization of a global pandemic really is a war within – and specifically within the states themselves. On the one hand, Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp issued an executive order back in August that banned local jurisdictions from imposing mask mandates. On the other hand, the liberal college city of Savannah has a mandatory mask mandate. Which, like elsewhere in our exasperatingly dysfunctional country, seemed to result in a disturbing hodgepodge of mask-less red tourists mixing it up both indoors and out with the masked up blue locals. Fortunately, this southern fest doesn’t play when it comes to health protocols (as at the Savannah College of Art and Design itself, proof of vaccination and masks were both required and strictly enforced), giving the 24th edition the air of an all-inclusive Covid bubble. And this sentiment was made all the more palpable at the 8th annual – first return-to-in-person – Docs to Watch Roundtable on October 24. Taking place once again at the Lucas Theatre for the Arts (and also virtually for pass-holders), the annual Docs to Watch roundtable, hosted as always by The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, featured a who’s who of likely upcoming Oscar nominees. Taking the stage one by one, there was Evgeny Afineevsky (Francesco), Julie Cohen (Julia), Liz Garbus (Becoming Cousteau), Robert Greene (Procession), Todd Haynes (The Velvet Underground), Matthew Heineman (The First Wave), Amanda Lipitz (Found), Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)), and E. Chai Vasarhelyi (The Rescue).

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It’s Also a Story of the Power of the Media to Shape a Narrative in Ways That Do Disservice to the Truth”: Traci A. Curry on Attica

Attica (releasing in theaters on October 29 and on Showtime November 6) is the latest from nonfiction national treasure Stanley Nelson. Along with his co-director and producer Traci A. Curry, a longtime MSNBC producer, the Firelight Media co-founder and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, who has previously chronicled organizations from The Peoples Temple to The Black Panthers, has now chosen to tackle a very different kind of institution: The prison industrial complex that was captured in one word and broadcast round the globe on September 9, 1971. The titular uprising that occurred at that correctional facility in Attica, NY a half century back was a five-day, real-life, made-for-TV event meticulously covered — from the seizing of the yard by 1200 inmates to its bloody end that left 29 inmates and 10 hostages dead — by cameras both inside and outside the prison walls. And Nelson and Curry certainly make deft use of that footage (right down to the CCTV). But the team then delves remarkably further, interviewing not only the formerly incarcerated whose act was a cry for basic humane treatment, but also the families of the corrections officers that were left to grieve without any straight answers from the government to this very day. Indeed, when it comes to the largest prison rebellion in US history, which resulted in “the deadliest violence Americans had inflicted on each other in a single day since the Civil War,” only one thing is crystal clear. All the cameras in the world can never tell the full story if the bigger picture remains nefariously obscured. A few weeks after the doc’s opening night premiere at TIFF, Filmmaker caught up with Curry — a two-decade industry vet who’s also the founder and owner of production company B.Free Media — to learn how the duo went about bringing fresh sunlight to a still sordid tale.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Sabaya: He said, she said, she said

I first encountered Sabaya, Hogir Hirori‘s riveting feature centred on the Yazidi Home Center – a threadbare organisation dedicated to saving the «Sabaya», the Yazidi women and girls held as sex slaves by ISIS – during this year’s Sundance, where Hirori would go on to take the Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary. At the time, the doc had me captivated with its array of heroic characters, including male volunteers Mahmud and Ziyad and the many anonymous female «infiltrators» who risk everything on clandestine rescue missions into Al-Hol in Syria, the Middle East’s most dangerous camp. I even interviewed Hirori, who struck me as equal parts professionally candid and personally empathetic in his emailed answers. The director – who fled his native Kurdistan in 1999 and now resides in Stockholm – wrote eloquently of building trust with those he filmed and prioritising his subjects’ safety above all else. When I inquired as to whether he provided the women with hidden cameras for the harrowing sequences set inside the camp, he surprised me by revealing that it was he who’d shot that footage – tossing on a niqab to go undercover. «I would never risk the lives of the infiltrators by asking them to film scenes themselves or to use hidden cameras,» the director explained. Thus it came as an even bigger surprise when the New York Times broke a story about the doc at the end of September titled «Women Enslaved by ISIS Say They Did Not Consent to a Film About Them.»

To read the rest visit Modern Times Review.

