Authors — Lauren Wissot
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Hot Docs Podcast Festival Showcase 2023: Podcasts and Op-Docs at The New York Times: Meet the Decision Makers
An auspicious start to what turned out to be an insightful, audio-focused sidebar to the main cinematic event, “Podcasts and Op-Docs at The New York Times: Meet the Decision Makers” was the very first panel I caught during this year’s Hot Docs Podcast Festival Showcase, which spanned a whole two days across the “largest nonfiction fest in North America’s” 30th anniversary edition, April 27-May 7. It featured the Times’s Deputy Audience Director for Audio Renan Borelli and Op-Docs Senior Commissioning Editor Christine Kecher, in conversation with Media Girlfriends co-founder (and deft moderator) Hannah Sung. (Just the fact that it managed […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 11, 2023 -
CPH:DOX 2023: The Platinum Anniversary Edition
If there’s one thing pandemic shutdowns have proven over these past few years, it’s that (far too) many film festivals can just as easily be covered online. (Do I really need to hop on a plane and into a faraway cinema to view the latest Netflix Original?) That, thankfully, is not the case when it comes to the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, now in its 20th year and still one of the most punk rock rebellious events around, as evidenced by e.g. the fest’s decision this edition (March 15-26) to team up with Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the palatial contemporary art […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 5, 2023 -
“…The Costs of Turning Yourself from a Three-Dimensional Person into a Two-Dimensional Brand”: Miranda Yousef on Her SXSW-Premiering doc Art for Everybody
One of the most surprising revelations about the painter (and multimillion-dollar mass marketer) Thomas Kinkade, “the most successful artist of his time” according to the synopsis for Miranda Yousef’s SXSW-premiering doc Art for Everybody, is not that he was, well, “the most successful artist of his time.” Nor that after his death a decade ago from a drug and alcohol overdose his family discovered a secret trove of rather dark and sometimes disturbing work, images at complete odds with the sugary sweet depictions of small-town life that once graced the walls of the Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery franchises, a ubiquitous presence […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 13, 2023 -
“The Inspiration To Donate a Kidney Was Not a ‘Project’ To Begin With”: Penny Lane on Confessions of a Good Samaritan
The drive to donate a kidney to a stranger is not a desire I—nor the majority of the population, for that matter—can relate to. (But then again I’ve personally no great love for humanity in general, as arguably the planet would be far better off had we gone the way of the dinosaurs. And luckily for Mother Earth, we still may!) Which puts me at philosophical odds with veteran filmmaker (and main protagonist) Penny Lane, whose latest doc Confessions of a Good Samaritan is a deep dive into the science as well as ethical implications behind altruistic donation. It’s also a […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 10, 2023 -
“What Remains in the Body”: Maite Alberdi on The Eternal Memory
Oscar nominee and Sundance alum Maite Alberdi (with 2020’s surprisingly lighthearted The Mole Agent, which followed an endearing octogenarian with no private investigative skills on an undercover mission to expose retirement home elder abuse) returned to Park City this year with a much different follow-up. While The Eternal Memory likewise deals with both the joys and indignities of aging, Alberdi trains her lens this time on a dynamic duo who’ve been together for a quarter century, much of it in the media spotlight. Paulina Urrutia was (and still is) an actor and former State Minister, while Augusto Góngora was one of Chile’s most […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 25, 2023 -
“We Underestimated the Violence of the Regime”: Lina on 5 Seasons of Revolution
Like most conflicts heavily documentedby Western media, the ongoing Syrian civil war is one in which nearly all nuance has been left on the cutting room floor. Fortunately, Lina’s 5 Seasons of Revolution, a revelatory Sundance debut from a Damascus video journalist who (for safety reasons) goes simply by her first name, shatters the trend. Currently based in Europe, Lina spent 2011-2015 filming her country’s path from high revolutionary hopes to ultimately shattered dreams. But even more importantly, she did so in the most personal and truthful way, by turning the camera on herself and four of her closest friends—all educated, […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 25, 2023 -
“Independent Media Can Strengthen Tribal Sovereignty”: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler on Bad Press
While freedom of the press has certainly been a newsworthy topic these past few years, those of us in the US can at least take comfort in (i.e., take for granted) the fact that our First Amendment firmly protects this inalienable right. That is, unless you happen to likewise be a citizen of one of the sovereign nations sprinkled throughout this occupied land—aka Indian Country—where only a handful of tribes have seen fit to enshrine such a guarantee into their constitutions. Which is a problem not just for the average, truth-seeking Native populace at large, but especially for a dogged […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023 -
“I Realized That a Sauna Is Not Just for Cleaning the Body, but Also the Soul”: Anna Hints on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Debuting January 22 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is an intimate look at a tradition that UNESCO has added to its “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” This might appear to be a heavy designation for a way to sweat out stress. Unless, of course, one happens to be South Estonian like director Anna Hints, who grew up with the knowledge that for centuries smoke saunas have also been a place of life (birth) and death. For the small group of women that have generously allowed Hints to serve as a cinematic fly-on-the-wall […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023 -
“This Film Is Not Just for Disabled People, It Is for Anyone Who’s Ever Felt ‘Other'”: Ella Glendining on Is There Anybody Out There?
While many non-white, non-straight folks have long lamented underrepresentation in cinema, Ella Glendining has literally never seen anyone that looks like her on-screen—or off-screen, for that matter. (Yes, other similarly bodied people are indeed out there; along with fixit freaks like a Miami-based doctor who seems to have cornered the market on “limb lengthening.”) But this truth culminates in the biggest revelation of Is There Anybody Out There?, Glendining’s personal and illuminating non-fiction film: There truly is nobody out there quite like her, nor is there anybody out there quite like you or me. Filmmaker reached out to the acclaimed […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023 -
“I Was Blind to My Own Blackness by Apartheid’s Design”: Milisuthando Bongela on Milisuthando
The self-described South African “writer, editor, cultural worker and artist”—and now debut feature filmmaker—Milisuthando Bongela grew up under apartheid. Yet she also didn’t, at least not within the straightforward narrative of having witnessed a racist colonial regime heroically toppled by Black liberator Nelson Mandela. Indeed, the young Bongela wasn’t aware of her fellow Black countrymen’s struggle in cities like Soweto. But neither were most of the residents of The Transkei, an unrecognized Black independent region established by the oppressors to conjure the illusion that being “separate but equal” not only worked, but could provide Black people with a wonderfully blissful […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023
