A Conversation With Elan Golod (NATHAN-ISM)

A cinematic twister lensed with abundant patience and empathy by first-time feature director Elan Golod, a former Israeli soldier and a veteran editor, Nathan-ism tells the stranger-than-fiction saga of outsider artist Nathan Hilu, a WWII vet and NYC-born son of Syrian Jews, who was tasked to guard the top Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials. He then spent the next seven decades obsessively preserving his historical record through “Nathan-ism,” the nonagenarian’s self-invented art form. Which allowed for some truly bizarre and troubling encounters (it was Hitler’s architect/armament procurer Speer himself who advised the 18-year-old private to “keep your eyes open and write what you see here”) to be transformed into a striking visual memoir, complete with counterintuitively, sunnily-colored drawings. By piecing together interviews with academics and historians (including the Hebrew Union College caretaker of the Hilu collection who stresses that Nathan uses art to “stand up for his memories” and even the DOJ’s former “Nazi hunter” Eli Rosenbaum) with the oftentimes controlling and pugnacious protagonist himself from his tiny LES apartment, a bigger picture emerges. Though not necessarily a clearer one; especially after Golod decides to hire a dogged researcher to verify Hilu’s incredible tales (many of which are likewise made visual through some wonderfully evocative animation). But then, as the passionate creative himself earnestly emphasizes, it’s important for the audience to understand that his life produces his art: life the way he sees it.

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.

The Sisterhood: Kaouther Ben Hania’s Cannes-winning “Four Daughters”

Co-winner of the Cannes ’23 Golden Eye, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters is a “fictional documentary” as compelling as it is troubling. The film stars a pious Tunisian mother named Olfa and her two (secular-leaning) youngest daughters, Eya and Tayssir. And also their two elder (religiously zealous) siblings Ghofrane and Rahma; though they are played by a pair of professional actors, Ichraq Matar and Nour Karoui, since the sisters are unable to speak for themselves onscreen, having “disappeared” as teenagers nearly a decade ago. As the film attempts to piece together the events – sometimes traumatic, which is when acclaimed actor Hend Sabri (Noura’s Dream) steps in to serve as Olfa’s double – leading up to the heartbreaking loss, painful secrets emerge. Along with the often-at-odds stories they tell us, the public at large, and of course themselves.

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.

“Where Exactly Does Consent Live?” Rea Tajiri on Wisdom Gone Wild

Rea Tajiri’s Wisdom Gone Wild takes a hard look at a difficult subject. Tajiri’s 93-year-old mom Rose is a witness to the US’s dark concentration camp history, having been incarcerated along with the rest of her Nikkei farming family during the Second World War. Primarily through Rose’s engaging tales, alongside home video and family photos, Tajiri goes (and takes us) on a decade-plus, nonlinear cinematic journey— neatly paralleling Rose’s own thought process, as the veteran filmmaker’s mom began her dementia decline at the age of 76 — or should I say, dementia “reinvention.” For far from being a tragic story about “losing” one’s mind, Wisdom Gone Wild is actually a celebration of life in all its remarkable phases, as both Tajiri and her mother have decided to embrace the new woman Rose is forever transforming herself into, an identity complete with different surname and metaphorical past, Herzog’s “ecstatic truth” in perpetual motion. Just prior to the doc’s November 20th airing on POV, Filmmaker reached out to the multi-award-winning director (History and Memory, Strawberry Fields) and interdisciplinary artist, whose choice to put her career on hold to care for her main character seems to have paid off in spades.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Understanding Taiwan on Its Own Terms”: Vanessa Hope on Invisible Nation

Though producer-director Vanessa Hope has spent her career zeroing in on China — from producing Wang Quanan’s The Story Of Ermei and Chantal Akerman’s Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai to directing her own short China In Three Words and feature-length debut All Eyes and Ears — Hope’s followup feature is nonetheless a bit of a surprise. An intimate portrait of Taiwan’s first female president Tsai Ing-wen, Invisible Nation weaves the tale of President Tsai’s contemporary rise with the (often buried) history of the long-colonized island itself. Through archival footage and in-depth interviews with activists, historians and, of course, the head of (a disputed) state, what emerges is a narrative as surreal as it is tragic: The story of a country and a culture that, according to the People’s Republic, never really was. Soon after the start of the doc’s fall US festival run (and prior to its international premiere at IDFA), Filmmaker caught up via email with the Chinese-fluent, award-winning multihyphenate, who also runs Double Hope Films with her producer husband Ted, to learn about Invisible Nation and working as a foreigner in a forbidden land.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“I Rejected the Concept of Linearity”: Leslie Tai on How to Have an American Baby

Sprawling in scope, observational in form and jaw-dropping in access, Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby shows exactly what its title describes. The title is also the name of a sales talk one of the doc’s characters gives to Chinese moms with the financial means to travel and gift their future offspring US citizenship. The Chinese-American director takes her viewers on the wildest of rides through a birth tourism industry hiding in plain, sunny SoCal sight: underground maternity hotels run by shady operators and filled to the brim with expectant mothers, local hospitals employing doctors in on the lucrative enterprise, cars of hired help serving as 24/7 deliverymen and caretakers, Beijing offices where travel agents facilitate all this illegal action from a continent away, tense community meetings with civic officials patiently taking public lashings from the hotels’ fed-up white neighbors. As one father ironically puts it, Chinese of every economic strata desire to have an American baby because in today’s security state, “We have no sense of security.” Prior to the Field of Vision and POV production’s November 14th screening at DOC NYC, Filmmaker reached out to the San Francisco-raised filmmaker, whose impressive bicultural bio includes five years working in Beijing’s underground documentary movement.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“The History of Racist Ideas”: Roger Ross Williams on Stamped From the Beginning

