H (2022) CIFF 2022

 Director Carlos Pardo Ros tries to sort the time immediately before the death of a man known briefly only as H. He was killed during the running of the bulls when he was thrown and gored. Using eyewitness testimony and recreations he recreates the night before the tragedy.

Low key and meditative look at what might have happened to a relative many years ago.  This is a documentary that leans very much toward being a tone poem. It's an achingly beautiful film that you fall into. This is a film that is just as much about the telling as the tale with the result is a film that alters your head space. This is a grand tale that you cling to and want to revisit repeatedly.

I absolutely love this film a great deal

Recommended.

A Cop Movie (2021) Camden International Film Festival

This is the story of two police officers in Mexico city that is tols through documentary, recreation and impressionistic passages.

This intriguing documentary melds a straight forward approach with something else. Its an attempt to make physical the feel and head space of what it’s like to be a cop. We don’t just see the tasks of the job but see the reactions of the public and other officers. We get to know what the officers really feel.

I liked this film a great deal but to be completely honest I need to see the film. Because of scheduling issues I had one pass through the film, which bothered me because I was half way into the film before it clicked. Its all my fault, I thought the film was going to be something different than it was and as a result I didn’t give it a completely fair shake. I really need…nay want to see it again.

Recommended

Listening to Kenny G (2021) Camden International Film Festival

 I went into this film figuring it was a goof. I figured it was going to be  bio of Kenny G. I was shocked to find it was something more. This  is not a straight bio but something more its an examination of how one artist interacts with his fans and his critics. 

Yes this is a bio, but that's not what you'll remember. What you are going to remember is the critics and the comedians throwing brick bats at Kenny G, and Kenny taking it all in stride. He is fine with people not liking his music. I know you're saying of course he is because it pays him so well, but his acceptance is some where beyond that. He cares more about the joy than the hatred. Its a an attitude that makes the nastiness of Pat Metheny  toward Kenny something that is too much for some of Kenny's critics. He isn't that bad.

For me the real interesting turn f the film is the constant examination of how an artist and his or her critics interact. Should we be throwing brick bats at the things we don't like? Do critics even matter? As someone who throws his opinion out there its a discussion that hit home.

Beyond that this is just a nice portrait of a nice guy. Sure Kenny G can seem a bit bland, but that's kind of to be expected. After sending all this time with him you can't help but like him. Though we really don't get to know him really since there is no mention of his family to the point that its jarring when we discover he has a son in one quick bit. The film then promptly ignores him after that.

Honestly this is a really good film that you need to see. 

Recommended

Torn (2021) Camden International Film Festival 2021

17 years after Alex Lowe was killed by an avalanche in a climbing accident, his body was found in the snow. In the wake of the discovery his son Max, a National Geographic photographer turns his camera on his family as they unpack what happened and what it means now- especially since Conrad Anker who was with Alex when he died married Lowes widow.

A complex film about a mountain climber and the mess life he left behind. Its full of uneasy questions and very raw emotions. This is a film that is going to exhaust you with the emotional pain that is being thrown up by the look into how things played out. Consider that Max and his brothers call Anker dad and their biological father Alex. Now he has to  mourn a man he barely knew before he died. I as left feeling sad and depressed.

This is a great film. It is a film that lays bare the messiness of real life in ways few films ever do. We see how a family is forced to reinvent itself. It also shows how the pain of the past is sometimes best hidden. Its a film that has haunted me in the days since I first saw it. I'm still turning it over and over.

I highly recommend this film- however I do want to point out that you should not go into this film expecting a climbing film. While there are some sequences this is a film about the landscape of the human soul.

Archipelago (2021) Camden International Film Festival

 

A mix of animation and live action propel a meditation on fictional islands that exist in out heads, hearts and on paper. 

The best way to see this film will be a darkened theater where you can get lost in the magic of the story telling. Told through a series of conversations and speeches that tell us about imaginary islands, the film is one you need to give yourself over to. This is not conventional story telling since it uses animation on live action plates mixed with an ever changing image shape. We are not in Kansas and we are all the better for it.

