Gabe Polsky
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“There Are Unlikely Protagonists Everywhere”: The 5th Docs To Watch Roundtable at the 21st SCAD Savannah Film Festival
Celebrating its fifth edition, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Docs to Watch Roundtable is the number one reason I’ve been making the late October pilgrimage to Georgia’s charming city of (Spanish moss-draped) squares for the past few years. (That and the festival’s abundance of southern hospitality, of course. In addition to being the only fest I’ve ever been to that provides buffet-style breakfasts, lunches and dinners, guests are treated to some truly top-notch lodging. In my case, it was the lovely, Savannah River-adjacent Kimpton Brice Hotel, a mere five-minute walk from the fest’s Marshall House headquarters and the majority of […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 5, 2018 -
Mad Men: The NYFF’s Go-To Films (II)
Can we permanently delete the term “home stretch” in a festival context? All right then. In the NYFF’s final week, the best fiction in the Main Slate is stronger (arguably) and more obscure (undoubtedly) than just about everything that has come before. Products of exceptional minds creating in different keys, these three gems (Horse Money, Jauja, Life of Riley) do share some elements that could make them off-putting for the passive viewer. All bets are off for anyone looking for the expected visual and aural cues. Each of these directors builds a self-contained universe with its own rules of engagement. […]
by Howard Feinstein on Oct 7, 2014 -
Five Questions for Red Army Director Gabe Polsky
Gabe Polsky’s first documentary Red Army briskly reconstructs the story of the fiercely dominant Soviet hockey team of the late ’70s and ’80s. Out of the team, five players coalesced as an unbeatable combination, and their interviews form the backbone of Polsky’s story, fleshed out with a smart selection of archival footage from both sides of the Cold War. Teasing out hockey’s role as a not-so-subtle worldwide representation of the USSR’s success and masculine pride (per a song sung in archival footage by a boy’s choir, “cowards don’t play hockey”), Red Army is also propelled by the light director-subject sparring […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 9, 2014
