Time Machine Maidan (2026) Sheffield Doc Fest (2026)

This is a docufiction essay portrait of the battle of Maidan in the Ukraine. It’s a mix of reality and fiction based on reality. For example the main character is based upon a number of young people who went to the front line.

This is a trippy film. Told from a first-person point of view the film drifts through time where it uses footage of actual events to create a real sense of being there in the moment.

This is one of the best films I’ve seen on Ukraine. It’s not that the film gives us tons and tons of fact but instead it creates a head space. This is not us witnessing things, rather this us our living the events. Yes, we are seeing it through another person’s eyes but it presented in such a way that we are living it.

This is magnificent achievement.

If you are growing weary with all the Ukraine films and need to see something that will restore your faith in subject and humanity, see TIME MACHINE MAIDAN.

I want Her Dead (2025) Open Roads 2025

Gianluca Matarrese charts the battle that was raging in his family between two sister in-laws.

This is a docufiction about the course of the relationship between the two women. who were fractured by an unpaid bill. It begings with a stage screaming match between the women and some witnesses. It the charts the women, their relationship and the family's reaction to the fighting.

I'm sorry  for me this was dull.

I WANT HER DEAD did not work for me. Part of it is the fact that I never cared that much about petty family squabbles, and part of it is the fact that this doesn’t feel natural. I know with docufiction there is often a point where you can feel the director gently turning things. Here, almost every shot, every confrontation, basically every moment feels like the director was setting things up. The result wasn’t anything that worked for me.

Not recommended.

How To Clean A House in Ten Easy Steps, (2026) True False 2026

This is a portrait of Beatriz Valencia, a Colombian-born domestic worker as profiled by her daughter Carolina. Merging fact and fiction the film looks to reveal the the life of an immigrant in America who works in blue collar jobs.

This is a film I like more than I love. I admire what its doing more than anything else. The problem is not the story, rather there is an artificility to the presentation that is distancing. I never full trusted what I was being told. The result was I was never fully engaed.

This isn't to say that the film is bad, it's not. It's more that I think the great things this film has to say isn't presented as well as it could have been. 

And yet despite my reservations this film is worth a look. Its a film that looks at what its really like to be an immigrant and in today's world its something we need to hear.

Brief thoughts on Meadowlarks (2025) Toronto 2025

Director Tasha Hubbard tells the true story of four of five Cree siblings who were separated in the 1960's by the Canadian government who took them away from their single mother and gave them to white families (it was a program called Scoop). Fifty years on the track each other down and come together to try and reconnect over the course of a week.

This narrative version of the director's 2017 documentary BIRTH OF A FAMILY. It is a story that is close to the heart of Hubbard who was herself relocated by the Scoop program. It is a very good film which reveals what the forced removal of the children in the name of giving them a better life, actually did to them.

And at this point I have to take a step back and say that I can't say much more than that. The issue at hand is that in the wake of seeing Hubbard's SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO last year because it blew me away, I made an effort to try and track down her other films. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, except that a short time before I was given MEADOWLARKS to review, I saw BIRTH OF A FAMILY, which is excellent, and I did not have enough distance to fully take this narrative on its own terms. Watching MEADOWLARKS I was thinking of the earlier film. Therefore, I cannot in good conscious do a deep dive review because it will result in an unfair compare and contrast.

However, what I can say is that MEADOWLARKS is a solid film and on its own terms is worth your time.

No Sleep Till (2024) NDNF 2025

Docu-narrative look at the people in a small Florida town as a hurricane bears down on them.

This is a series of unrelated stories only connected to each other by the location and by the approaching storm. Each film is told in more or less its own way, with its own pacing.

This is a film you are either going to love or hate. The low key approach isn’t for anyone. This is a film full of silences and random conversations. Its film that isn’t telling a set story but a lot of little tales that make up a larger portrait.

It looks great and the characters are interesting, but I don’t know if it all really comes together. To me this feels like a lot of pieces looking for a home.  While it’s looking for the bigger portrait, it kind of fuzzes out and pixelates. Yea, the pieces are great but over all… not so much.

One thing I did in reading on the film compared it to the work of Kelly Reichart, which is kind of understandable, but which I don’t like Reichart’s films, I at least thought they are more exciting than this.

