“We Always Sought Out Photos with Movement”: Klára Tasovská on Her “Nan Goldin of Soviet Prague” Doc I’m Not Everything I Want to Be

"The only way to survive is to take photos,” declares Libuše Jarcovjáková, the iconoclastic star/narrator/guide of Klára Tasovská’s visually arresting (and eye-catching titled) I’m Not Everything I Want to Be. Nominated for the Teddy Documentary Award at this year’s Berlinale, the all-archival film is a globetrotting, black and white trip back in time (primarily to the 80s and 90s) viewed entirely through the rebelliously inquisitive eyes of this “Nan Goldin of Soviet Prague” (in the words of curator Sam Stourdzé). And words. For not only did Jarcovjáková obsessively collect images of both her defiantly unglamorous self and her decidedly adventurous life, she kept copious diaries of that wild inner-outer journey as well. Indeed, throwing caution to the wind, the outlaw shutterbug goes from hanging out at an underground gay club in Czechoslovakia (a country where she found herself “zigzagging through totalitarian reality”) to escaping, via fake marriage, to West Berlin. (Which “might be a step into the void but it’s a step forward,” she notes in her journal with hope. Alas, capitalism also left Jarcovjáková depressingly disoriented, unsure as to whether she was “outside or inside the cage.”) And on to Tokyo as an unlikely commercial photographer, an unsurprisingly awkward fit for a creative who’s always used her art to discover her “true self.” (In fact, Jarcovjáková much preferred returning to an unpretentious janitorial job in Berlin — camera in tow of course.) Just after the film’s Berlin premiere, and prior to its CPH:DOX debut, Filmmaker reached out to the veteran Czech director (2012’s Fortress and 2017’s Nothing Like Before, both co-directed with Lukáš Kokeš) to learn all about cinematically capturing a larger-than-life lenser.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Jazz hands: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

GEOPOLITIC / How jazz music played a role in political manoeuvres during the Cold War. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, as the old slogan goes, and the murdered Congolese leader/assassinated civil rights martyr Patrice Lumumba is certainly the latter in Johan Grimonprez’s Sundance debuting Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. Nearly a decade in the making, the veteran director’s (dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, Shadow World, Double Take) cinematic reframing of history is every bit as grand and showy as its title might imply. (Not to mention as overwhelming as a doctoral thesis, albeit a groovy one.)

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

'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.