Doc Star of the Month: Vivian Anderson, 'On These Grounds'

Though abolishing the police is still viewed as a fringe idea here in America, what happened to a Black female student in South Carolina is exhibit A for doing just that, in at least one public institution. Pulled from her desk and dragged across the floor by a white officer, the shocking act was immortalized in a viral video back in 2015. Which in turn sparked outrage, but also changed lives. And one life in particular - that of healer-activist Vivian Anderson, who subsequently left New York City for Columbia, South Carolina. And there she stayed, single-handedly taking on the Herculean task of supporting not just the survivor of that particular police brutality but all Black girls in the community, while also facing the deputy and attempting to take down the system behind him with the same unrelenting force he’d used on a traumatized teen. Documentary is honored to shine a spotlight on the protagonist of Garrett Zevgetis’ SXSW-premiering On These Grounds, which follows Anderson on her quest to just say no to the status quo. On These Grounds, an IDA Fiscal Sponsoree, hit virtual and physical theaters on September 24, courtesy of Gravitas Ventures, and is accompanied by a juvenile justice impact campaign.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

The VOD Effect on Distribution: A Nordic-European View

"From Pre-Pandemic Flashback to Post-Pandemic Visions of Documentary Distribution" was the long and winding title of a thankfully succinct, nuts-and-bolts discussion held during this year’s edition of CPH:DOX’s all-digital CPH:CONFERENCE. Occurring on the day designated REDISTRIBUTE:ECONOMY (the other four themes were REBUILD:DEMOCRACY, REPRESENTATION:POWER, REBELLION:CLIMATE and RESILIENCE:CULTURE), this insightful, all-white and primarily Scandinavian panel nevertheless included an array of diverse perspectives. And leading the talk was moderator Karolina Lidin of Norway’s Nordisk Film & TV Fund, who was joined by her countryman Christian Falch, a producer at UpNorth Film; Ulla Simonen, director of Finland’s AVEK; Signe Byrge Sørensen, a producer at Denmark’s Final Cut for Real (and probably best known on these shores for having worked with both Joshua Oppenheimer and Yance Ford); Commissioning Editor Axel Arnö of Sweden’s SVT; and Martin Dawson, Deputy Head of Unit, Creative Europe MEDIA in Italy.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine.

Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)

One of the most revelatory “social issues” docs to hit theaters this year (NYC and LA on September 17) is the provocatively titled Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are), the latest from veteran filmmaker Rachel Boynton (Big Men, Our Brand Is Crisis). Executive produced by an all-star team that includes Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sam Pollard and Brad Pitt, the film is a multi-year, multi-state historical journey spanning two (polar opposite) presidential administrations and several (equally segregated) cities from the liberal North to the conservative South. And by going places rarely seen onscreen – such as the McCallie School for Boys in Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Holmes County Central High School in Lexington, Mississippi – Boynton is able to give us all a lesson in radical empathy, allowing audiences to learn right alongside the director as she searches for answers from high school students as much as from academic scholars.

To read all about it visit Global Comment.

“The Terms ‘Diversity’ and ‘Inclusion’ Inherently Center Power and Privilege….”: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers on Her Camden International Film Festival-Debuting Doc Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy

Winner of both the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award and the Rogers Audience Award at this year’s Hot Docs, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is the latest documentary from multifaceted artist Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which was picked up by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY after its 2019 Berlinale premiere and is available to stream on Netflix). A writer, director, producer and actor – she currently stars in Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders, which just debuted at TIFF – Tailfeathers is also a member of the Kainai First Nation in Alberta. It’s a community that continues to be ravaged by the opioid epidemic, much like many across Canada and here in the US. But for the people on this Blackfoot reserve, unlike the populace of non-Indigenous small towns, the addiction crisis is just the most recent scourge in a never-ending series of generational traumas. Connecting the dots from colonization to abusive residential schools and a state-sanctioned cultural genocide would be a worthy cinematic endeavor in itself. But with Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy Tailfeathers does such and then goes much further, linking the names and faces of those on both sides of the healthcare frontline today — including the reserve’s stoic and compassionate physician Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, the director’s mother — with their ancestors whose traditional approaches to wellness in body and soul seem much more sane and civilized. The result is a soaring portrait of tragedy and resilience, yes, but also a handbook for healing that those of us in the privileged classes could learn a lesson or two from. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with the prolific Tailfeathers soon after TIFF and just prior to her doc’s next stop at the Camden International Film Festival (September 16-26).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Don’t Think Black People Should be Expected to Carry All the Weight of Grappling with America’s History of Racism and White Supremacy”: Rachel Boynton on Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)

Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are), the latest doc from Rachel Boynton (Big Men, Our Brand Is Crisis) unfolds in a series of revelations. The project was sparked in the wake of the slaughter of Black parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC during President Obama’s last year in office,and continued right through the domestic terrorism of the Trump administration. During that time Boynton took a historical journey, traversing the US from Massachusetts to Mississippi, with a singular question in mind: What’s the story of the Civil War? Or more precisely, What’s your story of the Civil War? Boynton began by approaching (all-white and all-Black) classrooms in Chattanooga and Lexington, and found that history is not so much written by the victors but interpreted by point of view. If the story of the Civil War is being taught exclusively from the POV of the white slave holder (centered on his uncontestedly immoral justifications on economic and religious grounds) – or alternately, wholly from that of the enslaved – then these two tales become, in head scratching fashion, both diametrically opposed and simultaneously true. In other words, what the director discovered was a nation not just divided but comprised of two sides completely talking past one another. Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are) is Boynton’s heroic – and surprisingly successful – attempt to actually bridge that gap. Filmmaker reached out to Boynton, one of 2005’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” just prior to the doc’s September 17th theatrical (NYC’s IFC Center and LA’s Laemmle Santa Monica) release.

To read my eye-opening interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“How can you be sure that everybody who had a K-15 in their hands was someone truly evil?”: Gian Cassini on his TIFF-Premiering Doc Comala

A son’s search for a father he never knew is an emotional and complicated journey in even the best of circumstances. When that dad is a smalltime hitman murdered in Tijuana who left behind another family, including a son who likewise embraced criminality and his own father who supposedly fought for Castro (and also worked for the CIA), that investigation can become something infinitely more complex. And if that child is a brave and thoughtful filmmaker like Monterrey-based Gian Cassini it transforms into a journey much greater than the sum of its tabloid-sensational parts: a study of intergenerational violence, machismo culture, and the collective collateral damage experienced by an entire traumatized society. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with the Mexican director (and writer/editor/producer) just prior to the September 13th TIFF world premiere of his debut feature Comala, its title a reference to the ghost town in Juan Rulfo’s “Pedro Páramo,” naturally a novel about one man’s quest to connect with a long lost dad.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We had no bulletproof vests, no armored jeep, just our smiles and good nature”: Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty on their TIFF-Debuting Doc The Devil’s Drivers

Filmed over the course of nearly a decade The Devil’s Drivers is a modern-day “1970s car chase thriller” shot mainly from inside the weathered vehicles of human traffickers. But in Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty’s edge-of-your-seat feature these daredevil smugglers prove a far cry from any Hollywood baddie. Zooming through the West Bank desert on their lawbreaking quest to transport desperate Palestinian workers across the border into Israel, the Bedouin drivers bravely dodge occupying forces day in and day out, risking serious jail time for a pittance. Bonded with their cargo in economic need, in the desire just to feed families and to simply survive, choosing illegality in the face of immorality, however, is really no devil’s bargain at all. Filmmaker reached out to Berlin-based Abugeth and LA-based Carsenty, both TV journalists who’ve worked for Arte among other European media outlets, to discuss the long and winding road to their harrowing TIFF world premiere (September 12).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doing the right thing: Spike Lee’s NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½

Like the majority of Americans of a certain age – and citizens around the globe – I witnessed the disaster movie-level events of September 11, 2001, unfold in surreal fashion across a TV screen. Unlike the majority of Americans, however, my television screen was in Brooklyn. I’d been tuned in to my local NY1 News station as I was every weekday morning, simultaneously readying for work while catching "weather on the ones" (abundant sunshine), subway updates (no major delays heading downtown), and the primary day politics (Mark Green looked to be the next NYC mayor). And then anchorman Pat Kiernan cut away to an image as likely as King Kong scaling the Empire State Building. In other words, for me – as for fellow New Yorker Spike Lee, whose latest four-parter for HBO Max NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½ is both epic (7½ hours!) and utterly magnificent – 9/11 wasn’t an international or even a national news story. This shit was personal.

To read the rest of my love letter to Lee's masterwork visit Modern Times Review.

Handling the Truth: On Spike Lee’s inclusion (and subsequent removal) of 9/11 Truthers from NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½

Twenty years on, perhaps the one thing our highly polarized American electorate can agree upon is that A) We don’t have the full truth about 9/11 (hence the public demand to release the government documents). And B) That that truth includes some sort of coverup (exhibit A – Saudi Arabia). But the idea that this likely nefariousness thus means that only a bunch of white, privileged, Silicon Valley dudes with engineering degrees – “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth,” which I’m guessing doesn’t include anyone who ever set foot inside the WTC (heck, I’m more of an expert on that front) – are the sole possessors of “the truth” seems the height of arrogant nonsense.

To find out why visit Global Comment.

