Heart of Darkness (and Light): The 29th Sarajevo Film Festival

Taking place from August 11-18, this year’s 29th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, the largest film fest in (and focused on) Southeast Europe, unsurprisingly presented a wealth of cinematic gems to choose from. (And in a variety of venues, from the storied National Theater, built during the Austro-Hungarian takeover, to the evening-only Open Air Cinemas.) That is, when one wasn’t scrambling to catch the numerous talks and masterclasses—taught by this year’s Honorary Heart of Sarajevo recipients/hot tickets Mark Cousins, Lynne Ramsay and Charlie Kaufman—or attending the equally busy CineLink Industry Days (which, like the festival itself, is smartly geared towards filmmakers working in the region). But as a first-time visitor (okay, clueless American) to the festival and surrounding Balkan neighborhood, I first needed to absorb a bit of history to get my bearings. And serendipitously for me, I was able to learn about both in one of the most unexpected ways.

To read the rest of my cinematic travelogue visit Filmmaker magazine.

No justice, no peace: A Day, 365 Hours and The Silence of Reason

TRAUMA / Two Sarajevo Film Festival-premiered films take a justice-seeking women's journey, revealing the resilience of rape survivors. Eylem Kaftan’s A Day, 365 Hours follows Reyhan, Asya and Leyla, a trio of young (pseudonymous) women in Turkey attempting to come to terms with – and to seek justice for – the horrific abuse they suffered growing up, a victimisation made all the more monstrous by the fact that each knew her perpetrator not only intimately but genetically. As Reyhan so eloquently puts it in the third «chapter» of the film (titled «Can You Change Your DNA?»), «You want to tear yourself apart and recreate yourself.» Not an overblown sentiment coming from a brave survivor who’d experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her own father – and thus will never escape the traits of her perpetrator no matter how far she flees. Even a glance in the mirror might read as a threat to this band of sisters.

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

“We Didn’t Want an Audience Member To Be Able To Say, ‘Oh, That Was Just One Bad Cop’”: Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon on Sound of the Police

Stanley Nelson and Valerie Scoon’s Sound of the Police is an exhaustive exploration of the oppositional dynamics between African Americans and law enforcement, from slavery right up to today. Through a wealth of archival imagery, interviews with academics, authors and assorted deep thinkers of various backgrounds and colors as well as an ear-catching soundtrack (indeed the doc’s title is a nod to rapper KRS-One’s 1993 anti-police brutality anthem “Sound of da Police,” which serves as a sort of sonic exclamation point throughout the ABC News Studios doc), the veteran filmmakers make a compelling case that any relationship built on the racist foundation of the slave patrol is one systemically doomed from the beginning. Which, of course, demands nothing less than a new start. (Let the reimagining begin!) Just prior to the film’s August 11 Hulu debut, Filmmaker checked in with the busy Oscar-nominated, Emmy Award-winning MacArthur Fellow and his producer-director-FSU professor collaborator (who’s also a former executive at Oprah’s Harpo Films).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Unstill life: Apolonia, Apolonia

IDENTITY / A mesmerising documentary delving into themes of art, love, motherhood, and overcoming societal challenges. Lea Glob’s (2015’s Olmo & the Seagull, co-directed with Petra Costa) Apolonia, Apolonia is an auspicious solo feature debut on multiple levels. Crafted patiently over a span of 13 years, the poignant doc, which took top prize in the international competition at last year’s IDFA, follows Apolonia Sokol, a young and wildly ambitious French figurative painter of Danish and Polish descent, who seems forever to be globetrotting headlong into the future – one that sees her catching up with the great masters of the art world. But perhaps also escaping a rather chaotic past that includes growing up in an underground theatre that her bohemian parents founded on the «wrong» side of the Seine.

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

“I Realized This Was a Film Not Necessarily About Things Seen…But Things Felt”: Elaine McMillion Sheldon on King Coal

Like many Filmmaker readers, I first encountered the work of Elaine McMillion Sheldon a decade ago, when the West Virginia native landed on our annual 25 New Faces of Independent Film list in 2013. She’d just completed Hollow, which began as a documentary about her home state’s struggling McDowell County, and ultimately transformed into a sprawling interactive project; and per Randy Astle’s profile, “a community portrait that includes about three hours of video — including a lot shot by members of the community — audio recordings, text, photographs and user-generated material via Instagram.” Sheldon then popped back onto my radar two years later when I covered FilmGate 2015 down in Miami, where the multidisciplinary artist was working on another interactive piece (and doc feature) about the Sunshine State’s most colorful resident predator (pre-Trump), the insatiable and destructively invasive lion fish. Since then of course, Sheldon’s become much wider known as the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaker behind Netflix docs Heroin(e) and Recovery Boys, both of which drew her back once again to her West Virginia roots. And now fans old and new can look forward to the director’s latest (Sundance-selected) feature King Coal, a Central Appalachia-set tour de force that uses both archival imagery and a fictional narration to explore the complicated legacy of living in a once thriving, now dying, fossil fuel monarchy; ruled capriciously by a sedimentary rock determining the fates of generations from deep underground. Filmmaker caught up with the artistic coal miner’s daughter (and granddaughter and great granddaughter) just prior to King Coal’s August 11th theatrical premiere at NYC’s DCTV Theater (with a national rollout to follow).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.