“Being in her presence was like having all the world’s light shining upon you. But when she turned off that light, it was like a shard of glass piercing your heart.” From director and co-writer Frauke Finsterwalder, Sisi & I is a retelling of the story of Elisabeth of Austria from the point of view…
Directed by Jake Paltrow, June Zero begins with the news that Adolf Eichmann has been sentenced to death by an Israeli court. This is not, however, a film about Eichmann or his trial. Rather it is a set of three stories that are on the periphery of that historical event. The different stories remind us…
“I felt evil blow into Jonestown.” In 1978, over 900 people who had followed a charismatic religious leader to a South American jungle died. It is often seen as a mass suicide. It is more properly understood as a mass murder. Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown from National Geographic chronicles those events as told…
“Can I die and be reborn as a girl?” In Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 Species of Bees, an eight-year-old who is experiencing gender dysphoria searches for an identity. The child’s mother has her own identity issues to deal with. How each sees themselves and how the world around them sees them creates both conflict and…
“I think I missed it. … Life.” In Re: Uniting, written and directed by Laura Adkin, a group of best friends come together twenty-five years after college. Their lives have taken them in a variety of directions. They are at a point where they are beginning to questions the choices they have made. It is…
I have to admit that Flannery O’Connor is a writer I’ve heard of, but not really delved into. I can identify her as a writer in the Southern Gothic genre, and I know that her writing reflected her Catholicism. So I entered Wildcat, directed and co-written by Ethan Hawke, without much background information. To be…
Three Promises, from Yousef Srouji, is the story of a family living through a very difficult situation—Palestine, during the Second Intifada. It is told through family videos taken by his mother, Suha, with voiceover commentary from Yousef’s interviews with her. The family lived in the village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. Some of the footage…
The Israeli-Palestinian situation is obviously complex and often controversial. It has been an area of conflict for nearly a century—even before the establishment of the state of Israel. Documentary filmmakers Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf seek to show the Palestinian city of Hebron as a microcosm of what is happening there Israel/Palestine in H2: The…
“I’m on a path.” “It’s good to be on a path.” Gad Elmaleh’s Stay with Us takes us along a path the ponders the meaning of faith, identity, and community. The semi-autobiographical comedy is about a man with Sephardic Jewish roots who is contemplating converting to Catholicism. In the process, viewers may want to consider…
The current goal is to send people to Mars within the next decade. That is certainly an ambitious and worthy undertaking. Want to be on that first three-year mission? Perhaps you should watch the Independent Lens documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye before you get too enthusiastic. Director Ido Mizrahy had planned on making a film…
