Live from CPH:DOX 2021: What to Attend Virtually (And for Free!)

"Reset!,” the theme of this year’s CPH:DOX, signals a focus “on a number of the most significant structural crises the world is facing today, but also on opportunities that arise and new solutions that present themselves.” This according to a recent press release quoting CPH:DOX CEO Tine Fischer, who will soon be leaving the festival she founded all the way back in 2003 to become the new director of the National Film School of Denmark. To say that Fischer is going out on a high – and highly ambitious – note is an understatement. Having ushered the 2020 edition seamlessly through its last-minute, pandemic-driven pivot to digital, Fischer and her topnotch team will now be presenting a hybrid fest comprised of artist talks, immersive experiences, 40 live debates and 180 films.

To read all about my (free to stream) picks visit Filmmaker magazine.

CPH:DOX 2021: Live and Inter:Active

After a full year of attending virtual fests – CPH:DOX 2020 marked the start – I can honestly say that the most exciting and unexpected upside has been the democratization of the film festival experience. A surprising number of fests have not only thrown open the gates of exclusivity, allowing non-jet-setting cinephiles to stream films at a reasonable cost from home, but also gone out of their way to make select portions of their programs free to the general public. And though it’s long been at the forefront of accessibility, the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (which takes place in a hybrid edition April 21-May 5) has decided to step up its own game this year, offering its usual wide array of topnotch panels free of charge, while also transforming the Inter:Active section into a globally available, all-live-event affair. 
 And of the XR program’s 14 “one-off social experiences that are different each time they are presented,” a good half I’ve tagged as intriguing must-sees – allowing participants to do such things as dive under Greenland ice to a Cold War research lab, explore the nature of Icelandic folklore with a Huldufólk, or even become a microorganism. No overseas travel required.

To read all my cyber suggestions visit Filmmaker magazine.

What to Stream at Doc Fortnight 2021 (The 20th Anniversary Edition)

Having rolled out its inaugural edition in the wake of 9/11, Doc Fortnight will now be celebrating its 20th anniversary virtually (from March 18-April 5), the result of another world-upending tragedy (politically and personally dissected in Nanfu Wang’s compelling, opening night feature In the Same Breath). And yet the full-steam-ahead spirit of MoMA’s Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media remains. The 2021 lineup, both eclectic and ambitious, spotlights 18 features and four shorts – another 10 films screen in the “Non/Fiction 20 Years of Doc Fortnight” sidebar – alongside a revival of Moroccan director Mostafa Derkaoui’s banned/lost/found doc-fiction from 1975, About Some Meaningless Events. (Portions of which, in a meta twist, are heavily incorporated into Ali Essafi’s Before the Dying of the Light, which premiered at last year’s IDFA and is also included in the Doc Fortnight program.) And while I’ve been sifting through my screener queue, searching for a thread to connect all the docs I can’t stop thinking about, it’s the utter lack of a common theme that I keep coming back to. But a handful of films have managed to take me out of myself, into worlds starkly different from one another, as well as from my own. Though perhaps cinema as travel is exactly the collective antidote we pandemic-weary need right now, at least until the arthouses fill up once again.

To read more about my must-sees visit Filmmaker magazine.

Whose Truth?: Allen v. Farrow

Allen v. Farrow is a disturbing docuseries, currently airing on HBO, that takes as its driving force the child sexual abuse allegation (emphasis on the singular) launched against the critically-acclaimed filmmaker by his likewise lauded actress partner. Unsurprisingly, watching the four episodes left me feeling pretty damn icky. Though not for any reason I was expecting.

To read my two cents on the controversial (propaganda?) piece visit Hammer to Nail.

Never really free: Do Not Split

CONTROL: A brief, yet far-reaching, glimpse into the 2019 Hong Kong protests as demonstrations escalate into conflict. With a running time of around one-third of the numerous feature docs that have attempted to make sense of the escalating authoritarian developments plaguing Hong Kong in recent years, Anders Hammer’s searing short Do Not Split gets farther than most. Both precise and concise – and with breakneck-speed editing and tense techno beats that make the life and death stakes utterly visceral – the recent Oscar-nominated film is a deep dive inside the 2019 youth-led protests.

To read my entire critique visit Modern Times Review.

Doc Star of the Month: Arlet Guallpa, COVID Diaries NYC

An omnibus project from the DCTV Youth Media Program, COVID Diaries NYC, which began airing March 9 on HBO, is exactly what its title implies — a cinematic journaling of sorts from five young New Yorkers (the team includes Marcial Pilataxi, Aracelie Colón, Camille Dianand, Shane Fleming and Arlet Guallpa, with original animation provided by Rosemary Colón-Martinez) forced to navigate the many landmines of budding adulthood during a once-in-a-century pandemic. Ranging in age from 17 to 21, and of varying backgrounds and ethnicities, the quintet all bravely place themselves and their equally struggling family members in front of the lens. Which ends up doing something surprisingly remarkable —shamefully exposing us viewers, and society at large, as well.

To read my interview with director/star Arlet Guallpa, the proud daughter of a bus driver and home-care worker, who with Frontline Family has crafted a loving portrait of her immigrant parents, visit Documentary magazine.

American exceptionalism is killing America

Russell T Davies’s British (by way of HBO Max) series It’s a Sin is as well-written, fun and campy as his late 90s Queer as Folk. Though QaF as a psychological horror film, with AIDS as the ticking time bomb under the table. Both rocked me to the core and inspired this latest pandemic reflection.