Documentary
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A Rogue’s Gallery of Gorgeousness: Charles Atlas and Antony’s Turning
It’s been a banner year for Charles Atlas. In 2012, the filmmaker and video artist was included in the Whitney Biennial, opened his first New York solo show, “The Illusion of Democracy” (the inaugural show of Lurhring Augustine’s brand new Bushwick gallery, no less), had seminal, rarely-screened works revived care of keen programming at local NYC film series’ Dirty Looks and Light Industry, and is now unveiling his long-awaited collaboration with enigmatic singer/musician Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons), which opens today at IFC Center. Turning, which had its New York premiere this past weekend at DOC NYC, is […]
by Paul Dallas on Nov 16, 2012 -
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz on The Law in These Parts
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s The Law in These Parts sheds new light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an unexpected perspective. Interviewing nine military judges, the director explores how Israel created a new legal system to control the Gaza Strip and West Bank after occupying them in 1967. At first, the state may have begun with the understandable desire to defend itself from violence, but its justifications quickly became self-serving. In one of the film’s most memorable examples, a woman was sentenced to a year and a half in jail for giving a “terrorist” bread. The film consists of stylized interviews with the […]
by Steven Erickson on Nov 15, 2012 -
Five Questions with Magic Camp Director Judd Ehrlich
Competition in the performing arts is a staple of non-fiction television and documentary at the moment, but few works step back from the American Idol-style face-off to depict the literal beginnings of their performer subjects. One film that does is Judd Ehrlich’s Magic Camp, a documentary about Tannen’s Magic Camp, a week-long event for budding young magicians where kids learn both stagecraft and sleight-of-hand from an illustrious group of visiting professionals. Ehrlich attended Magic Camp when he was young, and when he became a documentary filmmaker — his previous credits include Mayor of the West Side and Run for Your Life — he knew he had to return to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 9, 2012 -
ro*co Goes iTunes
“I think we, as an independent filmmaking community, focus way too much on the U.S.,” says Annie Roney, the Sausalito-based founder of documentary foreign sales agent and distributor ro*co films. “There’s a whole big world out there of potential viewers for documentaries. And I think the hunger for them is growing worldwide in the same way that it is here.” Helping to quench that hunger is a new partnership between ro*co and the London-based Bertha Foundation that will enable films from the ro*co catalog to be available digitally in international markets via iTunes. “We share a common goal with The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2012 -
Physical Therapy
Jessica Yu revisits the subject of her own Academy Award-winning short documentary Breathing Lessons by speaking with writer/director Ben Lewin, whose The Sessions brings the story of the paralyzed poet Mark O’Brien to dramatic life.
by Jessica Yu on Nov 1, 2012 -
Half the Sky & Social Documentary Transmedia
One of the most intriguing things about transmedia when compared to traditional film, particularly documentary, is that through its multiple entry points and interactive experiences it has the potential to more fully engage viewers in causes. It doesn’t just inspire people to action, in other words; at its best, it gives them the tools and initial opportunities to take action then and there. Such is the case with Half the Sky, a four-hour film and transmedia property that airs in two parts tonight and tomorrow on PBS. In fact, it may be possible that Half the Sky is the most […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 1, 2012 -
Trailer Watch: Blood Brother
A month ago, director Steve Hoover wrote an excellent guest post for the Filmmaker site talking about the experience of making Blood Brother, the documentary about his childhood friend Rocky Braat, who moved to India to look after AIDS orphans. This week I got word from Hoover that a new trailer for the film has arrived, which you can watch below. Look out for Blood Brother early next year, when it should premiere at one of the winter festivals.
by Nick Dawson on Sep 28, 2012 -
Peter Nicks, The Waiting Room
If you’ve ever endured an hours-long wait at the emergency room of a city hospital— sick, injured, frustrated — or accompanied someone on an infuriating quest to find urgent medical help, then you’ve probably wondered aloud, why is it taking so long? In his enthralling new documentary The Waiting Room, winner of the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award at the 2012 Full Frame Film Festival, Bay Area filmmaker Peter Nicks wheels us into the chaotic emergency room of a teeming public hospital in Oakland, CA, serving a mostly uninsured patient population. Adopting an immersive, all-in approach that owes a strong debt […]
by Damon Smith on Sep 26, 2012 -
Eduardo Lopez and Wendy Thompson-Marquez on Harvest of Empire
My first ancestors to come to America journeyed on the Mayflower in 1620; it’s hard to have a heritage more firmly rooted in America’s beginnings and long history. Just under a hundred years ago, however, my grandmother on my father’s side left her native Holland and sailed into New York harbor, passing through Ellis Island before moving west with her parents. Growing up, I was much prouder of my Dutch heritage and status as a third-generation American than of my ancestors who established Plymouth Colony 300 years earlier. In the 1990s, I learned Spanish and spent two years living and […]
by Randy Astle on Sep 25, 2012 -
Steve James, Head Games
In my early teens, I played football at Moeller High School. Like most of the children who sought to play for the school that had for decades fielded one of the country’s preeminent high school football teams, the game consumed my life. For a brief period, I would have sacrificed anything to be a starting Crusader footballer. For a time, on the freshman team, I was. A mammoth child (I’ve slimmed a bit since then), although not nearly as mammoth as some of my peers, I played offensive line, where one’s head normally rams, time after time, against that of a […]
by Brandon Harris on Sep 21, 2012
