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Documentarty

Slamdance 2020 – A few final films

February 7, 2022 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

As I finish up my Slamdance viewing, I want to thank the festival for giving me access to all these films. I always enjoy covering Slamdance, in part because it pushes me beyond my comfort zone at times. The films here are always very diverse, just as the festival wants them to be. That means, some films won’t click with me, others I’ll appreciate because of the passion of the filmmakers, and some will bring me joy in various ways.

The films I’m finishing up with are all award winners. Some were already on my watch list, but I hadn’t gotten to them. Some were added because of the awards. Here is a link to all of the awards.

The Civil Dead, directed by Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas, won the Audience Award for Narrative Feature. When his wife is out of town for a few days, Clay, an unmotivated photographer encounters Whit, an old school friend, but it turns out Whit is really a ghost. Since Clay is the only person who can see or hear him, Whit sticks to Clay like glue out of loneliness, and begins a haunting relationship. This becomes a humorous horror story—with there being horrors both for Clay and Whit.

The George Starks Spirit of Sundance Prize was awarded to Sasha Levinson, who directed Sylvie of The Sunshine State. This is a documentary that Levinson made of her life with her 2nd grade daughter Sylvie. The idea was to see what their everyday life was like, but soon after they started the COVID lockdowns began. In part the film becomes a chronicle of the early months of dealing with the pandemic, but it is also about the evolving relationship between mother and daughter (and Sylvie’s father who lives elsewhere). Obviously a very personal project, but also very universal.

And there are, of course, some more shorts to note.

Oldboy’s Apples (seven minutes), directed by Brad Hock, received Honorable Mention among Animated Shorts. It uses stop motion puppets to create a world of magical realism in a tale about a demon, a rat, and a dog in relationship to a special apple.

Selahy (My Weapon) (14 minutes), directed by Alaa Zabara, received Honorable Mention in the Unstoppable category. It’s the story of a deaf girl in the midst of a war zone in Yemen. She sees the world in a different way through a video camera her photographer brother gave to her. When he goes out to document the war, she does her own recording of what is happening, but she doesn’t hear what is coming.

Another wonderful festival comes to a close.

Filed Under: Film, Film Festivals Tagged With: Documentarty, magical realism, shorts, Slamdance Film Festival, Yemen

The Phantom – Killing the Innocent

July 2, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“If you’re poor, and you have no money, and can’t get yourself a lawyer who really gives a shit about your case, you’re going to die.”

Capital punishment continues to be controversial, although more states are moving away from its use, either by law or by practice. One reason is that from time to time, it becomes clear that an innocent person has been executed. The Phantom, from director Patrick Forbes, is one of those stories.

In Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1983, a woman was brutally killed at a gas station convenience store. It happened while she was on the phone with 911. Police soon arrested Carlos DeLuna, who was hiding under a car. The film begins with the crime (and some reenactments) and moves quickly to the trial, hearing from the attorneys involved (both defense and prosecutor, plus his appellate lawyer and victim’s family’s attorney), as well as news reporters who covered the story. It isn’t hard to understand how the jury would convict DeLuna of the crime, given the evidence presented. There are a few holes in the evidence, but it didn’t seem all that important. He was sentenced to death, and after appeals, he was executed in 1989. To his death he maintained his innocence, saying another person named Carlos did the murder.

Fourteen years later, a project working out of Columbia University sent an investigator to Texas to look into possible capital punishment mistakes. DeLuna’s case was not high on their list, but very quickly the investigator discovered “the phantom” suspect that the police had not found. The film goes on to build layer by layer the evidence that the second Carlos (who had since died) was obviously the murderer. That meant that the state of Texas killed an innocent man.

The film raises questions of how this could have happened. Did the police just not do a thorough job? Were the police aware of the other Carlos, but ignored him because he was an informant? Does lack of money and status play a significant role in who gets executed? Is race a factor?

But it leaves it to the audience to think about what it says about society that we are willing to allow innocent people to be put to death. How many such cases are we willing to tolerate to do what some think prevents further murders? As one person in the film says, the state kills people to tell people it’s wrong to kill people.