To be honest I didn't click with the film at first but somewhere in the first 15 minutes it all came together and was willing to go anywhere with it.

Truly a one of kind viewing experience, this is a film you need to see instead of read about- and as such is very recommended

Citizen Ashe (2021) Camden International Film Festival 2021

Arthur chose to speak- what did you do? 

Portrait of tennis great Arthur Ashe that doesn't focus just on his tennis but the course he took off court in order to stand up for social justice in his own way.  

Excellent look at a man many people know for the stadium named after him. More a film on the man himself then the achievements he achieved in sports, this is a film that will reveal to many what a great humanitarian he was. It is a film that beautifully explains how is need to fight racism and justice in his own way ended up changing the whole world. 

The fact that Ashe wouldn't follow the more radical path of fighting for racial equality. As several people pointed out his seeming non-confrontational approach had him labeled as an Uncle Tom, however in retrospect the ones labeling him realized they need his ability to walk both sides of the barriers. They also pointed out that Ashe was the one who started to bring awareness about South Africa. Ashe was so important to that fight that when Mandela was released and came to America, he stopped what he was doing to go over and hug Ashe at a function.

The film moved me repeatedly to tears. The Mandela moment touched me. As did the bond between Arthur and his brother Johnnie. Johnnie knew what his brother was capable of and to prevent his getting killed in Vietnam he signed up for a second tour. It may not sound like much, but he clearly loved his brother and sensed his brother was going to do great things.

I truly love this film though the film stumbles slightly in the last third when the matches with Jimmy Connors shifts things away from Ashe the activist to Ashe the sportsman. The film also missteps by going into a coda about Ashe's books after the mic drop statement that heads this review is spoken. To me that's the perfect ending and a perfect summation of Ashe's life and we don't need to go beyond that.

Quibbles aside this is a great film and a must see.

The Faithful: The King,The Pope And The Princess (2021) Camden International Film Festival

 

The Faithful is a look at the cult of personalities for Elvis, The Pope and Princess Diana. It’s a mediation on images, memorabilia and their importance in peoples lives.

One part documentary and four parts essay this is the sort of cinema exploration that would play in an experimental section of film festival. The film is footage shot over several decades relating to the subject while writer director Annie Berman talks about the ebb and flow of her interest in the subject and related matters. It’s a kind of illustrated lecture.

Whether you like this film is going to be determined entirely by how you take Berman‘s presentation which is low key and bit rambling. My interest came and went. I kept thinking this would have been better if it was tightly crafted short  about  a third  of the  length. On the other hand I know from attending film festivals over the years I know there is an audience for this sort of thing. If you are part of it then this film is for you.

ADDENDUM
I was informed by the filmmakers that there was an issue regarding the Camden version. For some reason the audio did not sync with the image creating a trippy experimental feel. I will attempt to see the film again down the road and see if it changes my opinion,

The Real Charlie Chaplin (2021) Camden International Film Festival

This Showtime BBC produced film begins with an quote that warns that there are a lot of different Charlie Chaplins and that it is impossible to connect them all up. The film then tries to explore all the different Chaplins in an effort to find create a much more complex portrait of the actor than we’ve seen before.

Mixing contemporaneous interviews, film, the written record and recreations The Real Charlie Chaplin gives us a great deal to ponder.  We get a wide variety of differing views of Chaplin, from childhood friends to the FBI and everyone in between we get a look at the man that is not really like any other version. Its not a glossy fan based portrait but something closer to the man himself. Its also colored by the film’s examination of the Chaplin that is in the public eye. We see the man who was so popular that there were literally hundreds of rip off films.  

As someone who has been a Chaplin fan since I was a young kid, I was enthralled. While I have seen a lot of this before, there was a great deal more I hadn’t. More importantly the film is magnificently edited with several sequences delighting the eye with the magical way that they connect up all sorts of other wise unconnected films.

