Doc Star of the Month: Jay Rosenblatt, 'When We Were Bullies'

Debuting March 30 on HBO is veteran writer-director (30-plus films over the last four decades) Jay Rosenblatt’s 2021 Sundance-premiering, Oscar-nominated When We Were Bullies. Inspired by a stranger-than-fiction coincidence from 25 years ago, it’s an astonishingly personal journey (a "spiritual quest") back in time to a schoolyard bullying incident that the filmmaker participated in, a half-century past. It’s also one wildly creative documentary short, packing contemporary phone interviews with classmates (and a now-nonagenarian teacher); archival material, found footage, and even whimsical stop-motion animation into its brisk 30-some-odd-minute running time. But perhaps most surprising — and laudable — of all is how much Rosenblatt chooses to reveal about himself. Which is why Documentary is delighted that the Brooklyn-born, San Francisco-based director — a Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellow who also holds a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and once worked as a therapist — agreed to be our March Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

The new age of climate activism: To the End

CLIMATE: Four young women of colour take the fight for a Green New Deal to Congress. Selected for this year’s CPH:DOX F:act Award competition, To the End, is Rachel Lears’ Sundance-premiering followup to her (also Sundance-premiering) 2019 doc Knock Down The House, which tagged along on the Sisyphean political campaigns of four loud and proudly progressive women during the 2018 US Democratic primaries. Unfortunately, only one of those system-dismantling hopefuls won. Fortunately, the winner was a charismatic Bronx bartender by the name of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter now takes her place both in Congress and as one of To the End‘s fierce foursome.

To read the rest visit Modern Times Review.

“We Joke That This is a Pre-COVID Movie Made from a Safe Social Distance”: Paweł Łoziński on his First Look Closing-Night Doc The Balcony Movie

As its title implies, Paweł Łoziński’s The Balcony Movie, which closes this year’s First Look Festival on March 20, is a film shot entirely from a balcony. Which may sound like the worst elevator pitch of all time until one realizes that the balcony belongs to the acclaimed Polish documentarian behind the lens (who also happens to be the son of also esteemed Polish documentarian Marcel Łoziński). Less concept film than “secular confessional,” as the Warsaw-based director puts it, Łoziński spent over two years (beginning pre-pandemic) filming the many men and women of all ages, not to mention their dogs and kids, who passed in front of his apartment building. And not just coldly observing, but warmly engaging in earnest conversation with those below, from a homeless stranger to his own ticked off wife. (“What’s the meaning of life?” he shouts to one elderly woman in a wheelchair. Her sly reply? “Life is meaning.”) It’s through these random interactions that Łoziński unearths a vast array of future hopes and past regrets, while we the viewer likewise learn quite a bit about the viewer holding the camera as well. Even as he remains a disembodied voice from on high, physically unrevealed. A few days prior to closing night Filmmaker reached out to the First Look vet (2018’s You Have No Idea How Much I Love You) to find out how (and why) he turned his neighborhood sidewalk into a humanist movie set.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Resurrection: Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall

INVESTIGATION: The story of accomplished journalist Kim Wall, who went missing in 2017, interviewing the eccentric entrepreneur Peter Madsen. Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall is one novel feminist take on a familiar tabloid topic. Erin Lee Carr’s latest two-part doc for HBO (both Part One: The Crime and Part Two: The Punishment air March 8 here in the US) actually treads the same true crime territory as Tobias Lindholm’s six-part (also on HBO) series The Investigation. (As well as Emma Sullivan’s 2020 Sundance-debuting, Netflix-shelved documentary Into the Deep for that matter.) But where Lindholm chose a cold laser focus on facts in his narrative account of this stranger than fiction tale, Carr does quite the opposite – using her journalistic skills to bring the emotional fallout from Wall’s shocking demise to the fore. And to celebrate a woman whose own journo talents made a woefully under-appreciated difference in the world.

To read the rest visit Modern Times Review.

“It’s About the Emotion, the Performance, the Rhythm and the Space in Between the Words”: Rosa Ruth Boesten on Her SXSW-Debuting doc Master of Light

A stunning work of cinematic nonfiction, Rosa Ruth Boesten’s Master of Light follows the classical painter George Anthony Morton, a fan of Rembrandt who conjures exquisite portraits of his own family members in the style of the Old Masters. Never formally trained, Morton nonetheless managed to land a spot at the New York branch of The Florence Academy of Art, eventually going on to study in Europe and win awards abroad. Which would be a remarkable feat for any American, let alone a Black man from Kansas City who spent a decade behind bars for dealing drugs. But likewise remarkable is how Boesten crafts her own evocative portrait of the artist, employing such heavily stylized camerawork and sound design as to leave a viewer (me) wondering whether Master of Light is in fact a doc. Patiently and non-invasively Boesten trails the unconventional painter from his small studio to the vast (and incredibly white) Rijksmuseum, and from calm visits with an (African-American male) therapist to the chaotic streets of Kansas City. It’s there Morton spends quality time with his relatives-turned-models and makes painful attempts to emotionally connect with his difficult mother (when he’s not bailing her out of jail). Prior to the film’s SXSW debut on March 12, Filmmaker reached out to the Amsterdam-based director — who’s been collaborating with various artists since first turning her lens on her textile artist grandma — to learn all about the globetrotting production, as well as working with Roger Ross Williams and his One Story Up. And, of course, painting with light.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“There Were No Easy Answers to My Questions”: Iliana Sosa on Her SXSW-Debuting Doc What We Leave Behind

