The Family Statement (2022) Camden International Film Festival 2022

Damning portrait of the Sackler family, the family made rich by the Oxycodone. We see the family messages between the family members as they try to hammer out a statement about their liability and connection to the opioid crisis over two years. The film ends with the actual statement.

If you didn't have enough reason to hate the Sacklers, this film will push you closer to the edge as the group tries to sort out what will get them into the least amount of trouble. Its clear from the start  they knew they were in the wrong but they wanted to keep their cash.

Inter-cut with the messages are statements by people affected by drug addiction. It hammers home how much damage the family has caused.

I don't know what to say.  The Sacklers are rich evil bastards and as can be seen here, their words confirm it.

This is a must see because it reveals just  how bad rich families are.

This Much We Know (2022) CIFF 2022

Director Lily Frances Henderson tries to sort out the death of a friend by looking at the death Levi Presley, who also took his life in Las Vegas.

Bleak and unbelievably sad film will leave you shaken . It's a film will make you never want to go to Las Vegas ever again and shake what you think you know about the people around you. The film will also completely freak you out with it's look at nuclear waste, which is being stored  in the mountains not far from Las Vegas.

I don't know how to write this film up. My thoughts on the film are more a deep sense of sadness for everyone as they try to come to terms with the death of a loved one. Its a place I don't like being in because it raises a lot of questions that don't have answers and leave us feeling uncertain. 

I think it's brilliant film, but since this is such a troubling topic and one that not everyone will want to handle, especially in a film as effecting as this. I leave whether to see the film up to you.

Day After ..... (2022)CIFF 2022

 

If movies are supposed to reflect life then DAY AFTER..... is perhaps the best example of it I've seen in decades.

This is a magnificent trip down a river in Bangladesh. We board the boat and take a ride and hang out with the people traveling the river. We are never involved, always observing as life happens all around us. It's a stunning  experience as we are on that boat for that trip.

Beautifully shot in a glorious widescreen DAY AFTER....  visually puts us in the place where everything is happening.  We feel the cramped quarter on the ship, while we also feel the wide expanses of the world of the river. This is exactly the sort of experience that the epics of Hollywood tried to achieve but never did. 

I have no words to express what it's like to just fall into a film and suddenly find yourself on a grand adventure. 

There is so much to love about this film, but I think one of the best things is that the trip is always tactile. We are given verbal clues about the things we can't experience, the smell of a river, the taste of food, the feeling of objects. We may not be on the ship but we really are on the ship.

I love this film.

I know some people may not like it. Nothing much happens except a trip down the river, however at the same time everything happens, the whole world explodes before us as we see people vlogging, people discussing religion, politics, arguing about which bathroom they can use or how to navigate in the mist.

This is what movies should do- show you life and fill you with a sense of wonder.

Highly recommended - And if you can see this on a BIG screen and not a phone or computer do so because this was made to be seen huge.

Burial (2022) CIFF 2022

Meditation on how we are going to handle dealing with hiding away the nuclear waste we produce. Focusing on a reactor that is a large twin of the one at Chernobyl which is being cut apart and buried we are left to ponder the enormity of the project and what the future brings.

This is a haunting film about the dangerous garbage we create.  Focusing on making us see what the places look like where we mine uranium and turn it into electricity, we are forced to wonder what we are doing to our environment.  Not much is said, we are simply told things by titles on the screen. This is a film focused on making us feel and think.

I've seen several films on what to do with nuclear waste over the years, indeed one of the first films I covered for Unseen at Tribeca was INTO ETERNITY about trying to design a storage facility that would remain safe for millennia. Most of the films faded from my head not long after seeing them. That isn't the case with BURIAL. In the 24 or so hours since I saw the film before I wrote it up I was haunted by it. The images came back to me and I wanted to revisit it not just because I wanted to reengage with what it was telling me but because the visuals are so striking.

Highly recommended, especially if you can see it on a big screen.

It Is Night In America (2022) CIFF 2022

Deadly dull look at life at night in a Brazilian  city, focusing on the interactions of people and animals.

Opening with what maybe the most annoying four and a half minutes in  years (we watch a camera spin around and around in increasing speed on top of a building in a city) this film  wears out its welcome early and never recovers.  Made up of  grainy night time images, mostly of animals in extreme close up, the film presents a look at life at night. The trouble is that other than juxtaposing the animals and people a couple of times and a couple of interactions of people and animals, there really isn't anything there here. 

The problem is there is nothing  here to put anything in context. What are the filmmakers going for? I don't know. We are so close in most shots the images could have been shot in a dark room or in a zoo.

I lost interest quickly and tuned out. 

I can't recommend this film at all.

All of our Heartbeats are Connected through Exploding Stars (2022) CIFF 2022

 

This is a look at several people and nature and how they recovered in the years after the 3/11 tsunami.

Low key meditative portrait of how humans and nature healed after the earth changing tsunami eleven years ago. We watch as several people go through their paces and discuss their loss and recovery. At the same time we are told of how the changes the wave brought  was slowly healed by nature.

This is a quiet little film focusing on the cycle of life. We come to understand how the massive sudden change altered their worlds and made it difficult to come back. We also see how  over time that happened.

We are also shown what happened in the wake of the wave of water. We see how the material it pulled out into the sea is still out there and how it is slowly making landfall at places like Hawaii.