I honestly drifted off  about half way through. I was watching but not as intently as I could have or should have.

I have no idea what you’ll think but I think it’s fair to say your mileage will vary.

Brief thoughts on Wolves Always Come At Night (2024) Toronto 2024

Documentary/narrative hybrid about a shepherd in Mongolia forced to change his life and move to a village because of climate change.

This is an uneven film. The documentary parts of the film are an eye opening look at the life herding animals in Mongolia.  However the mixing of life on the plains with the story of a forced change doesn’t wholly work. While it’s not bad but the inclusion of created narrative results in some moments that don’t feel natural. The ending didn’t work for me for that reason.

While not bad, the film isn’t what it could have been if it was either purely a narrative or purely a documentary.

Gasoline Rainbow (2024)

Five high school aged kids set out in a van to travel 500 miles to see the ocean. Along the way life happens.

This is a form over content docudrama that succeeds as a work of art but is less successful as a narrative. This feels like a beautiful documentary, that might have worked had it been obvious by the shot choices and the way that things lay out that this free flowing trip across the Pacific Northwest was constructed by the cast and crew.  I say this in part because it's true and because the film moves the cast across the country in a way that only movies can move people. There is no real sense of danger, nor is there any real questioning when things go on, the kids just keep going.

Sure this a hymn of freedom and of impending lost innocence, but it's a professionally polished one. The result is a film that I admire  a lot more than I like. Its a film I would gladly watch with the sound off for the glorious pictures.

Gasoline Rainbow (2023) First Look Fest 2024

Five high school aged kids set out in a van to travel 500 miles to see the ocean. Along the way life happens.

This is a form over content docudrama that succeeds as a work of art but is less successful as a narrative. This feels like a beautiful documentary, that might have worked had it been obvious by the shot choices and the way that things lay out that this free flowing trip across the Pacific Northwest was constructed by the cast and crew.  I say this in part because it's true and because the film moves the cast across the country in a way that only movies can move people. There is no real sense of danger, nor is there any real questioning when things go on, the kids just keep going.

Sure this a hymn of freedom and of impending lost innocence, but it's a professionally polished one. The result is a film that I admire  a lot more than I like. Its a film I would gladly watch with the sound off for the glorious pictures.

Starring Jerry As Himself (2023) Slamdance 2023

This is a documentary narrative hybrid about Jerry Hsu who tells us the story of what happened after he was recruited by the Chinese police.

The less you know about the arc of this story the better it's going to play for you. I say that because this is a beautiful puzzle box of a film. This is a film about what happened to Jerry, his life, his family and the making of the film.  Its a film that is full layers and as the film goes on doors are opened and the layers of the story are peeled away.  

It's a hell of a ride...and a bracing cautionary tale that you need to see.

Kamikaze Hearts (1986) opens Friday

Legendary documentary about porn actresses Sharon Mitchell and Tigr charts their train wreck romance and well as the porn industry back in the day. Partially true and partly fictional the film is a walk on the wild side

I have been running into Kamikaze Hearts since it came out and I’ve always been mixed on the film.  My first cross into it was when I was looking for racy content without looking for racy content and finding out this isn’t the film for me.  Later when my tastes changed I tried the film again I went back because of the good reviews.  My return visit was similar to the first viewing in that I found the film good but not really my cup of tea.

The problem with the film is that Mitchell and Tigr are not particularly nice people, at least as seen in the film. Fueled by various substances the then real life couple were in a weird death spiral of a relationship that makes the term dysfunctional seem like a walk in the park. To me watching the film is like watching a road accident. I keep waiting for the crash. Over the years I’ve heard all sorts of stories about what was happening between them, and while most were probably fabrications or inflations of actual events that still leaves a good number to curl your hair. I suspect having heard stories colored my viewings of the film, which is unfortunate since I see the film as rather unpleasant.

With the film getting a restoration and rerelease from Kino I just wanted to put my thoughts out there. I’m sure some people will love the film, but I’m not sure about the rest.

Peter Watkins' LA COMMUNE hits Ovid.TV April 9

Peter Watkins recreates the short lived Paris Commune which sprung up after the government fled the city after the Prussians invaded. The central conceit is that all of the events are being broadcast and analyzed by two TV stations one for the official government and one for the commune.