Iiana Sosa’s What We Leave Behind is an astonishingly intimate labor of love. The film emerged from Sosa’s desire to document her grandfather Julián, a proudly hardworking man who first left his native Mexico back in the early 1940s to join the US government’s Bracero program, which brought in farm workers to remedy the WWII labor shortage. After his daughters, including the filmmaker’s mom, moved permanently to the States, the widowed Julián spent the next two decades traveling solo from Durango to visit them in the southwest. But as he now nears his nonagenarian years the monthly bus trip becomes too much. So the El Paso-raised Sosa decides to accompany Julián back to his rural land and follow her grandfather’s journey to the inevitable end. Filmmaker caught up with the first-generation American director — and 2020 “25 New Face of Independent Film” — to learn all about her own journey, including how a simple family portrait became an unexpected love letter. And how, as she puts it, “filmmaking pulled me closer to him, across the border and into his home.” What We Leave Behind makes its SXSW debut March 11.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Was Raised by a Journalist, I Am a Journalist, and Here Was Someone Taken from the Earth Simply for Doing Her Job”: Erin Lee Carr on her HBO Doc Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall

Erin Lee Carr’s latest two-part doc for HBO tackles one of the grizzliest — and weirdest — true crime cases to make international headlines in recent years. In fact, the tale at the center of Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall is likely already familiar to HBO viewers, as Tobias Lindholm’s six-part narrative series The Investigation is based on the same bizarre event. It was back in 2017 that the Swedish journalist Kim Wall, living with her boyfriend in Denmark at the time, went missing in the waters right off Copenhagen following a trip in a homemade midget submarine built by the guy she was profiling for an article: the Elon Musk-like Danish entrepreneur Peter “Rocket” Madsen, who also co-founded the amateur open source space program Copenhagen Suborbitals. After initially claiming that he had dropped her off after the interview, Madsen soon claimed there had been some sort of freak accident, so he decided to bury her at sea. But then slowly the truth began to emerge (along with several body parts). What makes Carr’s take so refreshing is her focus on sidelining Wall’s tragic death in favor of her short dramatic life. Sure, the doc is full of riveting trial testimony (Madsen was convicted and sentenced to life in prison) and enlightening interviews with everyone from Royal Denmark Navy investigators to Madsen’s regretful biographer. But the female-focused director (HBO’s At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal, I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, etc.) seems much more concerned with ensuring that the accomplished Wall — a London School of Economics and Columbia University grad who received grants from organizations like the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the International Women’s Media Foundation — is at the center of her own story. Interviews with close friends, and images from her globetrotting reporting trips as a freelancer for The New York Times, The Guardian, Vice, Slate, Time and more, remind us that in her 30 years Wall made a difference in the world — and more so than her eccentric middle-aged murderer. In doing so Carr has taken the power of the narrative back from a narcissistic psychopath and returned it to the victim. Filmmaker reached out to the twice Emmy Award-nominated director just prior to the doc’s debut (both “Part One: The Crime” and “Part Two: The Punishment” began streaming March 8).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Hammer To Nail Stands With Ukraine

HtN is obviously not a site dedicated to specific politics. However the recent invasion of Ukraine has elicited an outpouring of support worldwide. Rather than simply state our support for the Ukrainian nation and people, Lead Critic Chris Reed and contributor Lauren Wissot put together a great list of films, reviews and essays that share the history, stories and attitudes of Ukraine. We wish peace and an end to this immoral war. Please take a look at this open letter from film professionals supporting Ukraine including links for organizations to donate. And read the entire guide here.

“These Were People Who Were Searching for a Place to Dream”: Nollywood Director Ike Nnaebue on his True/False-debuting No U-Turn

Ike Nnaebue’s No U-Turn — its title a reference to an interrupted journey the Nollywood director embarked on as an impoverished 20something and is now determined to finish — is an ambitious cinematic quest. Part of the Generation Africa project, the Berlinale-selected film is a cross-country trip across the continent to find out exactly why young people are still compelled to risk life and limb to reach Europe — 26 years after Nnaebue himself tried and failed to do the same. (And ended up with multi-award-winning filmmaking fame back home in Lagos instead.) To learn all about the road (bus) trip and any insights Nnaebue may have gleaned from his in-depth conversations along the way, Filmmaker caught up with the longtime narrative director (and first-time documentarian) just prior to the film’s True/False debut today.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.