Mo Scarpelli’s El Father Plays Himself, which premiered at Visions du Réel, is now at DOC NYC and will next be hitting IDFA, is one complicated multilayered journey, both logistically and emotionally. It began when Scarpelli (Anbessa, Frame by Frame) decided to train her documentary lens on a narrative feature in the making — specifically her partner Jorge Thielen Armand’s La Fortaleza (which premiered at Rotterdam). La Fortaleza in turn is based on the hard-hitting, hard-drinking life of Jorge Roque Thielen, the director’s father, who stars as himself in his own story. That “el father” remains as wild and unpredictable […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 13, 2020Mo Scarpelli and Alexandria Bombach are documentary filmmakers and co-directors of award-winning film Frame by Frame. The documentary follows four Afghan photojournalists as they face the realities of building a free press in a country left to stand on its own after decades of war and rule under the oppressive Taliban regime. The film had its world premiere at SXSW 2015, has screened at over 50 other festivals, garnered several awards, was voted one of the Top 10 Audience Favorites at Hot Docs Film Festival, and is nominated for a Cinema Eye Honors Award for Spotlight Doc. Right now, Mo […]
by Elaine Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg on Nov 19, 2015Atlanta Film Festival falls right on the heels of SXSW, and its penchant for women directors and strong female leads is refreshing after Austin, where lesser Indiewood bro-coms go to die and where this year even some of my favorite films veered into man-child territory. Kristy Breneman and Christina Humphrey, the two young programmers behind Atlanta’s welcome change of pace, have inherited the 39-year-old festival and are crafting an earnestly community-minded identity in the midst of a rapidly changing city. Its growth is in part due to the fact that tax incentives have enticed more productions from Hollywood to Atlanta […]
by Whitney Mallett on Apr 13, 2015