“A Deteriorating Mind Condemned to Hell…”: Sadri Cetinkaya on Fantasia Doc Lost Boys

I first encountered Joonas Neuvonen’s Lost Boys, a sort of “unintended sequel” to 2010’s spectacular look at self-destructive Subutex addicts in rural Finland, Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland – which was co-written and edited by Lost Boys co-director Sadri Cetinkaya – at this year’s virtual CPH:DOX. At the time I tried but failed to take notes while watching. The film just got under my skin in a way that froze me to my laptop screen. 
 Atmospherically, Neuvonen’s decade-later doc brought to mind the sensation of being trapped inside a Nine Inch Nails video. Memorably narrated by Pekka Strang (Tom of Finland), Lost Boys picks up where Reindeerspotting left off: After serving a seven-year sentence for drug dealing, protagonists Jani and Antti escape to Thailand to celebrate with Neuvonen and his camera in tow. Predictably, the round-the-clock bacchanal revolves around sex, drugs, alcohol, more sex and more drugs. Unpredictably, while Neuvonen returns home at the end of the revelry the duo choose instead to fly off to Cambodia – where they promptly disappear. And then Jani turns up dead, his demise officially ruled a suicide, and that verdict prompts Neuvonen to return to Southeast Asia once again in a herculean effort to separate fact from fiction.
 Which also happens to be the task of the viewer. For though Lost Boys is a thoroughly engrossing, seamless journey into a very real heart of darkness, the film was actually shot piecemeal during the course of several trips. So how much footage was staged? How much of this madcap adventure truly occurred? And what effect did the director’s own arrest for drug trafficking – the takedown suspiciously captured on camera – have on production? Or is this film all one highly stylized, hallucinatory dream?
 To get answers to this and more Filmmaker decided to reach out to the Finnish filmmaking team just after the doc’s Fantasia International Film Festival North American premiere (August 5-25). Though Neuvonen himself seems to have now also disappeared, his longtime collaborator Sadri Cetinkaya was kind enough to shine a light on all the dark matter.

So to read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Edited the Film in a Sort of Circle – Without the Credits It Could Even Be Played in a Loop”: Tea Lukač on Her Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Debut Roots

Premiering in the East of the West Competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (August 20-28), Roots is an unexpected documentary gem from filmmaker and video artist Tea Lukač. Through striking cinematography and the simplest of concepts the Serbian director takes us on a journey to present-day Dvor, the Croatian town that Lukač and her family fled when war came and she was just six years old. Intriguingly, we get to know the rural locale not through travelogue but through the back seat of a moving car, where seven distinct stories unfold via passengers of ascending age. Costumed kiddies debate the merits of carnival treats. A loquacious old veteran attests to the superhuman immunity he gained after surviving a hornet attack. And dividing these delightfully surprising scenes are arresting images of a vast forest, one which has steadfastly weathered storms and war and now perhaps nuclear waste – its final story yet to be told. Filmmaker reached out to Lukač, whose 2016 doc The Most Important Boy in the World follows “the biggest Justin Bieber fan in the Balkans,” just prior to the film’s KVIFF debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Denilson Garibo, 'Homeroom'

Winner of the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: US Documentary at this year’s Sundance, Homeroom is the final piece in Peter Nicks’ Oakland Trilogy. The vérité project began with 2012’s The Waiting Room and continued on through 2017’s The Force, which notably provided Documentary with the chance to chat with the Oakland Police Department’s Deputy Chief LeRonne Armstrong for this very column. Interestingly, the OPD — specifically the battle over where and how it should be deployed — also figures quite prominently in Homeroom. Embedding with Oakland High School’s class of 2020, Nicks and his team follow along as a group of highly engaged BIPOC seniors navigates the everyday stresses of tests and college applications all while trying to rid their school district of its divisive police force. And this is before a global pandemic and a season of racial justice protests turn their microcosmic teenage world even more upside down. One of the OHS leaders centered most prominently in Nicks’ doc is Denilson Garibo, who served as a student director on the Oakland Unified School District board, and now graciously serves as our August Doc Star of the Month. Just prior to the film’s Hulu release on August 12, Documentary spoke with the tenacious activist — and onetime Dreamer — about the pros and cons of being trailed by a camera during what turned out to be one roller coaster of a final year.

To read my inspiring interview visit Documentary magazine.