A key issue that needs to be thought of as well is the way the legal system, both police and courts, are often stacked against poor people and people of color. Even in the appeals process, everything seems more about procedure rather than finding the truth. Yet when the truth is not to be found, justice will not be done. In Carlos DeLuna’s case, there was no justice to be found.

The Phantom is playing in theaters.

Photos courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: capital punishment, Documentarty

Day 4 at AFI Docs

June 27, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Today’s films range from the mundane to the worlds of power and money. Documentaries are ways to mark points in time, to see life in new ways, and to broaden our knowledge. That happens in these films.

The HBO Documentary Series Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union premiered the first two episodes at AFI Docs. Directed by Peter Kunhardt, this series focuses on President Obama’s life with special emphasis on the role race played in shaping his life and his politics. Part One of the series covers his early life through his election to the U.S. Senate. Part Two overs his run for the Presidency in 2007-08. The film relies on archival footage and selected interviews with people who have known him.

This is a very conventional telling of the President’s story. It lacks an intimacy and personal understanding of the events in his life. The first part never really asks questions about the events in his life. In the second part, as he runs for the presidency, there are more insightful comments made about the tightrope of being a Black candidate and being a candidate for all the people. Questions of too Black or not Black enough come up. There are times that Black commentators critique some of the things he said in speeches as not resonating with the Black experience. The series will add another perspective for those seeking to understand the historic nature oif Obama’s election.

We (Nous) from filmmaker Alice Diop is a look at life in the Paris suburbs. There is no through story, just looks at the mundane world. We see a mechanic as he works on a car and gets a phone call from his mother in Mali. We see the filmmaker’s sister as she makes her rounds as a visiting nurse to elderly patients. We see kids in a park. We visit a Holocaust museum. There are no contexts given, we simply observe.

A title card at the end of the film the filmmaker mentions having learned “to see and love what is before my eyes.” That is very much what this film is about. It’s not about the narrative. It is about seeing these little bits of life as they happen.

Never mind “Antique Roadshow”. Suppose that old painting you have is really a Leonardo DaVinci. That is the crux of The Lost Leonardo by Andreas Koefoed. It traces the history of a painting found at an obscure auction in New Orleans, that was later restored and attributed to (not without controversy) Leonardo. The price paid at the New Orleans auction: $1175. The Price eventually paid at a Christies auction: $450,000,000. And, oh, by the way, you can’t see it because the current owner, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, refuses to exhibit it.

The painting, “Salvator Mundi”, becomes the focal point for looking at the art world and how it operates. It’s not just about art and collectors, but about finance and even global politics. The film brings in many of those who were involved in the story of the painting as it advanced through the art world, but also some outside people, who add knowledge about other aspects, including a former CIA operative. There is a sense in which what the film is about is truth. What makes truth? Can we know the truth? Does truth become just a matter of belief? Or does $450,000,000 buy truth? The Lost Leonardo will arrive in theaters in August.

Shorts for today include The Game, directed by Roman Hodel, that shows a bit of a soccer game. We see the crowds in the stand, the TV control room, everything is ready to go. But it’s not the game we watch, but the referee. Having officiated high school football in the past, I know that no one goes to the game to watch the referee, but he (or sometimes these days, she) is a key part of what happens. Another of the shorts is Eagles (Águilas), directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Maite Zubiaurra. That film chronicles the work of volunteers who search the Arizona desert for immigrants who get lost, or to find their remains to bring peace of mind for their families.

Photos courtesy of AFI.

Filed Under: AFIFest, Film, Film Festivals Tagged With: AFI Docs festival, art, Barack Obama, Documentarty, France, shorts, sports

Looking Ahead to AFI Docs

June 21, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

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 takes place in Maryland (close to Washington, DC, since political issues are often central to documentaries), but this year it is a hybrid festival with live screenings as well as online availability of the films.

