Documentary
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“…An Attempt to see Anorexia From a Perspective That Goes Beyond That of the Spectacle”: Moara Passoni on Her CPH:DOX Debut Ecstasy
Premiering in the DOX:AWARD main competition at this year’s (now digital) CPH:DOX, Ecstasy (Êxtase) is the astonishing debut of Brazilian filmmaker Moara Passoni, a longtime collaborator of The Edge of Democracy Oscar nominee Petra Costa (who serves as the doc’s producer). It’s a mix of fiction and nonfiction, of historical images and staged scenes, of autobiographical diary entries obsessively developing a “geometry of hunger” even as political chaos grips ’90s Brazil (and it’s all tied together by a stunning soundtrack, including music by David Lynch and Lykke Li). It’s also a startlingly unusual coming-of-age story, one in which the director […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 26, 2020 -
CPH:DOX Goes Live (and Virtual): Online Talks and Debates
CPH:DOX, having already established itself as one of the most cutting-edge festivals on the circuit, can now take the prize for the ballsiest fest around. As a global pandemic causes cancellations and postponements from SXSW to Tribeca on these shores, the feisty Copenhagen International Documentary Festival has nevertheless refused to concede defeat. Within hours of the Danish government announcing restrictions on public gatherings, the festival made an announcement of its own. CPH:DOX 2020 would keep calm, carry on, and simply pivot to the virtual world. And as manmade “natural” disasters are primed to become the new normal, it might also […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 19, 2020 -
“…A Forensic Tick-Tock of How Lies Spread”: Andrew Rossi on After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News
The information landscape has transformed with vertigo-inducing speed since 2011, when Andrew Rossi last looked under the hood of the (reality-based) news business in Page One: Inside the New York Times. And now that Edward R. Murrow is rolling in his grave (and Geraldo Rivera is most likely looking for ways to monetize that), it makes sense that Rossi would be the filmmaker to tackle today’s crisis of media faith with his latest HBO doc, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News. Executive produced by CNN’s Brian Stelter, the film takes a deep dive into the post-truth world that […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 19, 2020 -
Incendiary: Director Alexander Nanau on His Explosive Investigative Documentary, Collective
On October 30, 2015, at the Bucharest venue Colectiv, metalcore headliner Goodbye to Gravity bellowed lyrics denouncing widespread Romanian corruption, inadvertently foreshadowing what happened next. Fireworks were released, the highly combustible club went up in flames and people stampeded for the only, half-closed exit—Colectiv had received an operating license without also obtaining a permit from the fire department. Responsibility lay in part with the mayor of Section 4, the administrative district governing Bucharest, and protesters quickly called for his resignation, as well as that of the prime minister and minister. Inspections of more than 1,000 venues resulted in excess of […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 17, 2020 -
Watch: First Look Selection If We Say That We Are Friends in a “Socially Distant” Online Screening
Yaara Sumeruk’s short film If We Say That We Are Friends was scheduled to have its New York premiere tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look series. Of course, it’s been cancelled, along with the majority of the city’s cultural activity in the wake of the Coronavirus. But in what’s perhaps a forerunner of the way filmmakers may be responding to the screening cessations in the weeks ahead, Sumerek is going ahead with the event, but online, in a “social distant screening.” At 7:00 PM, viewers can click on this Vimeo link and use the password “Dine” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2020 -
“I Think the Public Deserves More Transparency”: Brian Knappenberger on His Horrifying Netflix Docu-Series, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez
The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is a six-part Netflix docu-series from Brian Knappenberger (Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press) that delves into one of the most horrific crimes to hit Los Angeles headlines in recent years — the death of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend after years of physical torture and emotional abuse. Taking as its starting point the courtroom drama of death penalty defendant Isauro Aguirre (after one too many outbursts from Gabriel’s mom Pearl Fernandez the accused murderers are ultimately tried separately), the series soon becomes something else entirely — a […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 26, 2020 -
“…We Wanted Our Cameras to Listen and Play Witness”: Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman on After Parkland
On Valentine’s Day 2018 the community of Parkland, Florida was irrevocably transported into the headlines. That was the day when a 19-year old gunman walked into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and took the lives of 17 of its students. In the aftermath of the horrific event news crews descended as grieving parents and children struggled to find footing in a new reality. And while a great many reporters packed up once the soundbites ran out, veteran journalists Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman stayed behind — and got to truly know the fathers and mothers and siblings, the significant […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 11, 2020 -
“Watching The Battle of Chile Helped Me to Have the Courage to Trust my Intuition…”: Petra Costa on Her Oscar-nominated Doc The Edge of Democracy
Access, access, access — be it physical, emotional, or preferably both — is the doc filmmaker’s equivalent of location. And Brazilian director Petra Costa manages to get it in spades. Currently streaming on Netflix, her Oscar-nominated epic The Edge of Democracy, the third film in a personal, award-winning trilogy that began with the 2009 short Undertow Eyes, followed by her debut feature Elena three years later, is easily Costa’s most ambitious to date. With fly-on-the-wall camerawork, and guided by her eloquent voiceover narration, Costa captures up close and in real time the democratic car wreck of recent corruption scandals in Brazil that led to the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 5, 2020 -
“I Believe That Stories Need to Try to Communicate Beyond Their Intended Audiences”: Sam Soko on His Sundance Doc Softie
Politics is a dirty business for sure. But too often we in America take for granted what younger democracies would view as unthinkable. That a strongman and his opponent might not broker a shared power arrangement behind closed doors. That police would not blithely shoot people who protest electoral outcomes in the streets. That one uncorrupt citizen determined to make change without paying constituents directly for their votes might be a viable candidate. These are the hopes and dreams embodied by Boniface “Softie” Mwangi, the grassroots activist turned politician star of Nairobi-based director Sam Soko’s intimate, Sundance (World Cinema Documentary […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 29, 2020 -
Impact Partners Executive Director Jenny Raskin on Financing, Fellowships, and Following the Filmmakers’ Lead
From 2018’s feature doc Oscar winner Icarus, to 2019’s Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary recipient Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, to the Sundance Grand Jury Prize nabbing Of Fathers and Sons and Dina (in 2018 and 2017, respectively), Impact Partners has been behind some of the most critically acclaimed nonfiction work of recent years. The company’s winning streak, however, actually goes back a decade, all the way to 2010’s Academy Award for Documentary Feature recipient The Cove. And Impact Partners itself goes back even further. Founded in 2007 by Dan Cogan and Geralyn Dreyfous with a mission to bring […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 25, 2020