Massive (there are over 200 speaking roles) and very long (it's six hours)  LA COMMUNE is either going to thrill you or bore you. This is everything you wanted to know and more, how you are going to react is dependent upon how you react to the endless interviews with the people on the street. This is a film about how events were viewed by the masses and we get a healthy dose of that.

I'm not going to lie, my interest came and went. I really don't know why this had to be six hours. I was overloaded. On some level I think the rave reviews for the film are simply critics being bludgeoned into submission. 

Frankly this is a film I admire more than I like.

Bird Island (2020) Art of the Real 2020

 

Bird Island is not a film for everyone/ Essentially a narrative about the strange goings on at a bird sanctuary in Switzerland it is performed by people at a bird sanctuary. It is quiet and contemplative as the damaged people take care of damaged birds and get them ready for release back into the world.

Quiet and gentle, the film doesn’t explain much outside of the care of the birds. We get hints of avaian trouble beyond the sanctuary and with in the lives of the keepers but nothing is spelled out. Much of the sound we hear are simply the sound of the birds . Yes there is some dialog and a voice over but this is in many ways more like a mediation. That means this is either going to excite you to no end or put you to sleep.

Personally I was kind of torn. I loved what I was seeing I was into the obtuse nature of some of it, but the slow quiet nature of the film had me nodding off. I just drifted off and stared like one of the birds who forgot their past life.

If that sounds great to you go for it. All others are probably best looking elsewhere

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #76 Medium Cool [1969] ★★★½

In the wake of the police riot where security forces tear gassed hundreds of demonstrators protesting the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago mayor and “last of the big city bosses” Richard J. Daley made Freudian slip history when he misspoke saying that “the policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

But if Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool is any indication, the true preservers of disorder are the press themselves, the sacred Fourth Estate which seeks to record and not interfere. This is shown most bluntly at the beginning of the film where the protagonist, television news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster), stops at a car accident to film the carnage, ignoring the cries of a survivor, and only calls for an ambulance after he’s got his footage. From there, the film charts Cassellis’ political awakening from neutral bystander to active participant in the social upheaval he's assigned to cover, climaxing in the actual DNC riots where Wexler and his crew found themselves trapped in the middle of the chaos. (In one famous moment when the cops start firing tear gas, we hear someone offscreen shout “Look out, Haskell—it’s real!”) It’s the kind of cinematic kismet most directors only dream of, and it’s one of the most chilling examples of a filmmaker’s camera being in the right place at the right time this side of Barbara Kopple unexpectedly recording an attempted strikebreaker assassination in Harlan County, USA (1976).

But unlike Harlan County, Wexler’s film is a docu-fiction hybrid that puts, as Roger Ebert once memorably described, “fictional characters in real situations [and] real characters in fictional situations.” On the one hand we have Cassellis whose political awakening—spurred on by a confrontation with black activists and the discovery that his news station has been giving his footage to the FBI—is matched with his romance with Eileen (Verna Bloom), a single mom from West Virginia who struggles to provide for her curious but emotionally withdrawn son Harold (Harold Blankenship). On the other we have vignettes—some staged, some apparently not—of America’s nervous breakdown, from belligerent, white gun owners at a shooting range to a training montage of National Guardsmen rehearsing crowd dispersal techniques. Do the two mix? Not always, particularly the odd flashbacks involving Harold and his deadbeat dad back in West Virginia, but as a document of 1968 America’s psyche it’s irreplaceable.

American Trial: The Eric Garner Story (2019) NYFF 2019

Unfairly getting lost in the final weekend of the New York Film Festival is AMERICAN TRIAL: THE ERIC GARNER STORY which very probably is the most important film playing at this years festival.

The film is a docufiction  trial of New York City Officer Pantaleo who wrestled Eric Garner to the ground using a choke hold when they he and several other officers tried to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. Since Pantaleo was never indicted, so he never went to trial,  filmmaker Roee Messinger assembled a team of former prosecutors and a team of expert defense lawyers to use the public record and actual witnesses to put the officer on trial.  Pantaleo is portrayed by actor Anthony Altieri and his words are those found in the public record.