AFI Docs is a bit shorter than AFI Fest. The program begins Tuesday night, June 22 with a showing of Naomi Osaka. A full set of films begins releasing on Wednesday, with the festival finishing on Sunday, June 27. Some of the feature films I’m planning on taking in are  The First Step, a story of the workings of the political world, Fathom, about humpback whales, LFG, focusing on the US Women’s Soccer Team’s lawsuit for equal pay, The Lost Leonardo, about a surprise discovery of a DaVinci painting, Pray Away, a look at those who try to “cure” homosexuality, and many others over a wide range of subjects.

There are also a few documentary series that will be previewed at AFI Docs. 9/11: One Day in America looks at one of the darkest days in American history. Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union looks at Barak Obama’s journey from the Illinois State House to the White House. Some of the episodes of these will be shown.

There are also industry forums that address issues facing documentary filmmakers and the changing landscape for the industry. One I’m looking forward to will speak of how documentaries can help shape the conversation about race in America.

There will also be several programs of short documentaries covering sports, science, everyday life, war and peace, and the kinds of dreams people had during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shorts can always bring incredible insights. Each day when I report of what I’ve seen, I’ll include of few notes on some of the shorts.

But wait, you don’t necessarily need me to tell you what has happened at AFI Docs. As I note above, this festival is virtual! You can watch some of these films at home. Some of the screenings and all of the industry forums are free (but you must get a ticket). Go to https://docs.afi.com/how-to-fest/ to learn more about being part of AFI Docs this year. Then we can compare notes.

Filed Under: AFIFest, Film, Film Festivals, News Tagged With: AFI Docs festival, Documentarty, documentary shorts

Two Gods – Who Will You Follow?

May 21, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“Surely we belong to God and to Him we shall return.”

In Zeshawn Ali’s Two Gods we see the struggles of people dealing with violence in their lives and neighborhoods. The documentary set mostly in Newark, New Jersey, focuses on Hanif, a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer. Hanif knows the dangers of the streets. He ended up in prison at one point. He seems to have found meaning in his work. He approaches it with respect for the dead.

Hanif has taken two young men under his wing to try to mentor them into adulthood. Furquan is twelve years old, and comes from a violent home. Naz is seventeen and getting involved with dangerous activity, which eventually results in his arrest on very serious charges.

The back and white cinematography creates a stark world where violence is a constant presence. From time to time we encounter not only funerals, but the community workers who are trying to end the large number of violent deaths among young people. It is this that Hanif is trying to protect Naz and Furquan from.

It is important to note that Hanif is a religious man. He is frequently wearing t-shirts that say “Pray”. We see him in the mosque praying. And his approach to the bodies he prepares for burial is a form of religious observance. He feels blessed to be able to care for these bodies. Naz speak a bit about religion, but it doesn’t seem to be important to him. Furquan in time finds himself in his aunt’s home in North Carolina and being part of a Christian church there.

The filmmaker’s view is that all three of these men are struggling between the worship of God and of the streets. That is a fair description of what many people deal with each day. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean choosing God or violence. It can be about anything that draws us away from God. It could be money, sex, fame, drugs, success, or power. Those things can be a part of life, but when they dominate, they can become a different god to us.

Ali wants to show American Muslims as a part of our societal fabric. He does not make a case that Muslims are better than others or that Islam is superior, but he does want us to understand that we all share a common humanity. Indeed, he seems just as happy for Furquan finding a place in a Christian community as he with Hanif in his practice of Islam.

Two Gods is available in theaters and virtual cinema. It is coming soon to PBS’s “Independent Lens” series.

Photos by Zeshawn Ali.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Black and White, death, Documentarty, independent lens, Muslim, PBS

1on1 – Talking about our divisions with The Reunited States folks.

February 11, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

I recently had the opportunity to talk via Zoom with The Reunited States director Ben Rekhi,  and two of the film’s subjects, David and Erin Leaverton, who took a year to travel the US and talk with people about our divisions. For more on the film, see the Screenfish review or visit the film’s website to view the trailer. The film is now available an VOD.

