“A probing journey into the imperialist mindset”: Intercepted

“A Russian wouldn’t be a Russian if they didn’t steal something!” an anonymous woman wryly exclaims with a hint of pride in Oksana Karpovych’s Berlinale-premiering Intercepted, a probing journey into the imperialist mindset through a most unusual route. The film’s title is a nod to the trove of phone conversations, between Russian soldiers fighting and dying (and pillaging and looting) on the ground in Ukraine and the men’s often supportive (in denial?) families back home, that were intercepted by the Ukrainian Secret Service in 2022.

To read my review visit Global Comment.

“Nature Is a Concept That Exists to Divide Us From the Land”: Josh Fox on His Documentary Theater ‘The Edge of Nature’

Josh Fox’s (Gasland) The Edge of Nature is as description-defyingly complicated as the simple question behind its conception might imply: What is nature? It’s both a subdued, standalone feature-length doc consisting almost entirely of Fox’s narration and a Pennsylvania forest filled with equally alive beings; and a rousing theater piece with Fox reprising/mirroring his role onstage alongside an 11-member ensemble (from International WOW Company, the activist troupe Fox founded nearly three decades ago) who add an experimental, American folk music-filled dimension to the film playing above and behind them. The Edge of Nature is also an exploration of our long-forgotten, inherent integration with nature, intergenerational trauma, the effects of long Covid and even longer colonialism. Indeed, with the fast-moving urgency of a flooded Pennsylvania waterway, Fox and his team reconnect topics ranging from the climate crisis, to the Native American genocide, to the Holocaust, to the pandemic, to global corporate capture and the MAGA movement — all culminating in a passionate call to once and for all return humanity to its original role as environmental caretakers. Post-show Q&As frequently include climate activists and celebrity travelers such as Extinction Rebellion and DJ Spooky. To learn all about this multimedia extravaganza, Documentary caught up with the veteran director-playwright-environmental activist the week after The Edge of Nature’s run at NYC’s LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club, which critic Bernie Sanders succinctly deemed “great work.”

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.