Review: Pier Kids

Pier Kids, the latest doc from Elegance Bratton (executive producer and creator of Viceland’s My House) captures both the struggles and the joys of three queer and trans youth who make their home on NYC’s Christopher Street Pier. Currently in production on his upcoming narrative feature The Inspection, an autobiographical story starring Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, the director himself spent a decade living on the streets before finding filmmaking while serving as a US Marine. (Bratton then went on to earn degrees from NYC’s notorious gentrifying institutions Columbia and NYU.) In other words, Pier Kids, which made its US broadcast debut on August 2nd on PBS’s POV, paints a loving and respectful insider’s portrait; while also managing to be a cinematic clarion call urging us to bear witness to the unhoused hiding in plain sight. (Except of course when they’re being heavily policed. And ironically in this case, in the West Village and on its waterfront – historically safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth ever since the Stonewall Uprising supposedly put an end to such injustice.)

To read the rest visit Global Comment.

Tine Fischer and Niklas Engstrøm on CPH:DOX's Past, Present and Future

An unapologetically progressive fest since its 2003 inception, CPH:DOX has never been content to merely showcase films. From the start, it set out to push the parameters of the documentary format, to redefine the festival ecosystem itself (while always questioning and challenging its own role in the process). Perhaps reflecting founder Tine Fischer’s own interest in contemporary art (Fischer is a partner at Copenhagen’s Andersen’s Contemporary), CPH:DOX was the first fest to take heat for thoroughly embracing artistic experimentation, for coloring outside the accepted lines between fiction and “reality.” Back at a time when most festivals, particularly here in the US, were still focused on “issues” docs (jam-packed with “serious” talking heads), the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival was unabashedly championing what would later be trendily referred to as “hybrid” films (and long before that became cinematic geek chic). Indeed, 2009’s CPH:DOX Award went to none other than Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers — a project that many critics contended wasn’t even a film, let alone a documentary. And now a dozen years (and one pioneering, pandemic-driven pivot to digital) later, CPH:DOX is undergoing yet another radical transformation. Tine Fischer, about to make her mark on the next generation of Danish filmmakers as the new director of the National Film School of Denmark, is handing the reins over to longtime colleague Niklas Engstrøm, the fest’s head of programming since 2015. Which is why Documentary thought this a fine time to, in accordance with the 2021 edition’s theme of “Reset!”, look back, look forward and reassess with the daring duo.

To read all about them visit Documentary magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Valerie Taylor, 'Playing with Sharks'

Valerie Taylor has lived a life rife with unintended consequences, contradictions and double-edged swords. A pioneer in both shark research and underwater filmmaking, the champion spearfisher-turned-apex-predator-protector often made headlines as much for her bikinis and “Bond girl” looks as she did for her fearless talent. Which allowed the intrepid Australian to bring more attention to her emergence as a sort of Jane Goodall of the seas. Taylor likewise became a media sensation — along with her husband and lifelong collaborator, Ron — for having created the work that inspired both the book Jaws and the 1975 Spielberg film for which she and Ron were brought on to shoot the live shark scenes. That summer blockbuster subsequently sparked a nationwide panic over great white sharks, as well as a near-genocidal slaughter of the species, forcing the conservationist, now an octogenarian who still dives, on a shark redemption crusade that she continues to lead. Luckily for Documentary, the indefatigable star of Sally Aitken’s Playing with Sharks (acquired by National Geographic at this year’s Sundance and premiering July 23 on Disney+) took time out of the water and away from her advocacy activities to graciously serve as July's Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“If Something Gives Me the Chills, or If I Ever Think, ‘Is This Too Much?’, Then I Know I Have to Use It”: Michelle Handelman on the 25th Anniversary Rerelease of BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism

Filmmaker/video artist/photographer/performance artist/writer/professor Michelle Handelman is a 2011 Guggenheim fellow and 2019 Creative Capital awardee whose work is featured in collections from Napa, California to Paris to Moscow. But back in the early 90s Handelman was simply an explorer with a video camera, diving headlong into a San Francisco Leatherdyke scene that would pave the way for today’s gender nonconformity movement as we know it. Her resulting film, 1995’s BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism – just rereleased last month with bonus extras by Kino Lorber – is an artistic amalgam both of its time and surprisingly timely. Scenes from leather pageants are interspersed with frank discussions with players (topics include topping from the bottom and being a macho femme), and accompanied by an in-your-face punk and post-industrial soundtrack by beloved bands like Frightwig and Coil. There are also an abundance of non-sugarcoated interviews with politically inconvenient pioneers. Writer Patrick Califia (before he began identifying as a bi trans man) and Queen Cougar (1993’s Ms. SF Leather and one of the few Black faces in a seemingly overwhelmingly white scene) are especially vociferous about securing visibility and acceptance. And this at a time when their unabashed embrace of BDSM horrified both left-wing feminists (who saw sadomasochism as a self-loathing extension of the patriarchy) and right-wing organizations like the American Family Association (which used clips from the film in its fight to defund the NEA). Not to mention the stance of the American Psychiatric Association, which only stopped classifying kink as a mental disorder less than a dozen years ago. The genre-defying Handelman – who according to her provocative bio creates “confrontational works that explore the sublime in its various forms of excess and nothingness” – found time to fill Filmmaker in on the rerelease, and also on how far queer culture has come in the past quarter century. And how far we’ve yet to go.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“What is Our Duty Today as Viewers?”: Abdallah Al-Khatib on Cannes (ACID program)-Selected Documentary Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege)

