Documentary
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“This is The Kind of Thing I Want in a Restaurant:” Vanessa McDonnell on John’s of 12th Street
If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you may have a sense of the sort of family dynamics the harried environment can rapidly inspire. John’s of 12th Street, a dyed-in-the-wool Italian establishment in the East Village, takes this close-knit enclave to its apotheosis. As rendered in Vanessa McDonnell’s observational documentary of the same name, the restaurant is purely populated by the sort of old school New York characters that can only be regarded as a dying breed. From opening till close, McDonnell captures as many yarns spun over the tables as chicken parms are laid into the oven. In advance of John’s of 12th Street‘s world […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 10, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: DOC NYC Premiere Monsieur Le President, by Victoria Campbell
Premiering at DOC NYC is Monsieur Le President,” a film by New York-based visual artist, photographer and filmmaker Victoria Campbell. Check out the trailer above and the DOC NYC description below: Volunteering in Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, Victoria Campbell encounters Gaston, a charming voodoo priest who shows leadership during the emergency, and later manages to open a small, much-needed medical clinic with the support of a foreign funder. He becomes a local hero, a symbol of ingenuity in defiance of the failure of conventional relief efforts. Over three years, he also becomes the filmmaker’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2014 -
James Schamus on Why Money is not “Money”
Producer and screenwriter James Schamus hardly needs another skill set to add to his CV, but let’s go ahead anyway and add “economic commentator” following the premiere of his engaging, witty and nicely analytical two-part, “That Film About Money,” for the 20-episode We the Economy series. Premiering this week online, We the Economy is a collaboration between Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan. (Disclosure: I’m on the Advisory Board of Cinelan.) The series features filmmakers — both documentarians and fiction directors — tackling, in bite-size form, questions surrounding the workings of our global economy and financial markets. For […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2014 -
Five Questions for Merchants of Doubt Director Robert Kenner
It’s hard to think of a documentary that was more effective in getting viewers to at least think about altering their behavior than Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. If you walked out and didn’t change your grocery-shopping habits or scan a food label, then you must have fallen asleep during the movie. But Kenner’s follow-up, Merchants of Doubt, would seem to face a challenge in the “call to action” department. Here, Kenner deals with climate change, an urgent issue that requires not simply single actions but massive social and economic change to conquer. Climate change, however, is the film’s broad focus. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2014 -
Five Questions for Do I Sound Gay? Director David Thorpe
In 2014 it would seem there are few societal taboos left for cinema to explore, but journalist-turned-director David Thorpe has found one with his debut documentary, Do I Sound Gay? Exploring, historically and personally, “the gay voice,” Thorpe listens to himself and others to find out why many gay men wish they sounded like someone else. Columnist Dan Savage, Star Trek’s George Takei and comedian Margaret Cho all make appearances in a film that seeks not so much to shatter stereotypes as explore the complex meanings behind them. Do I Sound Gay? premieres in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Mavericks […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 7, 2014 -
Five Questions for The Yes Men Are Revolting Director Laura Nix
Five years after political superheroes the Yes Men (Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano) made everything all right in The Yes Men Fix the World, our planet seems pretty screwed up again. So, once more the two hit the airwaves, corporate board rooms and tabloid front pages in The Yes Men Are Revolting, directing their activist wit towards the issue of climate change. Along the way, they are joined by Laura Nix, who produced the previous film and this time directs alongside them both. Nix’s directing credits include The Politics of Fur and The Light in Her Eyes, and below she […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2014 -
Sunshine Superman Director Marah Strauch on BASE Jumping, Interview Technique and Recreations as an Imaginative Space
Piling off cliffs and from airplanes, locking arms in the air or tumbling singly, the divers in Marah Strauch’s compelling documentary, Sunshine Superman, are simply hypnotic to watch. Seen mostly in archival footage culled from 250 hours of material, their forms take on a near-abstract quality — a quality that seduced first-time director Strauch to transition from experimental installation art work to documentary film. Her long-in-the-works Sunshine Superman, about pioneering BASE jumper Carl Boenish (he coined the acronym, which stands for building, antennae, span and earth) and his wife Jean, is a mixture of love story, human mystery and extreme […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 4, 2014 -
Should Documentary Films Strive For Social Change?
It’s a widely recognized fact that today’s low-budget independent filmmaker can no longer delight in the luxury of simply getting from development through post. She may be the writer-director, but chances are, she also has a hand in the film’s grassroots publicity efforts and even its release. In the case of documentary film, some are tacking ‘public advocate’ onto their ever-expanding CVs. Aggregate, a Seattle-based policy firm that aims to promote social change, partnered with the True/False Film Festival to survey the 2014 filmmakers on how they saw their films in relation to public policy and advocacy. 56% of participants said they had no plans to conduct […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Aug 25, 2014 -
Camden International Film Festival Announces Commissioning Partnership with Al Jazeera Digital Platform
The Camden International Film Festival announced today a partnership with AJ+, the new digital platform from Al Jazeera Media Network. Submissions are now open for a competition that will bring five independent filmmakers to the festival to pitch short doc projects to filmmakers and industry leaders. AJ+ will then commission up to five projects, providing them with $10,000 budgets. From the press release: All selected filmmakers will be provided with an All Access pass to CIFF (September 25-28, 2014) and a stipend to support both travel and accommodations during the festival. This opportunity is for stories driven by strong characters, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: The Fix
Fresh out of AFI Docs is Laura Naylor’s The Fix, a character-based documentary about Bronx-based IV drug users with Hepatitis C who organize to fight this epidemic. The film screens in New York September 5 at 6:00 PM at Lehman College’s Lovinger Theater in a screening organized by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Public Health Program at Lehman College. It is free and open to the public.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 8, 2014
