Today, American Documentary (AmDoc) announced that award-winning independent filmmaker PJ Raval, known for directing stories of queer and Filipino communities, will receive the organization’s second Creative Visionary Award. AmDoc produces the independent PBS strands POV and America ReFramed , their robust educational and community screenings, and a suite of artist development activities. Last year, AmDoc’s inaugural awardee was producer Darcy McKinnon . Raval is a POV and America ReFramed alum with the GLAAD Media Award–nominated Before You Know It (2013) and Call Her Ganda (2018). The latter
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What happens when three’s a crowd in a marriage? One possible answer, as Elizabeth Lo finds, is to sneak in a special fourth person. In her sophomore feature documentary Mistress Dispeller , Lo peers into a new “love industry” in China by following four individuals: a middle-aged married couple, a mistress, and Teacher Wang, a professional “dispeller” hired to discreetly end the affair. The film lives up to its promise of “ strikingly intimate access ,” which almost feels like an understatement—particularly in the participants’ Chinese sociocultural context, as a matter of saving not just a
Few filmmakers have as recognizable a style as Bill Morrison. Those with even a passing familiarity with his work will think of degraded film stock, an aesthetic of cinematic ruination. And in film after film, reviewers invariably use the same words: spectral, haunted, fragmented, poetic. This reputation may give the impression that his work, for all its beauty and mystery, is fundamentally repetitive, a mere cycling of similar ideas and feelings. It is almost as if Morrison foretold this reputation during his first feature, Decasia (2002), the film responsible both for his renown and the
In Holding Back the Tide , Emily Packer’s “docu-poetic meditation on New York’s oysters,” the humble bivalve becomes much more than the sum of its pearls. Indeed, the experimental filmmaker has inventively chosen to reimagine the once ubiquitous mollusk as a queer icon, and cast the gender-fluid creature alongside a host of other thought-provoking characters, both real and fictional. We’re introduced to folks like Moody “The Mothershucker” Harney (real), who’s bringing oysters back to the average diner through his cart, taking inspiration from Thomas Downing, the 19th-century Black Oyster King
When good intentions meet bad assumptions on the film festival circuit By Samuel Habib, Dan Habib, Sara Bolder, and Jim LeBrecht Editor’s Note: The writers are the co-directors and executive producers of The Ride Ahead (2024), a personal-meets-political documentary following Samuel Habib's navigation into adulthood with the guidance of a community of disability activists. In June, we had our Washington, D.C., premiere of The Ride Ahead at DC/DOX Film Festival, following screenings at Hot Docs, Seattle International Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Boston, Sydney Film Festival, and
Today, Catapult Film Fund announces that longtime industry executive Tabitha Jackson is the newest member of its board. One of documentary’s most respected thinkers and funders, Jackson has a 30-year career spanning broadcast commission at the UK’s Film4 and Channel 4 and a relocation to the U.S. to direct the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. At Sundance, she initiated the Art of Nonfiction Fellowship and received plaudits for decrying the “hegemony of story,” shifting the Documentary Film Program’s mandate toward formal innovation. After seven years in that post, Jackson
Jean-Marie Teno is Africa’s preeminent documentary filmmaker. With a critical eye and a sharp wit, he questions the established truth, exposes the censored stories, and examines the past to comprehend the complex realities of Africa’s present. Teno’s films have been honored at festivals worldwide, and he has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at CalArts and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, and a lecturer at many universities. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ documentary branch. Teno’s best-known film is Africa, I Will Fleece You
Turbulence: Jamais Vu gracefully handles the balance of embodiment and empathy in its exploration of the feeling of disassociation that happens during a vestibular migraine. Wearing a VR headset, the viewer sits at a desk and is invited to interact with the objects as the narrator guides them through his experience. An edge detection filter and inverted image fed back into the headset distorts perception, and as the piece progresses, so does the disassociation. Immersive artists Ben Joseph Andrews (who experiences that condition) and Emma Roberts are creative collaborators who explore issues
The intimacy and intricate care that BlackStar puts into the organization and accessibility of its annual film festival make it feel like a deeply considered project brought together by so many experienced and attentive organizers. The ability to facilitate joy and safety in a gathering can create exponential space for growth, a bending of space-time that gives folks true time to be free and travel across waves of distant visions. Amidst all the vibrancy and energy of the people of BlackStar, I tried to see as many films as possible and will mention here films that I saw for the first time with audiences. Like the talks, the focus of many of the films was survivorship—they asked how we propel ourselves through truth and ethical pursuit in an age of disintegration and global instability.
Phantoms of the Sierra Madre Norwegian director Håvard Bustnes made his name with confrontational documentaries in which he explores the motivations of questionable characters, such as in Golden Dawn Girls (2017), which enters the dark and confused world of women from the far-right Greek nationalist party. At one point, he leaves the camera running when the protagonists think it’s off, which results in the most revealing segments of the film. In The Name of the Game (2021), he follows a popular Norwegian politician whose rise is halted by accusations of sexual harassment. Bustnes uses the