DCTV
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“The Film Asserts a Clear Political Analysis of Zionism, and Simultaneously Does So While Asserting That No Human Beings are Villains”: Tatyana Tenenbaum on Everything You Have Is Yours
Tatyana Tenenbaum’s Everything You Have Is Yours centers on NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia, specifically her coming to terms, through her chosen art form, with the colonialism and cultural appropriation that birthed the Israeli folk dances she was raised on in Hawaii (by way of Israel/Palestine) and which she still deeply loves. It’s a maddening conundrum that likewise could be applied to the Jewish state itself. As Ahuvia reflects towards the end of the intriguing doc, “Palestinians’ lives are at risk. And Israelis’ lives are at risk because Palestinians’ lives are at risk.” And while much of the film is focused […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 2, 2025 -
“What is Remembered… Is a Political Act that Can Be Weaponized”: Vicky Du on Light of the Setting Sun
Vicky Du’s Light of the Setting Sun is both intimate and expansive, tragic and hopeful. It’s a globetrotting look at the filmmaker’s own family across three generations and a trio of countries: the U.S., where Du grew up; Taiwan, where her parents hail from and where many of her relatives still reside; and China, where 95 percent of the clan was massacred during the Cultural Revolution. It’s also a delicate unearthing, and a piecing together of personal history through archival footage and interviews with family members – some more reluctant than others to address the inherited trauma forever looming like […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 18, 2025 -
“Stereotypes Help People Delegitimize Other People and Ideas They Want to Distance Themselves From”: Michael Premo on Homegrown
While the eruption of violence at the US Capitol on January 6th left most Americans dazed and confused — and too many journalists and talking heads scrambling to dissect the psyche of the rioters as if they were extraterrestrial beings and not our actual next-door neighbors — multimedia artist Michael Premo had been listening and filming throughout the summer of 2020 with open ears and eyes all along. His Venice-debuting Homegrown follows three diverse (yes, diverse) Trump-supporting “patriots”: an excited young father-to-be (to a biracial child) in New Jersey, an Air Force vet and rightwing organizer in “liberal” NYC, and […]
by Lauren Wissot on Dec 6, 2024 -
Watch an Exclusive Clip of Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal
Filmmaker is happy to share an exclusive clip of Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s documentary King Coal, which opens at DCTV Firehouse Cinema in New York City on August 11 before a limited expansion. The clip details the history of West Virginia’s New River—”the second oldest river in the world”—and the discovery of coal in a tributary nearby. Watch the full clip above. An official synopsis gets into the film’s overall thesis: A lyrical tapestry of a place and people, King Coal meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 10, 2023 -
“I Realized This Was a Film Not Necessarily About Things Seen…But Things Felt”: Elaine McMillion Sheldon on King Coal
Like many Filmmaker readers, I first encountered the work of Elaine McMillion Sheldon a decade ago, when the West Virginia native landed on our annual 25 New Faces of Independent Film list in 2013. She’d just completed Hollow, which began as a documentary about her home state’s struggling McDowell County, and ultimately transformed into a sprawling interactive project; and per Randy Astle’s profile, “a community portrait that includes about three hours of video — including a lot shot by members of the community — audio recordings, text, photographs and user-generated material via Instagram.” Sheldon then popped back onto my radar two […]
by Lauren Wissot on Aug 9, 2023 -
“There Are Not Many Places in the World Better To Live Than Dublin Right Now”: Luke McManus on His Inner-City Doc North Circular
Regular Dublin folk, and the folk songs that have preserved their histories, guide viewers along the city’s North Circular in director Luke McManus’s first documentary feature. A three-and-a-half mile long loop separating Dublin’s inner city from its first hints of suburbia, the North Circular Road was laid in 1763 concurrently with the city’s South Circular Road, which now comprises residential homes and, until the early 19th century, largely ran through countryside. Due to its longstanding urban location, the North Circular has been synonymous with working class residents, leading to a broader public consensus that much of the road ran through […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 28, 2023 -
“A Club You’ve Always Wanted To Be a Part Of”: Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes on DCTV Firehouse Cinema’s Inaugural Film The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales
Founded in 1972, DCTV (Downtown Community Television Center) has the distinction of being one of the rare permanent cinema landmarks in NYC. Housed in a striking firehouse on Lafayette Street in Chinatown, the non-profit media center has long been the one of the most prominent documentary production and film education centers in the country. After a storied legacy of hosting various educational programs, folding-chair screenings, master classes, panel discussions and Chinatown-specific community events, on its 50th anniversary the building will now finally house its own specialized cinema. “We don’t make films for ourselves, we make films for people to see […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 22, 2022 -
Watch: Steven Soderbergh’s Music Video for DCTV’s “Histoire seule”
Steven Soderbergh continues being productive in new and unexpected directions with what’s technically (unless we’re blanking on something) his first short-form music video. (At the start of his career, he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Long-form Music Video for his work on the Yes concert video 9012 Live, some of which you can watch here.) The band is DCTV, headed by James Greer, a guitarist from one of the classic early lineups of Guided by Voices; recall that one of Soderbergh’s long-discussed, never-realized projects was Cleo!, a rock musical about Cleopatra with music by GBV mastermind Robert Pollard.
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 12, 2016 -
“The Line Blurs:” Morals of Filmmaking
“Anything that happens in front of the camera is some kind of performance,” said experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs at the top of Tuesday’s “The Line Blurs: Shifting Narratives in Filmmaking” panel. Sachs, along with Caveh Zahedi, Josephine Decker, Keith Miller and moderator Nathan Silver, spent an hour debating the division between narrative and documentary forms at DCTV. The evening was chockfull of quotable quotes as the participants reflected on their own work with equal doses of humor and candor. Zahedi, for starters, admitted that he initially considered documentaries to be “the autistic younger brother of cinema,” and only labels his […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 12, 2013 -
“The Line Blurs” at DCTV
Tomorrow evening at 7:30 pm, DCTV will be hosting “The Line Blurs: Shifting Narratives in Filmmaking,” a panel on the increasingly ambiguous division between fiction and nonfiction in filmmaking. It is a timely discussion, one that will probe questions as to whether or not a delineation between the two forms has ever existed, and why viewers and critics alike are bent on categorization. The panel will feature filmmakers Josephine Decker, Keith Miller, Lynne Sachs and Caveh Zahedi, with Nathan Silver in the moderator’s chair. Silver, director of Soft In The Head and Exit Elena, shoots without a script, mining the people […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 9, 2013