Though I’ve not read Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s New York Times bestseller Stamped From the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, I’m guessing the National Book Award-winner might not be the most obvious material for the big screen. Which is why I was a bit surprised when I finally watched the TIFF-debuting Netflix doc Stamped From the Beginning, Roger Ross Williams’ cinematic and often playful take on the professor-author’s quite heavy subject matter. Indeed, any film that opens with its (Black) director ambushing his (Black) talking heads with the query/salvo, “What is wrong with Black people?” is announcing a rather anti-staid-academic vibe. To learn all about weaving archival footage with intellectual interviews (mostly with Black, female Ph.D. heavyweights, including Imani Perry and Angela Davis), and reenactments with evocative animation — all set to a lively hip-hop score, Filmmaker caught up with the unbelievably busy, Oscar-winning director-producer-writer (whose Cassandro and Love to Love You, Donna Summer —not to mention The 1619 Project television series — also released this past year). Stamped From the Beginning hits theaters on November 10th with a Netflix global release to follow on November 20th.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Cannot Underestimate the Collective Power of Those Who Have No Access to Power”: Tana Gilbert Discusses Malqueridas

A heartfelt departure from the prison life documentaries that have become so ubiquitous in recent years, Tana Gilbert’s Malqueridas takes a novel approach to this thorny topic through a most unusual lens. Comprised solely of clandestinely shot cellphone footage — in its original vertical format — from inside a Santiago women’s prison by incarcerated mothers, the film is narrated by “Karina,” a mom who spent six years behind bars. In the film, she voices the experience of and for the collective whole, specifically the 20 or so women who participated in “extensive conversations” during the film’s research phase. This makes Malqueridas not just a fascinating glimpse into a little-seen world, but also a rare testament to directorial empathy — with the Chilean filmmaker staying as far from the frame and hands off the story, which does not belong to her, as she possibly can. Shortly after Malqueridas premiered at Venice, Documentary reached out to the debut feature filmmaker, whose shorts have screened internationally, including at Hot Docs and Chicago IFF, to learn all about bringing this “illegal” film (phones are banned in Chile’s prisons) to the big screen. Malqueridas is playing next at IDFA.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Behind the Lens at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival 2023

As the US’s largest university-run fest, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 21-28) smartly caters to an overwhelmingly collegiate audience, which means bringing in loads of celebrities for red carpet events (Kevin Bacon! Ava DuVernay! Eva Longoria!) balanced with veteran Hollywood craftspeople for numerous nuts and bolts panels (this year’s Artisans series included “The Creators of Worlds: The Artisans of Oppenheimer”). Not to mention there’s a puppy dog enthusiasm with which these young industry aspirants gobble up the eight-day “celebration of cinematic excellence.” It’s both contagious and, for someone like me long past their dorm room years, dauntingly exhausting. (FOMO on steroids is the cliche that most comes to mind.) That said, even the most jaded critic (i.e., me) can be impressed. Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon showed up this 26th edition for the “homecoming” of their Savannah-shot May December, which boasted an impressive 80-plus Savannah College of Art and Design students, faculty and alum behind the scenes. And also in front of the lens — D.W. Moffett, who plays Tom Atherton, ex to Julianne Moore’s Gracie, is the chair of film and television at the school. Moffett also played host to our (too-early-on-a-Monday-morning) Hollywood backlot tour, the centerpiece of which was an impressive replica of...Savannah. (Luckily, there was also enough coffee and catering for my brain to digest this surreal touch.)

To read the rest of my coverage visit Filmmaker magazine.

“My Film is For the Pigs”: Heather Dewey-Hagborg on Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is on a mission to confront the uncomfortable future, especially when it comes to emerging tech. Stranger Visions features portrait sculptures crafted from analyses of genetic material the transdisciplinary artist, educator and filmmaker literally picked up in public places (one person’s discarded cigarette butt is another’s way into a stranger’s DNA). T3511, a collaboration with cinematographer Toshiaki Ozawa (Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog), sees an anonymous saliva sample become fodder for the alchemizing of the perfect romantic partner. Now there’s Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, perhaps Dewey-Hagborg’s most ambitious work to date. Opening at NYC’s Fridman Gallery on November 1, the multimedia project includes a short documentary/personal narrative set to an original score alongside a set of (robotically-constructed and clay-fired) “memorial pig sculptures,” which allude to the xenotransplantation topic at hand as well as the question of whether genetically engineering bovine for the sole purpose of harvesting hearts for human transplantation is the ethical easy call Big Tech would like us to make (and believe). Just prior to the artwork’s New York debut, Filmmaker reached out to Dewey-Hagborg to learn more about “enmeshing the scientific and the personal” to shape a career in “biopolitical art.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.