Ben, where did you start in putting this film together and gathering the people for the different perspectives you wanted to get?

Ben Rekhi: I started this film about two and a half years ago, when I saw Susan Bro giving a talk. I was really struck by the fact that she was on the front lines of division and had lost a child to the violence, but she was able to come out the other side and talk about the need for conversation to avoid further violence. It really struck me that this was someone who had a voice of reason in a time when everyone was shouting at each other. She also had the moral authority to do that because she had suffered so publicly this loss. So, I approached her and I said “I don’t know how or when, but I want to be a part of helping to tell your story, because I think it can really help other people at this time. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s happening in politics and you have this clarity to articulate it from the heart.” She, after a few conversations, allowed me to follow her with the camera and start filming. That was the beginning of the film.

The second piece of that was meeting Mark Gerzon, the author of the book The Reunited States of America. I’d come up with the title thinking it was pretty original, but when I Googled it I realized someone already had that title and written a book about it, but it was also on the same topic. Mark had been studying polarization for thirty years and had this wisdom that was relevant for those of us who only woke up to it over the last several years. I met him and he introduced me to the other three storylines. I said I want to follow someone on election day in the midterms, and he said Greg Orman. I wanted to understand what young people can do about division, he told me about Steven Olikara. He called me out of the blue one day and said, “In all my years of doing this work, I’ve never come across anything as extraordinary as this family, the Leavertons, that are in an RV right now crisscrossing the country trying to find out what’s dividing us.” So I called them and as soon as I heard them speak, I was struck by their wisdom and clarity about what they had discovered. And especially being from a more conservative background and being willing to travel outside of their bubble and outside their comfort zone, in black community, in native reservations, in border towns. It really captured the human side of division because of these face-to-face encounters. To hear them really let people’s stories in and have a heart connection, it’s really emotional. It’s not easy. You’re hearing some tragic stories, that helps transform how you see. Not just as individuals but entire communities of people.

The film wants to show optimism about the possibility of overcoming the divisions the country is facing. How did that optimism hold up for each of you as the Jan 6 assault on the Capitol took place?

Erin Leaverton: That was a hard day. I think for anybody who desires to see our country divided, even if it didn’t diminish your optimism, it’s grieving to see these things with your eyes and to behold what we’re willing to do to one another.

David Leaverton: For me it was a very predictable outcome of the path we’ve been on for a long time. This is a path that’s pretty natural when you begin to dehumanize, when you begin to otherize, us versus them, good versus evil. These are some of the natural things that are going to happen. It didn’t diminish my hope in our future from the stand point of “is all hope lost because people stormed the capital?” No, but I believe it shows me the importance of the work of peacemaking, of bridge building, because people’s lives are being lost in this struggle.

BR: I was pretty surprised and shocked. I think that people expected violence to breakout around the election and when the results came—at voting stations, maybe in the streets. So there was kind of a collective sigh of relief when that didn’t happen. Like “Oh my God, our democratic institutional held up. People didn’t result to violence.” So when it happened at the beginning of the year, especially on the steps of the Capitol, attempting to kill Congressmen, I never would have seen that coming. It was a turning point that has made things harder in this field because, even for myself, I’ve been really trying to build bridges and this is going to make it harder, but have I also been missing blind spots about how deep this goes? So it’s forced me to do a lot of self-reflection. The distinction that has been helpful for me is that this was a small group of people—not small but several thousand, compared to several tens of millions—that would condone this, while most people would not. That distinction is important, but it’s harder to make that distinction for a lot of people. Right now, it’s kind of been a point of no return for a lot of people that you cannot get along with the lies. You’re an idiot if you think you can. In that regard we are in uncharted territory. But personally, it has not shaken my optimism this as we move forward. It shows the depth and the long game that it’s going to take to do that.

On a more positive side, did you see the Jeep commercial with Bruce Springsteen in the Superbowl?

BR:  What a coincidence! What luck! It’s the right place, right time. You can’t buy that kind of messaging.

