“We Created the Film to Address How Journalism Was Perpetuating Anti-Trans Bias”: Sam Feder on Heightened Scrutiny

As someone who started calling myself “bigendered” decades ago, trans visibility has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s a relief to no longer have to explain being nonbinary to puzzled and often dubious cisgender folks (gay and straight alike). On the other hand, it’s infuriating to watch as one’s existence is then abruptly erased and turned into an “ideology” by right-wing transphobes. And it’s downright demeaning to have one’s identity suddenly hijacked and transformed into a hip “cause” by cisgender liberals. (The dehumanization inevitably leading to dangers like the NYTimes breathless bothsidesism reporting on trans issues by cis reporters — though no doubt the equivalent would have occurred had the BLM movement been covered exclusively by white folks.) Everyone from haters to allies are so obsessed with pronouns and bathrooms (prurient clickbait) that the crucial bigger picture of bodily autonomy gets swept aside in the larger cis discourse. Which is why it’s so refreshing and empowering to sit through Sam Feder’s Sundance-debuting Heightened Scrutiny, an up-close look at levelheaded ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he embarks on a high-stakes journey preparing to become the first known transgender person to make oral arguments before the most consequential platform of all: the Supreme Court of the United States. And while the recent outcome of U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which SCOTUS upheld a Tennessee state law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors (though treatment for other medical reasons is still permitted), is disappointing, Feder is smartly less concerned with keeping score on the trans rights battlefield than with who is representing the team. Finally we, through Strangio, are the dignified adults in charge, taking the narrative back into our own hands and acting as the spokespeople for our own bodies, ourselves. (Here’s to the tattooed advocate following in ACLU board member Thurgood Marshall’s shoes.) Just prior to the doc’s July 18th opening at DCTV, Filmmaker reached out to Feder, who we last caught up with to discuss Disclosure, the director’s 2020 deep dive into how trans individuals have historically been depicted onscreen.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

‘Life After’ Review: Reid Davenport’s Powerfully Constructed Look at Right-to-Die Policy

Davenport is dead-set, so to speak, on putting the blame for a broken system where it belongs. Reid Davenport’s Life After is about bodies, specifically the inconvenient bodies that society is seemingly bent on eliminating rather than accommodating. Case in point is Elizabeth Bouvia, the quadriplegic portal through which Davenport dives deep into a topic that both liberals and libertarians love to champion: assisted dying. The documentary opens with early-’80s footage of the fiercely determined California woman navigating her electric wheelchair through a courtroom where she fights for her “right to die.” It’s a battle she would ultimately lose, and one imagines that her subsequent disappearance from public view was partially informed by her having to endure condescending questions from the likes of a “creepy Mike Wallace,” as Davenport spot-on notes at one point. What happened to the media-friendly, if reluctant, activist had been a mystery nagging at Davenport, who likewise has cerebral palsy, for a decade. Which in turn launched this very personal investigation to locate Bouvia or her family to find out if she was still alive, and, if so, if she was doing okay. Perhaps, then, Davenport could even pose to her a question that a straight, white, non-disabled 60 Minutes host would never think to ask: Would she have chosen “death with dignity” if society had offered her “life with dignity” instead?

To read the rest of my review visit Slant Magazine.

The latest episode of the Deadline and Nō Studios podcast Doc Talk is out!

And this week co-hosts John Ridley (Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave) and Matt Carey (Deadline's Documentary Editor) talk early Oscar doc predictions with a Hollywood clueless guest: Me.

Listen here.

“Mierle Does Not Fit Neatly Into Any Box”: Toby Perl Freilich Discusses Her Tribeca-Premiering ‘Maintenance Artist’ Starring Mierle Laderman Ukeles

It’s fitting that Mierle Laderman Ukeles is not a household name. The pioneering activist-artist has devoted her entire life and career to showcasing the behind-the-scenes labor—and laborers—crucial to any art project. By her way of thinking, manual labor in all its forms should be celebrated as an artistic endeavor. Toward the end of Toby Perl Freilich’s Maintenance Artist, its title a reference to Ukeles’s own as the first artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation, Ukeles says: “art can manifest the agency of individual citizens.” Rich with archival imagery, Freilich’s Tribeca-debuting doc is comprised of interviews with the now octogenarian (and not-so-retired) Ukeles, alongside various academics and fans. It’s a fascinating look at an undeterred feminist and advocate for the working class who constantly defied such easy labels. A conceptualist inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Ukeles is also a happily married Orthodox Jewish mother who declared in her 1969 Manifesto for Maintenance Art that the cleaning and caregiving that went into housekeeping and childrearing was itself a museum-worthy performance. As is the maintaining of communities as a whole, which led her to form what would become a decades-long artistic alliance with NYC’s often ignored and even derided sanitation workers in the 1970s. (Which in turn led to a backlash among certain feminist artists who wanted to keep that label male-free.) Just prior to the film’s documentary competition debut, Documentary caught up with Freilich (2010’s Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment and 2018’s Moynihan, co-directed with Joseph Dorman) to learn how she ended up collaborating with this unconventional and unusually empathetic character, who urges us all to “cherish the work of taking care.” For ultimately, “We are all maintenance workers.”

