Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are), the latest doc from Rachel Boynton (Big Men, Our Brand Is Crisis) unfolds in a series of revelations. The project was sparked in the wake of the slaughter of Black parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC during President Obama’s last year in office,and continued right through the domestic terrorism of the Trump administration. During that time Boynton took a historical journey, traversing the US from Massachusetts to Mississippi, with a singular question in mind: What’s the story of the Civil War? Or more precisely, What’s your story of the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Sep 17, 2021In a world of simplified, cable-news talking points, documentary filmmaker Rachel Boynton makes layered, complicated films exploring the nexus of politics and personality. With Our Brand is Crisis, Boynton — one of Filmmaker‘s 2005 25 New Faces — traveled to Bolivia to cover the 2002 election, embedding herself both within the campaigns of local candidates as well as the war room of hired-gun U.S. consultants Jim Carville and his GCS Associates team. Big Men, opening today, is her second feature, and it has similarly required an immersive, years-long process. She began the process of considering the film before its so-called […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2014