Allowing that some witnesses who would have been called to trial, (the man who shot the infamous video, the other officers, any other people on the street) AMERICAN TRIAL goes a long way to say that Pantaleo should have at least been indicted. The evidence is there to at least take the case to trial since its clear that within the definition of the NYPD department guidelines and the law what Pantaleo did was not allowed and probably strangulation under the criminal definition even if only for a matter of seconds. Watching the film, which was not scripted by simply the record of the mock trial the full extent of the miscarriage of justice can be seen.

Again in fairness to the fact that we do not get to see all the witnesses that we would have seen at trial, I will hold off saying that Pantaleo would have been convicted at trial, but he should have been indicted. All of the information needed for that is in the public record....

I should also point out that one of the strengths of the film is that it points out that there are things that most of us don't know such as the facts concerning what happened prior to the video such as a fight, not involving Garner (who according to testimony tried to break it up) that took place that brought the police and that ten minutes of unrecorded talk between the cops and Garner happened before the video began which makes it even more curious as to why things suddenly escalated. A full accounting of what happened makes clear at what a tragedy this was.

In fairness I do need to quibble about one or to choices that Roee Messinger makes in the later portion of the film and that is to add flourishes outside of the courtroom proceedings to paint Pantaleo as a bad guy. She hammers home the points that Pantaleo had numerous unsubstantiated reports concerning civilian charges against him. While there is no doubt they are part of the public record, and her use of them outside of the court room portion of the film are merely flourishes to show the officer as not a nice guy, their use and they way they are included, despite being fleeting, will allow those who think Pantaleo was right in what he did to dismiss the film as a hatchet job. Those seconds of screen time make this a film some people can dismiss if they choose to. But that is a quibble.

Ultimately AMERICAN TRIAL:THE ERIC GARNER STORY is a kick in the ass and a wake up call concerning the criminal justice system. It is a must see film.

The film is World Premiering  today at the New York Film Festival at 6pm. Tickets are free. For more information and tickets go here.

Slamdance 2019 Short Takes TUNGRUS, LOST HOLIDAY and WE ARE THANKFUL

Part documentary, part narrative WE ARE THANKFUL tells the story of lead actor Siyabonga Majola, playing a version of himself. He lives in a small town and wants to be an actor. When he finds a film is going to be made nearby he travels to the set where he meets director Joshua Magor is working. Very meta film is an interesting piece of docufiction. How you react to it is going to be determined by how you react to the observational portions of the film.

I am not sure what I think of LOST HOLIDAY. Listing as a mystery, the film is more the wanderings of a well off college couple who travel through Washington DC kind of get involved in a kidnapping and stuff. To be honest mostly what I remember is just --- being cranky and quietly pining for an old flame. I lost interest because I really didn’t like anyone so I didn’t have any reason to care or connect.

I am kind of at a loss about what to say about TUNGRUS. This short doc is about a family that is being terrorized by their pet chicken. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem but they live in an apartment and have an insane bird wandering around is handful. The family is interviewed and they discuss the possibility of killing and eating the errant fowl. Running 13 minutes the film is one of those films that is better to see rather than read about. Recommended.

Impetus (2018) Slamdance 2019

I am unsure what I think of Impetus.

Jennifer Alleyn‘s merging of documentary and fiction is as beautifully made as you will ever see. It is haunting and ethereal in exactly the right way. I love the way it looks and the way it feels—and I have no idea what I am supposed to get out of it. As much as I love much of the film I really don’t know what I am supposed to feel about it.

The film charts Alleyn‘s dealing with the leaving of her significant other which sends her spiraling down and beginning work on a film. As she deals with the ups and downs with her life she tries to get her film made, which becomes complicated as actors come and go and return looking differently making adjustments necessary. We watch the shooting of the film, completed sequences, interviews of friends and random images she hopes to include in the film.

Half way into the film I was enjoying what I was seeing but nothing was hanging together. What exactly was the meaning? I didn’t know.

I suspect that there are those who like ambiguous arty films will tell me exactly what I’m missing, but for right now I’m still not sure what I think.

If you like beautiful films that break classifications and unique then make sure to see IMPETUS when it plays at Slamdance.