A movie could be made out of the making of Abdallah Al-Khatib’s heartbreakingly poetic Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege), screening in the ACID program at this year’s Cannes. The film’s title refers to Yarmouk, a district in Damascus that served as the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 until its destruction in 2018. In 2013 the Al-Assad regime set up a siege, depriving Yarmouk’s residents of food, medicine and electricity while haphazardly dropping barrel bombs on what it deemed a rebel stronghold. An accidental filmmaker, Al-Khatib — born and bred in Yarmouk until ISIS expelled him in 2015 — was a sociology major at the University of Damascus when the revolution broke out in 2011. He only started documenting daily life around him after his filmmaker friend Hassan Hassan, one of the protagonists of 2013’s The Shebabs of Yarmouk, left the camp and left Al-Khatib with his camera. Subsequently, Hassan was tortured and killed by Syrian forces, while Al-Khatib was eventually smuggled out, leaving the hard disks behind to avoid the risk of confiscation. Al-Khatib only saw the footage again once he’d arrived safely in Germany. (The camera returned to Syria to keep filming without him.) Fortunately for Filmmaker, Al-Khatib (with an assist from his translator) found time just prior to the poignant doc’s Cannes debut to fill us in on the intersection of sociology and cinema, the role of media in conflict zones and the importance of asking hard questions before providing any solutions.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Presents “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors”

"If I could log in right now I would,” Dawn Porter raved in one of the many enthusiastic testimonials sprinkled throughout Full Frame’s engaging “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors,” an online launch/celebration of the BIPOC Documentary Editors Database. Expertly edited (surprise surprise), the swift-moving event (approximately an hour long) took place on June 3rd but is still well worth checking out. Whether you’re a veteran producer looking to hire beyond the usual (white) suspects or a student just beginning to build your reel, this database instruction manual/guide to best BIPOC hiring practices/panel discussion/showcase of the diversity of BIPOC work (completely forgot that Jason Pollard edited Dylan Bank and Daniel DiMauro’s Get Me Roger Stone) is jam-packed with stellar advice. (Not to mention entertainment. The “Editor Habits” segment includes a breakdown of “Must-Have Snacks”: “Does coffee count as a snack?” “Cheetos with chopsticks – otherwise your keyboard gets dirty.”)

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

Doc Star of the Month: Sarah Rose Huckman, ‘Changing the Game’

Michael Barnett’s Changing the Game, now streaming on Hulu, is a deep dive into the lives of three teenage athletes — Mack Beggs, Andraya Yearwood and Sarah Rose Huckman — each fighting to make their marks in their chosen sports — wrestling, track and skiing, respectively — while also having to fight for the right to compete on teams comprised of peers who share their gender identity. It’s a battle that would seem laughably nonsensical if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Kafkaesque vilification of Texas State Champion Beggs by the parents of female wrestlers, furious that his natural talent and uncompromising work ethic, enhanced by shots of testosterone, place him at an "unfair advantage" in girls wrestling. And Beggs probably couldn’t agree more — he’s been trying desperately to compete on the boys’ team for years. It’s only the big, overreaching government hand of the Lone Star State that’s stubbornly stood in his way. Indeed, one of the more remarkable revelations in Changing the Game is how transphobia is less a grassroots left vs. right issue than a kids vs. adults problem. All three protagonists hail from loving families in both red and blue states (Beggs resides with Trump-supporting grandparents who are also fierce advocates for their grandson) and have a close-knit community of supportive friends, schoolmates and partners. Unlike in the bad old "don’t ask don’t tell" days before the legalization of gay marriage, the only bullying these teens seem to encounter is from the so-called adults outside the classroom (and of course on Fox News). So to find out how exactly Gen Z is "changing the game" — and by extension queer rights — Documentary checked in with the politico of the film, New Hampshire’s Sarah Rose Huckman. Huckman bravely stood up to her own state’s bizarrely coercive policy that demanded trans athletes undergo gender-reassignment surgery (knowing fully well that such surgery is not even an option for kids) before playing on teams aligned with their gender identity. And she won. Which is why Documentary is especially pleased that this passionate skier, activist and policymaker agreed to add June Doc Star of the (Pride) Month to her impressive CV.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Sociopolitical Documentaries at CPH:DOX 2021: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