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“An Exploration of Whiteness and the Flattering Illusions of History”: Suzannah Herbert on her Tribeca-Winning Natchez

Suzannah Herbert’s Natchez is a multilayered, character-driven look at the titular town in Mississippi (U.S.), which is wholly dependent on a declining industry. In this case, the manufacturing is of whitewashed tales that have turned into hardened history. For generations, Natchez has been financially dependent on its antebellum tourism industry, in which hoop-skirted docents in grand mansions regale visitors with, as one knowing character puts it, a “Southern construct” that’s “used to sell tickets.” Unfortunately for Natchez’s bottom line, though fortunately for its Black residents and others eager to reckon with the past, fewer and fewer folks these days seem to be buying the Confederate dream. The film is a sensitive, sympathetic portrayal of a Gone with the Wind-cinematic city that initially made the Memphis-born Herbert feel “uncomfortable to the point of wanting to look away.” Just prior to the film’s Tribeca Documentary Competition premiere, Documentary caught up with Herbert (Wrestle) to learn all about her stellar sophomore feature. Last week, Tribeca announced that Natchez won not only the best documentary feature prize but also special jury awards for cinematography (to Noah Collier) and editing (Pablo Proenza).

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

“So Many Sequins!”: Penny Lane on Her Tribeca-Debuting Docuseries Mrs. America

Kudos to Anonymous Content and Fremantle for putting together a project focused on the most wholesome of beauty pageants and thinking, “We need the director of Hail, Satan? for this!” Indeed, while the idea might seem absurd on its surface, it’s no more so than the notion of married women from 18 to 80 (and up) going toe to toe (or heel to heel) in evening gowns and swimsuits, sacrificing precious time and exorbitant amounts of money for the chance to wear the Mrs. America crown. And veteran filmmaker Penny Lane, whose 2023 doc Confessions of a Good Samaritan followed her own quest to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger, if nothing else has a knack for always deploying patience and compassion in the face of the seemingly absurd. A few days before the June 8th world premiere of market title Mrs. America (parts one and two of a four-episode series, screening as a work in progress) Filmmaker caught up with the busy director who’s currently in production on her HBO doc Flaco, starring the titular Eurasian eagle-owl that broke free from the Central Park Zoo.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“It Became More a Story About How the Artwork, and All the Commotion Around It, Affected His Mental Health”: Ole Juncker on His Tribeca-Debuting Take the Money and Run

Ole Juncker’s Tribeca-premiering Take the Money and Run follows Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist to whom the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg loaned $83,000 — money that was to be tangibly incorporated into a specific commission for their 2021 group exhibition centered on the future of working life. (Which was not so creatively titled “Work it out.”) Unfortunately for the museum, Haaning decided to incorporate the dollars into his own personal life instead, though he did deliver a piece called Take the Money and Run — a pair of empty frames — along with an email explaining the artwork’s intent to spotlight the terrible working conditions that artists face. Needless to say, when Haaning subsequently refused to actually return any of that borrowed moola the Kunsten Museum called it something else and promptly sued. Cut to the international media circus, which couldn’t get enough of the art world’s David-versus-Goliath dispute, particularly the sordid accusations of con artistry and countercharges of corporate exploitation. (And extortion once Take the Money and Run went viral. Sensing a million-dollar opportunity, the museum offered to drop the lawsuit in exchange for taking permanent ownership of the work.) Though fortunately, behind the scenes was another Danish creative, a filmmaker with intimate access to the impish and erratic Haaning as well as the incredible patience and wherewithal to tag along on the unpredictable artist’s wild (and often self-generated) rollercoaster ride. A week before the film’s June 6th debut in the Spotlight Documentary section, Filmmaker caught up with Juncker, a graduate of both the Danish School of Journalism and the University of Missouri, who seems to have a nose for unusual stories. (Juncker’s 2023 doc The Most Remote Restaurant in the World focused on the chefs of the Michelin-starred KOKS as they set up shop in Ilimanaq, Greenland: population 53).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.