As a fan I was enthralled.

If I have to quibble, and in this case I do, the one thing working against the film is the narration. Much too low key and occasionally rambling, it seems intent of not pulling us into the proceedings as deeply as the images and the stories want us to go.  Its not fatal, but it makes an other wise excellent film just a very good one.

Definitely worth a look, more so if you can see it on a big screen where the film’s visual wonder can overwhelm.

Becoming Cousteau (2021) Camden International Film Festival 2021

 

Jacques Cousteau is one of my boyhood heroes. I grew up watching his TV show and watching him on the TV talk shows. He opened my eyes to the world in ways you can not imagine. He along with Muhammad Ali were the two people I regret not meeting. 

As you can imagine when I found out there was a documentary of the man I had to see it. Honestly I sooooooo had to see it it was the only reason I made a hole in my dance card to cover the Camden Film Festival.

Culled from hundreds of hours of film and video and hundreds more hours of audio BECOMING COUSTEAU is a film about the man in his own words and images. It does have the words of other people chiming in, but mostly this is all Cousteau.

I both loved this film and as disappointed. What I loved about the film was that the film brings us back into the world of the man himself. I never realized how much I missed listening to him talk about things until I saw this film. He was a man full of wonder and it bleeds off the screen. We also get a sense of how the TV nature documentaries we see today all come from him. If there was no Cousteau there would have been no Discovery Channel or Nat Geo. I love that we see how important he was to people in the 1970's. I also love that the documentary kind of takes the man to task for the bad things he did like working for big oil and killing many of the animals he was supposed to be studying. 

What disappointed me was that the form and structure of the film is incredibly conventional. Yes Cousteau created the conventions, but he did it by destroying out previous notions of what the form could be. I was hoping for something that was magical in form, instead of by the numbers. Basically I wanted something as special as the man himself. And while what is here is choice I would have liked more fireworks.

Then again I suspect that had I seen this on the big screen I would have loved this unconditionally.

BECOMING COUSTEAU is playing  The Camden International Film Festival before hitting theaters in October and is highly recommended

They Won't Call It Murder (2021) Camden International Film Festival 2021

 

This is the story of five people killed by the police as told by the women who knew and loved them. All of the killings should have been considered murder but were not. For example in one case a vice cop who was under investigation killed a woman at a sting. Another is the story of short teen was killed by a cop looking for someone who was a foot taller than his five foot two inch frame.

This is a film that needs to be made into a feature film. We need to know more about these people than the roughly four minutes each is allotted.  All our lives deserve more than mere minutes.

Quibbles aside this film is a kick in the gut. Short or no the accumulative effect is a deep sadness. These people should not have died, certainly not at the hands of cops who should have known better

The film is currently screening at the Camden International Film Festival (and other festivals soon) and is recommended.

Hopefully this will also get turned into a feature film

Underdog (2021) Camden International Film Festival

UNDERDOG is the story of Vermont Farmer Doug Butler. He is a man whose life is rapidly imploding as the bills are out pacing his ability to pay them off. Butler is always upbeat and always looking toward a brighter future. He is also looking to compete in the oldest dog sled race in America in Fairbanks Alaska. With his farm’s future in jeopardy Butler loads up his dogs and heads off to try his hand at racing.

This is a good portrait of a man just taking life as it comes. He is desperately trying to show a brave face but there are times we know that that much of his life is slipping away and that there is little he can do to stop it. Everyone wants their money and Butler can’t make it fast enough to pay off everyone with their hand out. It a sad portrait of our times, and we feel it more because we really like Butler and wish him well.

I should be honest and say that while the dog racing is thread through the film, most of the film is not focused on it, it only becomes the real focus in the last third. Its an interesting turn in a much too familiar tale of small farmers getting squashed.