If CPH:DOX is any indication (and it usually is), 2021 seems set to see a transformation in sociopolitical nonfiction cinema. Rather than, say, merely probe the psychological motives behind intriguing bad apples, a slew of films are now choosing to use their characters as conduits — as a means to explore the systems enabling said individuals, and to instead hold our collective actions and inactions accountable. As Ed Snowden notes in Sonia Kennebeck’s United States vs Reality Winner (which screened in the "Justice" section), "There are going to be people, in every time and every place, who see something wrong and go, 'That’s my problem.'" The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival continues on its own mission to showcase artistry as solution.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine.

“Resisting the Power of the White Gaze”: CJ Hunt on his Tribeca-Premiering Confederate Monuments Doc, The Neutral Ground

CJ Hunt is a NYC-based comedian and filmmaker, and currently a field producer on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. But back in 2015 Hunt was still a resident of New Orleans, having spent nearly a decade teaching in its school (and after-school) system, assisting in its public defender’s office — and yes, pursuing his passion for comedy at night. So when Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced he’d be asking the city council to remove four monuments to the losing side in the Civil War, the stand-up/educator immediately thought to call his good friend (producer Darcy McKinnon, a “25 New Face” of 2020), pick up a camera, and record the subsequent government hearings. Not for posterity, per se, but for laughs. What was originally intended to be a 5-10 minute comedy short pitting racist shenanigans against anti-racist logic (and perhaps even coming up with a compromise – how about if we just take down the general and leave his horse?) turned into a years-long odyssey into the dark heart of Lost Cause mythology. Which culminated in The Neutral Ground, a feature about the “absurd hold the confederacy still has in America,” according to the filmmaker (who aspires to “fall somewhere between Marlon Riggs and Sacha Baron Cohen”). An absurdity so funny it hurts. Or as Hunt himself has wondered, “Does watching a Black senator proclaim “America is not a racist country” make you laugh or cry?” So to learn all about this strange trip through revisionist history Filmmaker reached out to the African American and Filipino American director the week before the film’s Tribeca debut as part of the fest’s Juneteenth Programming (to be followed by a run at AFI Docs before opening POV’s 34th season on PBS July 5th).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Whose Pride? (or the tyranny of heteronormativity)

Corporate-sponsored lip service. Calls for the kink community to go back in the closet for the sake of a family-friendly Pride. And now the so-called “liberal” media (i.e., The Washington Post and The New York Times) siding with the GOAL (Gay Officers Action League) cops who want to be allowed to march in uniform in NYC’s annual commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising, a civil rights event triggered by – you guessed it – police brutality. It’s enough Orwellian drama to make me want to turn in my queer card.

To read the rest of my critique of the latest ludicrous debate visit Global Comment.

“An Overt Anti-Patriarchal, Anti-Assimilationist Gesture Within the Framework of ‘Queer Refusal'”: Angelo Madsen Minax on His Tribeca-premiering North By Current

One of the most thrillingly radical aspects of Angelo Madsen Minax’s astonishing North By Current, which premiered at the Berlinale and now makes its North American debut at Tribeca, is the film’s centering of absence, of its maker’s firm belief in the idea that “a viewer is not entitled to every piece of information.” Minax began shooting North By Current upon his return home to rural Michigan after the death of his niece, a toddler whose passing put Minax’s emotionally fragile sister and her formerly incarcerated husband in the crosshairs of Children’s Protective Services (which in turn led to law enforcement investigating CPS). The life-shattering event also set the stage for another confrontation of sorts, between Minax himself and his Mormon parents who felt themselves still grieving the “loss” of their own child — a girl named Angela who’d transitioned to this stranger with a camera filming in their living room. And yet North By Current staunchly refuses to be about any of this. Instead Minax focuses on the bigger universal picture – love and the change of seasons that we all share. Ultimately, his steadfast withholding of answers allows us to discover deeper ones within ourselves. So to find out how he did (and did not) do it, Filmmaker reached out to the multidisciplinary artist just prior to the doc’s North American premiere (in TFF’s Viewpoints section).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“...the Convergence of Many Different Narratives Clashing All at Once”: Dan Chen on his Tribeca-Debuting High School and College Admissions Doc, Accepted

