'Will & Harper’ Review: Will Ferrell Gets a Crash Course on Trans People During a Cross-Country Road Trip with One of His Oldest Friends

Director Josh Greenbaum was known as a documentary filmmaker before he shifted gears for “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” and with “Will & Harper” — a nonfiction buddy comedy in which Will Ferrell drives across the country with a beloved colleague — he returns to his nonfiction roots in order to confront a series of questions that seem as far from his comfort zone as they are from Ferrell’s. Questions like: How does a straight cis male of a certain age come to terms with the fact that one of his oldest friends has just come out as trans? And what will happen to their friendship when said trans woman refuses to stop for donuts? (Spoiler alert: Ferrell has a comic meltdown, declaring the whole trip “stupid” if he doesn’t get his Dunkin’).

To read the rest of my genderqueer critique visit IndieWire.

“As Authentic as Any Psychic Interaction Can Be”: Lana Wilson on ‘Look Into My Eyes’

A revelatory portrait of psychics and their clients, Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes is also an unexpectedly poignant love letter to the myriad artists and performers that fake it till they make it in NYC—as well as to the city itself. Birthed during the pandemic that took a particularly heavy toll across the five boroughs, the doc follows a group of psychics who are all movie-fluent performers who similarly view their low-paying, psychic side gigs as more a calling than a job. Wilson, along with her much-in-demand DP Stephen Maing (whose own Union, co-directed with Brett Story, premiered over the weekend at Sundance) takes us from readings with clients (selected by the filmmaking team from table auditions) in barebones rooms (sets likewise provided by Wilson and her crew), to the psychics’ actual apartments (it’s not hoarding, it’s NYC). In the process, we learn less about predicting the future and more about connecting in the present. As Wilson herself puts it, whether ESP is “real” might just be beside the point. A few days prior to the film’s January 22 premiere at Sundance, Documentary was fortunate to catch up with the busy director, whose impressively eclectic oeuvre ranges from 2013’s Emmy Award-winning After Tiller (co-directed with Martha Shane) and 2017’s Independent Spirit Award-nominated The Departure, to the celebrity-centric studies of 2020’s Miss Americana and last year’s Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

‘Gaucho Gaucho’ Review: Argentinian Ranchers Cherish a Dying Lifestyle in Western-Inspired Documentary

No strangers to Sundance, filmmaker/cinematographer Gregory Kershaw and filmmaker/visual artist Michael Dweck (2018’s “The Last Race,” 2020’s “The Truffle Hunters”) are back for this 40th edition with their latest unsurprisingly cinematic, nonfiction study “Gaucho Gaucho.” While the acclaimed duo’s previous docs were set at a Long Island racetrack and in the Italian countryside, respectively, “Gaucho Gaucho” is an “Argentinean Western” (according to the Sundance synopsis) that takes place in the remote plains of that faraway, South American land. And therein lies the rub.

To read the rest of my review check out my Sundance IndieWire debut.

“A Symphony of Echoing Voices”: Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó on ‘Agent of Happiness’

As a clueless American not previously aware that “Gross National Happiness” is a measurable index in the Himalayan country of Bhutan, I did a double-take reading the synopsis of Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Sundance-debuting Agent of Happiness, thinking that “GNH” might be the premise for some sort of dystopian fiction. However, I then realized that Bhattarai, a native of Bhutan, and the Hungarian Zurbó are the co-directors behind the critically-acclaimed, IDFA-premiering 2017 doc The Next Guardian. Like that Bhutan-set feature, which pits a Buddhist monastery caretaker’s expectations for his two kids against their own very different hopes, Agent of Happiness is an up-close character study in contrasts. In this case, we’re introduced to the titular agent Amber, a longing-to-be-married, middle-aged guy who lives with his elderly mom and works for a government that refuses to grant him citizenship since he’s a member of the Nepali minority. As Amber and his easygoing colleague Guna Raj travel throughout the tiny nation conducting the mandated Gross National Happiness survey, posing the same set of questions to rural farmers and city folk alike—from how angry or depressed they are to whether they own sheep—unexpected revelations unspool apace. Even as the key to happiness remains as stubbornly elusive as the keys to this “Partly Free” (per the Freedom House index) kingdom. Prior to the premiere of Agent of Happiness, Documentary reached out over email to the co-directors to learn all about their stranger-than-fiction collaboration. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“I Write Stories Using Light”: Asmae El Moudir Discusses ‘The Mother of All Lies’

Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir (2020’s The Postcard) grew up in a world in which images were forbidden. She had no childhood photos (save for one that she doubted was even her) and only learned as an adult of the shocking military crackdown that occurred in her neighborhood in 1981; not only were the “bread riots” absent from any school lessons, but only a single photograph managed to make it past government censors and into her nation's historical archive. So when her parents decided to finally move from her childhood home, the director-writer-producer seized the opportunity to both help out and potentially solve the mystery behind these unexplained erasures. Returning to Casablanca, she did what any dogged camera-carrying investigator would do, which is to try to get some answers to her burning lifelong questions from relatives, friends, and neighbors. But she also went one step further and did what only the innovative filmmaker daughter of a distinguished local mason could possibly do—she convinced her dad to rebuild their house and district, in miniature, complete with figurines of local residents. This doll-sized neighborhood became a lovingly crafted film set El Moudir could then use as a vessel to gently transport even the most recalcitrant and reluctant to a past too traumatic to exist. To learn more about the resulting nonfiction drama, The Mother of All Lies, shortlisted for an Oscar as Morocco’s official entry, Documentary reached out to the critically acclaimed filmmaker, who was bestowed Best Director at both Cannes’s Un Certain Regard and the 2023 IDA Documentary Awards. The Mother of All Lies next screens the Spotlight section at Sundance. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“The Good, Bad and Ugly of Organizing Against Amazon’”: Stephen Maing and Brett Story on their Sundance-debuting Union

Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s unsurprisingly riveting Union is the one Sundance selection most assuredly not coming to Prime Video anytime soon — or ever. (Nor I’m guessing will the doc’s producers Samantha Curley and Mars Verrone be receiving any Amazon Studios Producers Awards from the Sundance Institute. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bezos behemoth did try to bid for Union to then bury it.) As its title succinctly implies, the film follows a group of very brave, and admirably unrelenting, activist-workers in their fight to unionize a Staten Island warehouse known as JFK8 back in 2021. Calling themselves the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), and led by the media-savvy Chris Smalls, it’s the classic David vs. Goliath setup. Only with Maing (whose Crime + Punishment followed the NYPD 12 whistleblowing cops) and Story (whose The Hottest August deeply embedded the Canadian director in NYC) jointly behind the lens — and on the frontlines — there’s enough street cred between the two to inspire the unwavering trust of their rightfully vigilant characters. Which, in turn, gives the critically acclaimed duo access to a tight-knit world the Blue Origin founder might try to infiltrate but could never imagine. Just prior to the film’s January 21st (US Documentary Competition) premiere Filmmaker reached out to the intrepid co-directors to learn all about their teaming up to tackle this anthropological project and take on The Man.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“There Was No Backup Plan Other Than We’d Make It Happen Somehow”: Natalie Rae and Angela Patton on Their Sundance-Debuting Daughters

Filmed over a remarkable eight years, Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s Sundance-premiering Daughters is an on-the-ground (and behind the bars) look at the preparations — physical, mental and above all emotional — leading up to the DC-jail-based Daddy Daughter Dance, the culmination of a fatherhood program for the incarcerated. Following Aubrey, Santana, Raziah, and Ja’Ana — four “at-promise” girls ranging from tiny to teenage — and the respective dads who are desperate to bond with them (and are serving sentences that likewise range in years) the doc is every bit as inspiring as one would expect from a co-director (Patton) who is also the CEO of a nonprofit called Girls For A Change. But also heartbreaking, infuriating, and downright revelatory in its characters’ trajectories. As vérité as life itself. Prior to the film’s (January 22nd) US Documentary Competition debut Filmmaker reached out to Patton, who is also a speaker and author (and TEDWomen talker), and Rae, a women’s rights advocate and Cannes Young Lions nominee (twice), to find out how they joined forces for this unconventional nonfiction project.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“My Shooting Process Involved a Mix of Planned Setups and Spontaneous Captures...”: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen on Her Sundance-debuting A New Kind of Wilderness

Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness is a film structured in a way I’ve not seen before. With a title that likewise could apply to the psychic space into which the audience is thrust, the rural Norway-set doc is an intimate, first-person narrated, cinematic essay from a director whose story it is not. Indeed, straight from its bold opening, the viewer is left abruptly disoriented, forever second-guessing whose eyes we are actually looking through. It’s a deft structural feat that in turn emotionally transports us into the shoes of the free-spirited, forest-dwelling – and above all grieving – Payne family, five protagonists deeply connected both to one another and to nature; who are unexpectedly forced to find their own individual footing in a brand new dizzying world. Just prior to the film’s Sundance debut (January 19th in the World Cinema Documentary Competition), Filmmaker reached out to the award-winning Norwegian director to learn all about her multiyear voyage into the beautiful unknown.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Being a Latina Immigrant Offered Me Personal Insight Into the Culture That Influenced and Inspired This Great Artist”: Carla Gutiérrez on Her Sundance-Premiering Frida

Though 2024 marks seven decades since the passing of Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, it often feels as if the ubiquitous artist never actually died (or lived) at all. A feminist/Chicana/indigenous/disabled/nonbinary icon ahead of her (if not outside the concept of) time, Frida Kahlo has long been celebrated as more phantasmagoric myth than flesh-and-blood painter (as opposed to her corporeal hubby Diego Rivera). So how does a filmmaker go about capturing and confining such an ethereal figure to the screen? If you’re the multi-award-winning editor Carla Gutiérrez (Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s RBG and Julia) you compile and compose as much Frida-generated material as seemingly possible: letters, essays, her personal diary (and sketches and paintings from that diary); and also nearly 50 original paintings and sketches (and around half a dozen Rivera murals). Then you add in first-person accounts from Kahlo’s colleagues and intimates (and very intimate intimates) and arresting archival photos. Finally, you complete your topnotch, mostly Latinx team with Mexican animators and a lyrical narrator to guide us through this wonderland that was the fiery legend’s real magical world.

Just prior to the Sundance premiere of Frida (January 18th in the US Documentary Competition) Filmmaker reached out to the veteran editor to learn all about her own artistic journey to this auspicious, all-archival directorial debut. (Produced by Imagine Documentaries and TIME Studios, in association with Storyville Films, Frida also hits Prime Video on March 15th.) To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

¡VIVA MAESTRO!

With all the Oscar season hoopla surrounding Netflix release Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein-centered bio-rom-drama, it’s a good time to revisit Ted Braun’s 100% Rotten Tomatoes-fresh ¡Viva Maestro!, currently streaming across a number of platforms (and Netflix competitors, including Max, Prime Video, Vudu and Apple TV). The 2022 doc follows the world-renowned (and unexpectedly zen) Venezuelan conductor and violinist Gustavo Dudamel as he circles the globe in an effort to spread the gospel of music. Until deadly protests throughout his home country threaten to derail the decidedly apolitical mission.

To read the rest of my review visit Hammer to Nail.

Personal truth and consequences: Transition

Perhaps the most unnervingly unexpected film I stumbled upon in 2023, Monica Villamizar and Jordan Bryon’s Transition follows co-director Bryon, a veteran Australian journo granted exclusive access to a group of Talib fighters just as Afghanistan is collapsing back into their human rights-abusing hands. Which is a complicated situation for any Western reporter to be in, but especially for Bryon, who happens to be a trans man passing as a cis man in this lethally patriarchal world.

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.

A Conversation With Patricio Guzmán (Dreaming Of Utopia: 50 Years Of Revolutionary Hope And Memory)

Dreaming of Utopia: 50 Years of Revolutionary Hope and Memory was the outsized title for an equally ambitious nonfiction program presented throughout venues across NYC this past fall. In commemoration of “the first September 11th” – the 1973 coup d’état by the CIA-backed General Augusto Pinochet, which overthrew Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende – Icarus Films teamed up with Cinema Tropical to present weeklong (newly restored in 4K) theatrical runs of Patricio Guzmán’s The First Year (1971), along with the exiled Chilean filmmaker’s critically acclaimed three-parter The Battle of Chile (1975-1979); as well as special screenings of Nostalgia for The Light (2011), The Pearl Button (2014), The Cordillera of Dreams (2019) and My Imaginary Country (2022). And then in November IDFA likewise paid tribute to Chile’s great nonfiction icon, showcasing The First Year in its “Focus: 16 Worlds on 16” program (“reflecting on 100 years of 16mm since Kodak introduced this film format”). So to mark these momentous occasions I reached out to the now octogenarian, master documentarian himself to learn a bit more about his own historical journey. (Special thanks to Cinema Tropical’s assistant director Samuel Didonato who provided translation.)

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.