The films I?ve chosen for today are very much focused on issues that touch the lives of many people. These are films that in many ways are ?ripped from headlines?. It?s worth noting that two of the films include coverage of issues dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic,...
?Haven?t I got the right to be happy?? In Teona Strugar Mitevska?s God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya, tradition and modernity come into conflict. We watch as a woman must find her own value when everyone around her sees her as worthless. The church, the community, the...
Welcome to the real world. Documentaries take us into the world to show us lives and issues that we might otherwise not know about. AFI Docs is a festival filled with documentaries to challenge us to see the world around us from a new perspective. In the current...
One of my favorite film industry events is the annual AFI Fest in the fall. It always has a collection of the best films of the year. The American Film Institute has another important festival each year, AFI Docs, that centers on documentary films. AFI Docs usually...
We live in a world of so much connectedness, yet how connected are we to one another? In Magnus von Horn?s Sweat, we see how alone we can be in the midst of masses. We see that celebrity is not the same of a happy, healthy life. We see that what we see of someone on...
?There it is. Take it.? (William Mulholland, opening the gates to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1913) Water is a big deal here in California. It is not just about the presence or lack of rain (although that is important). For over 100 years, huge amounts of water...
A small college prep school in rural Louisiana boasts that 100% of graduates are accepted into college, including 32% into Ivy League schools. An impressive record. It gained national media attention due to viral videos of students learning of their acceptances. That...
?Because I could no longer ignore death, I pay more attention to life.? Based on a true story, Grace and Grit, from director Sebastian Siegel, is story of love in the face of death. The specter of death is of such existential power that we would expect such a story to...
?If you leave me, I?ll have to kill you.? Those words are not an empty threat by a thwarted woman. Christian Petzold?s Undine retells the folklore/myth of a water nymph who is compelled by her nature to destroy an unfaithful lover. That underlying story has found...