NYAFF 2018 CAPSULES: HIT THE NIGHT, END OF SUMMER and THE RETURN

HIT THE NIGHT
A filmmaker interviews a friend of hers over drinks in order to get information for an upcoming film, but he has another motive in mind.

If you are a fan of filmmaker Hong Sang-soo then you will be delighted with exploration of the territory between men and women. Simply a series of conversations this is not something to see if you want any sort of action of any sort other than verbal. The the fireworks are in the words.

If you like the idea of two people sitting around talking this is for you.

(For me this was like watching a Sang-soo film, something I liked but as soon as it was done I was ready to go to the next thing)

END OF SUMMER
The effect of the 1998 World Cup in China on a staid teacher, a grumpy Grandfather and a 10 year old boy.

Don’t go into End of Summer looking for a sports film and you’ll be fine. This is a sweet little drama that tugs the heart strings a bit before disappearing from the brain. I enjoyed it while it was on but it got washed away in the wave of other films playing at NYAFF.

THE RETURN
Two Danish-Korean adoptees return to Korea to try and run down their birth families and the country they never knew.

With overseas adoption being a booming industry this ix of fiction and documentary is a revealing look at what it means to be born in one place to one set of parents and raised by another some where else. An emotional journey for everyone involved this is a film that will stick with you hanging around on the fringes of your psyche making you wonder what if it as you.

Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous (Hoeng gong saam bou kuk) (2015)

HONG KONG TRILOGY vexes me.

A film unlike any other by director Christopher Doyle it is unlike any film I've ever seen set in  or about Hong Kong. It is a mix of documentary and fiction described in the press materials as follows:

In three docufiction segments, Doyle looks at three generations of Hong Kongers: School children, young “Umbrella Movement” activists, and the elderly. Overlaying audio from interview recordings onto loose narrative vignettes, Doyle creates sweet, richly textured, free-flowing portraits of a bevy of unforgettable characters, here just in time for the Umbrella Movement’s anniversary.

Which states it perfectly.

Unfortunately I am not sure that the film works completely.

Because it seems the story was cut from the footage shot a great deal of it doesn't hang together. You great a great image with a perfect voice over but at the same time going past the moment things don't quite work. Characters like the cute little girl in red is absolutely adorable but some of what she does just sort of there. Other characters never amount to much.

The biggest problem is pacing is also off  with the first third being a tough slog. It improves after that

The most interesting part of the film is the middle section on the Umbrella Movement. Owing to Doyle's eye and skill as a cinematographer we see life on the street in ways that the major news sources in the West never  revealed. This is Doyle working at the top of his game and it draws us in and makes us part of the Movement. There is much in this middle section to delight audiences and it's wonderful enough that despite the slow first part of the I'd strongly suggest you see film.

Actually since the film is by Christopher Doyle I'd recommend it with or without reservations. This is not idle worship of a director, rather its the respect for a master who makes films that are frequently imperfect but which contain so much intriguing material that they can not be dismissed. Give me a Doyle directed (or photographed) film over almost any other directors any day. He may make a film that doesn't work but it will be one that you can't shake and can't not think about for days (weeks after seeing the HONG KONG TRILOGY I'm still haunted by it). In point of fact Doyle is one the greatest directors working today and we simply do not have enough films from him.

HONG KONG TRILOGY opens Friday for a week long run at NYC's Metrograph.

Flames (2017)Tribeca 2017

Zefrey Throwell and Josephine Decker's look at their relationship is as pretentious a film as I've seen at Tribeca this year. A self indulgent, self important piece of trash this film would be something if they chopped an hour of this away and set the rest on fire.

Beginning with the couple having the first of several sexual encounters the film drifts through the curse (and course) of their relationship as we watch sequences that seem to be a mix of staged scenes and real moments. The film follows them through time as the relationship eventually implodes and the pair then sits in a room and discusses what when wrong while editing footage.

It should be said the best stuff is the editing stuff with the couple looking back. There is something about those moments that really works and we get a sense of the two directors as something other than annoying hipsters. The second best is some of the trippy imagery, landscapes turned side ways and weird lighting. There are these wonderful wordless shots that delight.

