In 1976, German screenwriter/producer Peter Märthesheimer wrote the punchily titled essay “What Can the Hero Do? He Can Change the World! A Few Problems Concerning Drama Production.” He began: Many television plays, good and bad, have come about because a drama producer or script-writer has said at some time or other, ‘Something ought to be made about…’ Then a so-called ‘theme’ usually follows, a ‘problem’ which the person who thought it so serious that he wanted to ‘make something about it’ considers relevant […] Now there would be nothing against this approach, which cautiously and discerningly commits itself to the […]

For its 15th edition, the doc-centric, hybrid-friendly annual True/False Film Fest has unveiled a lineup of 40 features, with no less than six world premieres. Black Mother, Khalik Allah’s keenly-awaited follow-up to Field Niggas, is one, as is América, the feature debut from Chase Whiteside & Erick Stoll (profiled in last year’s 25 New Faces of Film). Here’s the lineup; shorts will be announced tomorrow, with the full schedule released on Saturday. For more information, visit the festival’s website. Adriana’s Pact (dir. Lissette Orozco; 2017) The director idolized her glamorous aunt, whose political past holds dark secrets. (Presented by the Kinder Institute on […]

In the past decade, I have screened thousands of documentary festival submissions. That amounts to countless hours of observing — or, more often than not, being told about — the horrifying effects of war, discrimination, depression, censorship, animal slaughter, plastic bottles, shoddy reporting, asbestos and mountaintop removal. Befitting this past decade of “hope,” I have also been given the tools to fix those problems: a program I can donate to, a message to spread to my community, a website I can visit to learn more. Nearly every one of these films has failed to leave an impression. They don’t make […]

Throughout this year’s Neither/Neither program at the 13th annual True/False Film Festival, I found myself frequently calling to mind storied Los Angeles film curator John Fles’ concept of “analytic programming.” Far less pedantic than the label suggests, Fles’ directive calls, quite simply, for the curatorial consideration of films with “subjects usually tabooed” — works of artistic merit that, when investigated at all, are generally “dealt with a kind of academic-aesthetic paternalism which robs these often wild films of their real content: as blasters of the traditional mores.” To say that this year’s Neither/Nor titles blasted traditional mores would be an understatement. The four […]

One of my favorites at True/False, Sergio Oksman’s O Futebol constructs/chronicles the director’s reunion with his long-out-of-touch father. After 20 years based in Madrid, Oksman has returned to São Paulo to spend a month watching all the 2014 World Cup games with his father. Even in a nation as soccer-crazed as Brazil, Oksman senior’s recall is massive: of a potential challenger for his claim to ultimate knowledge, he responds, “Let’s see if he knows who was the referee of the 1954 Fourth Centenary Cup final.” Father and son never do make it to the stadium — dad says he’s too busy, and then […]

It was a very good year for True/False, but I’ll save the taking-fest-temperature overview for our next print issue. In starting to sort through this year’s films, therefore, I need some kind of arbitrary framework that will provide the illusion of meaningfully segueing from one work to another. In this dispatch, I’ll be focusing on the thorny subject of what happens when documentaries do — or antagonistically don’t — try to serve as compassionate ambassadors to the world on behalf of their subjects. Unambiguous  Sympathy Christopher LaMarca and Jessica Dimmock’s The Pearl is a nighttime movie, all quiet, warmly illuminated interior spaces populated by a self-supporting […]

Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake and Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas are radically different films. Lee assembles footage of the making of Transformers: Age of Extinction and related materials to delve into how Michael Bay’s hyper-blockbuster took over cities all over the globe and made deals with their governments to save money; Allah’s film is an hour-long piece of street portraiture from 125th and Park in Harlem, giving voice to the routinely marginalized. What they have in common is that they both initially launched online before receiving festival play. Lee’s film is still online, while Allah has pulled his movie […]

Laurent Bécue-Renard’s Of Men and War is an immersive look at group therapy conducted at a California residential facility for young soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their stories are, predictably, horrific — a man trying to catch a fellow soldier’s brain as it fell out is typical — and it’s extremely difficult for others to understand what they’re experienced. Veterans talk amongst themselves in often grueling sessions, storming out for a smoke when it becomes too much. One man says he only gets three questions from civilians: did you kill someone, why did you kill them, and if there was any way not to kill […]