To be honest I don’t know what I think of this film. While I very much like Butler, I’m not certain that there is enough here to make a feature. A huge problem is Butler is so low key and so easily rolls with the punches that there really isn’t enough conflict to make this absolutely compelling.  This is low key to the point of no key.  While none of it is bad, I mean I watched it three times, I simply don’t know why this is a feature film. Outside of showing us a really nice guy and the sled dog racing bit, there isn’t a great deal here. I suspect if this was reshaped to focus more on the racing this would have been a more compelling film.

Reservations aside this is worth a look if it sounds interesting to you

OSTROV - LOST ISLAND (2021) Camden International Film Festival

 Absolutely magnificent portrait of the inhabitants of Ostrov Island in the Caspian Sea.  Years ago the island was thriving community with a collective fishery but Soviet Union fell, people left, the farm was destroed and the authorities closed down the caviar harvesting. Those that were remained were left to fend for themselves. Fending means scratching out a bare subsistence and trying to avoid the coast guard, who will arrest them if they go to sea to fish (the government won’t grant them licenses to do so)

Beautifully shot film is a real slice of life. This is the arc of life on the island as we get to know the few inhabitants, see the rhythms and feel the pace of life. The images put us into the homes and on the beaches and we have a real sense place. You can feel the breeze and smell the food. Its an amazing achievement.

I love this film. I love how the film pulls us in and makes us truly understand what it’s like to be living on the island. Rarely have I ever walked out of a movie not feeling as though I was watching a film, but having gone somewhere else. OSTROV puts us in this other place.

This film is a stunner.

And when you see the film, stay with it. Yes, it can feel a little draggy. That’s okay. That’s what life on the island is like.  Just stay with it. I say that as someone who felt a little bored at times, I was tempted to wander off. However by the time the ending came I found I was deeply moved, just saying Wow over and over again. Not because it ended spectacularly but because I felt as though I was touching life.

Playing as part of the Camden International Film Festival OSTROV is highly recommended

Camden International Film Festival starts Thursday

 Starting Thursday is the excellent Camden International Film Festival… that’s Camden Maine not New Jersey.  I say that because every time I mention it  everyone I know says they didn’t realize that Camden (New Jersey) had such a great festival.

I discovered the fest a few years ago and fell in love with it. Here was a documentary festival that was showing the best of the best of the year and it was tucked away in a small town in Maine. How the hell did they get so lucky? I’ve been trying to cover the fest as best I can ever since.

This year the fest is both in person (9/16- 19)and virtual (9/16-29) so if you want to get ahead of the documentary awards talk go to the website and get some tickets.

This year our coverage is going to be small scale. We’ve actually covered a number of the films, see below, and we’ll be covering a few more depending upon when the screeners come in. I would like to do more but because of the way time has shaken out I am limited in what I could do.

For those wondering what we’ve seen previously here is a list of films we’ve covered. Just click on the links and you’ll go to out review.

AFTER ANTARCTICA
ALL THESE SONS
ASCENSION
EXPEDITION CONTENT
FATHOM
FAYA DAYI
FLEE
NORTH BY CURRENT
PAPER AND GLUE

For more information and tickets go here

Camden International Film Festival 2021: CIFF Announces Film Slate for 17th Hybrid Edition

 

Highlights include new films by Oscar® and Emmy® winners and nominees Liz Garbus, Bing Liu, Sam Pollard, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, and Jimmy Chin; acclaimed directors Robert Greene, Penny Lane, and Nadia Hallgren

Stand-out emerging directors include Cannes winner Payal Kapadia, Berlinale winner Alonso Ruizpalacios, Sundance winner Jessica Beshir, and Jonas Poher Rasmussen whose Sundance-winning animated documentary film Flee on an Afghan refugee is closing night

The festival and its concurrent Artist Programs will constitute one of the largest gatherings of the documentary community since the start of the global pandemic's impact in Spring 2020.