If you're in the mood for a quiet meditation and life, change and healing this film is recommended.

My Imaginary Country (2022) Camden International Film Festival

Patricio Gúzman returns to Chile 45 years after the revolution he documented in THE BATTLE OF CHILE in order to document another a revolution brought on by the general anger and unhappiness of the people. Not directed by political parties or politicians the revolution sought to make the country a livable and safer place than it had been before.

A documentary portrait of the now tinged with a trip down memory lane Gúzman shows us a movement that seems to have succeeded where early uprisings failed. Gúzman‘s film is full of hope and how the dreams of the past seem to be coming true in the country he loves so well.

I was moved to tears by the stories of the protesters who simply stepped up because they had to. They are not motivated by ideology  rather by a simple desire to do good. As the people say I march because I have to.  A mother at the start talks about having to go out and march knowing that there  is always a chance she might not come back. He desire was born out of a need to make the world a better place for her son despite knowing she might never come back. She goes know that even if she never comes back she will be leaving her son in a better world because of it.

Its powerful stuff and it will rock you.

For me it was nice to see people protesting real issues and not the alleged mistreatment of a billionaire liar grifter.

I loved MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY and I can’t wait to put a copy next to my copy of THE BATTLE OF CHILE

Highly recommended.

MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY sneak previews tomorrow at the Camden International Film Festival before opening Friday

Rewind And Play (2022) CIFF 2022 NYFF 2022

On the afternoon before Thelonious Monk played a concert in Paris, Jazz writer  Henri Renaud had Monk come in to record a solo performance and do an interview for French television. The performance was released as a now classic record a short time later. The interview was conveniently  “lost to the ages” until director  Alain Gomis rediscovered the raw footage and assembled it into a cringe inducing experience.

The cringing is not because the film is bad, rather it’s because Renaud is shown to be an absolute asshole. What starts off as a friendly talk turns ugly as Renaud refuses to accept Monk’s answers to his questions and either repeats them or says things that will make you wonder how a “jazz writer of great stature” could say this to one of the legends of the art. It’s obvious Renaud has issues and wants to stand superior to Monk.  Silences lengthen and things get uncomfortable as Monk refuses to bow to the racism before him. Clearly Monk is not standing for the bullshit and he just stares at Renaud in disbelief, giving him the answers he has for the stupid questions. Renaud comes off so badly that you know why this was buried, and you see how Renaud’s reputation is going to be tossed on the trash heap of history.

It’s a painful thing to watch. More so since in watching Monk with the handlers who get him to the engagement or the crew the problem is not them.

Beyond the confrontation there is the music. Monk slays it in a solo performance that has rightly become a classic in the eyes of many Jazz aficionados.  Not having seen a great deal of footage of Monk play before I fell in love with seeing him interacting with the piano with the ease of a true master. You know why the music was released.

This is a solid film and worth your time- especially if you are a jazz fan. It’s a damning reminder of the quiet racism that exists even in the places you would never expect it to.

The film is currently playing at the Camden International Film Festival bot in person and virtually through September 25.

It will play The New York Film Festival October 8 and 9

EVERYTHING WRONG AND NOWHERE TO GO (2022) Camden International Film Fest 2022

Director Sindha Agha is worried about how climate change is pushing us to extinction so she contacts a Climate Psychologist and begins having sessions to come to terms with the things she can't change.

Cinematic meditation on how climate change is making many of us nuts. The fear of not being able to either control what is happening or know what will happen is a real thing and there is a whole new track in mental health aimed at helping people. Agha uses her own fears to help everyone in the audience.

This nifty little film is going to be a god send for many. In its brief running time it lays out why we feel as we do and how we can deal with it. Sure it may not replace sessions with a professional but it at least can help us calm down a bit and realize we are neither alone nor crazy.

This is a super little film and is recommended.

The Camden International Film Fest starts Thursday

The Camden International Film Festival starts this week and I am doing the happy dance. I love this festival to death. I was introduced to the fest a few years ago  and I went from a dismissive okay I’ll use this fest to fill the time to the New York Film Festival, to having my mind blown with all of the great films they were running. As a result it is now one of my must cover festivals every year.

Camden is one of the best fests you’ll run across. Focusing on Documentaries it’s the one fest you need to be watching since most of the films they are running end up in the year end Oscar talk, if not for this year then for next. Its also the place to catch the best films from Telluride, Venice and Toronto before they head off to NYFF and DOC NYC and the other late fall fests.

This year is no exception, Camden is running a slate of films that are absolutely kick ass. Having seen a good number of their goodies I can attest that they have programmed  some great films.

What have I seen? How about:

 AFTER SHERMAN”

ALL THAT BREATHES 

CROWS ARE WHITE

DESCENDANT

I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE

LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER

THE TERRITORY

Liz Whittemore on WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND

I’ve also seen the excellent MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY which is playing as a sneak preview before it begins a theatrical run next week. The film is director Patricio Guzmán's ‘s follow up to his epic THE BATTLE FOR CHILE and it’s so good that I’m going to get a copy of it so it can go on my shelf next to BATTLE.

The festival this year is both in person and remote. I’m using a version of the remote option so coverage will be going up not long after I get access to the films.

If  you want to see some great docs before anyone else buy a pass or make the trip up to the fest. For more details and passes go here.

And also check back since coverage is coming.