Unfortunately the rest of the film, well over an hour of material that is unbearable. Why anyone thought we would have any interest in these two people is beyond me.Decker, outside of the editing room, comes off whiney and Throwell is just an asshole. Why the hell were they together and why are they still talking?  And who thought we'd  want to see them screwing---over and over again? What is this the inde hipster version of 9 SONGS? Than movie was bad, though not as bad as this.

To be honest I'm not sure if this is docufiction or straight documentary. The film wasn't self shot, camera crews filmed everything and but I'm not sure who was doing it. It makes me wonder if the couple redid some of this or are just so fucking narcissistic that they had some one film their lives. I really don't want to know- but I'm curious.

Looking around the auditorium during the critics screening- hey I was looking for something to actually interesting to pass the time- I noticed lots of people sleeping. Frankly I've never seen so many people asleep at a screening. (I also spent a lot of time wondering who all the people were who were walking out)

Do you need to know this? No

Is it proper to report this? No, but then again it's not proper to put your home movies and sex tapes on the big screen and ask people to actually pay to see it.

I hate this movie

Avoid it.

Art of the Real 2017 starts Thursday night

Art of the Real, Lincoln Center’s annual look at the varieties of documentary filmmaking starts Thursday.

The festival tends to shy from traditional documentaries for films that tend to be more experimental and often blur the line between fact and fiction. The films are never typical and are often for more interesting for how they are told as opposed to their subjects. That is not a knock rather that the festival can bring some truly magical things to the screen.

I’ve seen seven of the offerings at this year fest and I’ve been delighted by some and disappointed by others. That shouldn’t turn you off to anything. Art of the Real’s strength is that it brings together atypical films that affect everyone differently – they are films that may or may not work for you- but at the same time they are films that leave you knowing that you have seen something more than the typical multiplex film or even your typical non-fiction film. Everything they run is worth trying if the subject interests you.

As this posts I’m trying to work out getting to see the opening selection The Rats Film which several people have told me is one of the very best films of the year. I have a few more to screen and I hope to get some more reviews up. (The curse of the festival is that it is running opposite Tribeca)

What follows are my thoughts on what I’ve seen.


For tickets and more information go here.

I covered MODERN JUNGLE during this years Slam Dance and I liked it very much. It's a film about some people living in an isolated community that becomes very meta since there is no pretense to ignore the cameras. Its a must see. Here is a link to the review 

VOYAGE TO TERENGGANU
Directors Amir Muhammad and Badrul Hisham Ismail trace scholar Munshi Abdullah trip across Malaysia and end up with an impressionistic portrait of the land and people.
Beautiful but uneven film will have your interest fluctuating as it moves from segment to segment. In a weird way I like the sequences that don't have anyone in them

CASA ROSHELL
Portrait of the titled location, a place where men can escape to and let their feminine side come out. An odd mix of docudrama, documentary and experimental filmmaking never finds it's footing with the result that despite the film being a documentary the location feels unreal.

THE SKY THE EARTH THE RAIN
Meditative look at a woman who hardly speaks going to work for a man in the remote country and their largely silent existence. Docufiction film has some lovely sequences but the pacing is slow and after a while the beautiful images aren't enough to carry the audience to the end. If you like slow uiet films give this a shot other wise skip it.

THIS IS THE WAY I LIKE IT II
Director Ignacio Agüero revisits his earlier and much censored short film by revisiting the subjects and asking similar questions about life and filmmaking (under Pinochet) and then intercutting his home movies. At times absolutely fascinating film is a wonderful look  at how filmmakers view the world and their art- but from a very different perspective. While some of the flourishes such as the home movies don't always work, the kernels of information in the interviews make this a must see for the curious.

EMPATHY
Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli's portrait of Em Cominotti a call girl and heroine addict is a slice of life film that is co-opted by it's subject. An interesting film to a point many of the scenes run on way too long and while they give a sense of life they also don't always hold ones attention.

THE DAZZLING LIGHT OF SUNSET
A portrait of the only broadcast reporter for a Georgian TV channel follows her as she deals with stories like the capture of an owl, street paving and the obituaries. Its a world where everything must be shown in the best light. This is a look at small town life and how it strives to be more and seem more than it is. While it's deliberate pacing and construction may turn off some the film is in fact something that is going to hang with you and keep you thinking for days afterward.