SHOWTIME® Documentary Films is the 2021 Headlining Sponsor

CAMDEN, Maine – Monday, August 23, 2021 – The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) has announced the slate of feature and short films for its 17th edition, which will take place in person from September 16-19 at venues in Camden and Rockland, Maine, and online from September 16-26 for audiences across North America. Longtime sponsor SHOWTIME Documentary Films returns as Headlining Sponsor of CIFF. The festival and its concurrent Artist Programs will constitute one of the largest gatherings of the documentary community since the start of the global pandemic's impact in Spring 2020. 

A program of the Points North Institute, CIFF is one of the top documentary film festivals in the world. This year's festival will present 37 features and 33 short films from over 30 countries. Recognized as a growing platform for championing the next generation of nonfiction storytellers, 52% of the films presented this year are directed or co-directed by POC directors. Since 2017, the festival has been committed to gender parity across all sections and competitions. 57% of this year's slate of films have been directed or co-directed by women.

The festival will open with National Geographic Documentary Films’ Becoming Cousteau, from two-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus, about the iconic undersea explorer and filmmaker who tried decades ago to warn the world about the climate crisis. The festival will close its in-person festival on Sunday, September 19 with NEON’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Flee. Recounted mostly through animation by director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, the film tells Amin Nawani's extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan.

Festival highlights include SHOWTIME Documentary Films’ new feature about the most iconic figure in film history, The Real Charlie Chaplin, in which directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney were given access to a personal archive of the silent-movie star that includes previously unknown material, Robert Greene’s latest feature Procession which explores the intertwined stories of six survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and National Geographic Documentary Films’ The Rescue by Oscar-winning directors Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasarhelyi about the famous 2018 rescue of 12 Thai boys trapped in a cave.

Nearly half of the feature films are presented as major premieres including the US Premiere of Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, which recently won the prestigious Oeil d'Or award for 'Best Documentary’ at Cannes, Hot Docs Grand Jury Winner, Ostrov - Lost Island by Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop, and Penny Lane’s Listening to Kenny G.

“Much like our festival this year, our 2021 slate celebrates documentary as a reimagining of the ways we engage with stories from both near and far,” says Ben Fowlie, Executive and Artistic Director of the Points North Institute, and Founder of the Camden International Film Festival. “As programmers, we have been transformed by these films. And in a moment when we are all feeling the forced distance between us, we are grateful to the filmmakers who have made these works of art, and shared these stories with us. Cinema is a beacon, and there is no question that the near seventy films that will be presented both in person and online at CIFF are, all in their own way, a light in the dark.”

As a leading showcase of international work, CIFF will present five North American Premieres including the Netflix title A Cop Movie by Alonso Ruizpalacios, which took home the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, Our Memory Belongs To Us by Rami Farah & Final Cut FOr Real’s Signe Byrge Sørensen, which received a DOX:AWARD Special Jury Mention at CPH DOX, Marie Amiguet’s The Velvet Queen, which recently premiered at Cannes, The Mushroom Speaks by Marion Neumann, and Roots (Koreni) by emerging filmmaker, Tea Lukač', set to premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival this month.

Storyforms, CIFF’s exhibition of immersive documentary experiences and installations will include a collection of work by Simon Liu, a film artist whose work has been featured at festivals and museums across the world for its exploration of his place of origin in Hong Kong through alternative documentary forms, diary films, and multi-channel video installations. 

In total, nearly fifty filmmakers are expected to converge in Maine for the festival, and films will be exhibited in person in four venues, including the festival’s recently built Shotwell Drive-In and a new pop-up cinema housed inside a 12,000 square foot boat barn located on the edge of the Atlantic designed with social distancing in mind.

Organizers also announced that it will continue with its Filmmaker Solidarity Fund, a one-of-a-kind funding model established in 2020 that redirects 50% of all revenue from CIFF’s virtual pass and ticket sales back to participating filmmakers. 

A complete list of the program’s feature films can be found below.

2021 Camden International Film Festival Features