Filmmaker Dan Chen planned to make an inspiring doc about a group of high-achieving students attending a most unconventional school in rural Louisiana, one that had a 100 percent college acceptance rate and sent its BIPOC kids to the likes of Harvard, Yale and Stanford. Well, so much for best laid plans. Unfortunately, right in the midst of production, the Ivy League dreams of Alicia, Adia, Isaac and Cathy, along with the rest of their classmates who were already under immense pressure from the unrelenting boot camp tactics of the school’s founder Mike Landry, morphed into a slow-motion nightmare. Even more surprising, the cause of the disruption came from another elite bastion, the New York Times, which broke the story of TM Landry Prep School’s less-than-kosher tactics for prying open the door to the ivory tower. But instead of calling it quits Chen did something equally unexpected – dug in deeper. While continuing to follow the TM Landry seniors in the aftermath of the scandal, he simultaneously turned his lens to the higher education system itself, one that’s long allowed/expected wealthy white folks to buy and bribe their way into the Ivies. He also dug into his own role in buying into a flawed narrative. Which in turn forced the director to reexamine both his initial footage and his very own assumptions. Fortunately for Filmmaker, the Tribeca alum found time to fill us in on the exceptional teens he spent time with, as well as the rigging of a rigged system, the week before the world premiere of Accepted in TFF’s Viewpoints section. The film is currently available on Tribeca’s virtual platform.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I’m Drawn to Spaces Where the Paradoxes of Everyday Life are Made Apparent”: Jessica Kingdon on her Tribeca-Premiering Ascension

An all-female factory floor that manufactures made-to-order sex dolls (which seems every bit as titillating as crafting car parts). A workshop featuring a social media entrepreneur who rhapsodizes about the “fan economy.” (Why be a regular boss when you can be a “star boss”?) An instructor in a class on business etiquette quizzing the Stepford Wives-creepy assemblage on how many teeth should be displayed when smiling at a client. (The correct answer? The “upper eight teeth.”) A dinner conversation in which the wealthy discuss the pros and cons of vacationing in Xinjiang. These are just a few of the unnerving glimpses inside today’s China captured through beautifully composed shots and a hauntingly discordant sound design in Ascension, the latest from Jessica Kingdon (a “25 New Face”of 2017). Equally unnerving, however, is that Kingdon’s doc likewise manages to be a disturbing reflection of the West as well, as the capitalist and consumerist values we’ve enthusiastically exported over decades have transformed the very countries we were hoping to influence – albeit not in the intended democratic post-Cold War way. Which seems to be precisely what Kingdon is intending to show. Though the filmmaker has created a portrait of China’s gaping class divide — “ascending” its rungs of capitalism from low-wage worker, to middle-class dreamer, to the disconnected bubble of the elite — she is also exposing a dangerously unsustainable system. One that feels not faraway at all, but far too close to home. So to learn all about “Chinese Dream” aspiration (and its dire repercussions), Filmmaker reached out to the Chinese-American director/producer just prior to the film’s world premiere in the Documentary Competition at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. The film is currently streaming on Tribeca’s virtual festival platform.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Can Jupiter Use his Powers and Wisdom to… Rectify Racial Injustice and Inequality?”: Ram Devineni and Yusef Komunyakaa on their Tribeca-Premiering AR Comic Book Jupiter Invincible

Jupiter Invincible, the latest augmented reality comic book from Ram Devineni and his NY-based Rattapallax media house, marks a bit of a departure for the doc filmmaker and technologist. Best known in the AR world for his comic book series Priya’s Shakti — starring India’s first female superhero and rape survivor (and UN Women-designated “gender equality champion”) — Devineni now travels both back to these shores and back in time, all the way to pre-Civil War Maryland. And he brings along an impressive trio of collaborators. Our superhero of this tale, the titular Jupiter, is the invention of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. And though Jupiter might be an enslaved teenager he’s also immortal — and able to join forces with the more mortal superhero Harriet Tubman on her Underground Railroad mission to freedom. Together with illustrator Ashley A. Woods (who’s worked on Tomb Raider, Niobe and the Ladycastle series) and editor Eric Battle (who’s drawn for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics), Devineni and Komunyakaa have created a futuristic history lesson able to leap from festival exhibitions, to a staged reading, to (with any luck) a classroom near you in a single bound. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with half of the creative super team, Devineni and Komunyakaa, just prior to the comic book’s TFF launch on June 9th.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.