DL: I can’t believe they used the words “The ReUnited States of America”. Of all the things that they could have put on there. It’s just wild. Who doesn’t like Bruce Springsteen? That’s pretty awesome. It was a great commercial. What I felt was that there’s a market for healing. There is a market for…

EL:  … common ground, finding a place where you can meet.

DL: That was encouraging to me that this isn’t kind of a splinter group of us weirdos talking about this stuff. These are kind of major iconic American brands that see the importance of this conversation.

David and Erin, a good part of the film is your journey, not just physically, but ideologically. How would you characterize that personal journey?

DL: I was blind, but now I see.

EL: I would say I was blind, but now I am starting to see.

DL: That’s probably more accurate.

EL: And that doesn’t mean I was a Republican and now I’m almost a Democrat. There seems to be a lot of confusion around like a political conversion taking place by leaving your bubble and traveling all fifty states. We abandoned our identities as Republicans because we found out that no one can be summed up in a political ideology. Humans are too beautiful and too complex and too infinitely valuable to be summed up in such overly simplistic term. So that’s what we mean by we’re no longer Republicans, is that we now are beginning to see we’ve come into a deeper understanding of the beauty of our fellow human beings.

How much resistance did you run into trying to find people to talk together?

DL: About the only resistance we really found was from our fellow conservatives. That was really surprising to us. We rarely found, I think I can count them on one hand, resistance from people who were kind of outside of my tribe. When we tried to connect with people of our own tribe, or our former tribe, whatever you want to call it, did we find that kind of level of resistance.  I think there something that when you kind of step out against the team, it’s something really sensitive, because so many of us have identified in this country by our political affiliations. And if you come from us and step outside of that, boy, it’s kind of like the unforgiveable sin.

EL: We were upsetting the apple cart of our upbringing, and it made it very hard to stick your toe back in and say, “Can we talk? We have some questions.” We had a lot of resistance there. It was really interesting and surprising at the time.

What do you see as the foundation for the division we face?

DL: That was so much of our focus, I think. We started this journey thinking that the problem in America was that we were politically divided. That was really our hypotheses, that if we can just go to different parts of the country and host a dinner for a few Republicans and a few Democrats we could kind of see each other as human, important, and realize our differences aren’t really that big of a deal, and by the time dessert hit we would kind of heal that divide. What we realized was kind of our political divisions were a symptom of something a whole lot deeper. So for us, along this journey, was constantly asking this question: how did we get this way? Going deeper and deeper. What’s causing this? What’s causing that? And it led us back before the founding of the country. It led us into the understanding of the rise of Christendom and colonization and it got into our story of whose land do we stand upon today and how was that land acquired? I think when you build something on land that was gained often through the shedding of innocent blood, whatever house you build upon that foundation is going to have a tough time making it. So for me, our solution isn’t to fix the brokenness of the last two or three presidencies when we’ve gotten divided, but I really think if we want to heal this land, we need to go into the very foundations of the building blocks of the United States of America and really look at those. “How did we come to be the good, the bad, and the ugly?” through a process of acknowledgement and truth, through a process of justice and conciliation. I think there’s a journey to healing. It’s not an easy and it’s not a short one.

BR: I would echo that, that the foundations of the country were built on genocide of native peoples and slavery. So, there’s kind of a fundamental split between what the ideals of our founding fathers and documents were, and the contradiction of what was actually happening. On the political differences, it seems over the last forty years that we’ve seen a steady rapid polarization increasing. A lot of that has to do with the end of the cold war and the loss of a common enemy that we used to have. This kind of superpower that was our existential threat untied us together, and once we lost that external enemy, we turned to our enemies inside. Then on our same side our policy and democracy reform has been slow to keep up with the changes. So a lot of political leaders are incentivized to move to the extremes to win elections and win primaries. There’s sort of a coupling of all these things that has created the atmosphere that we’re in now. The question is there is emergency crisis management—how do we put out the house that’s on fire?—while we also think of longer-term solutions.

What are the next steps you will be taking personally, or that you hope to see happen in a more general sense?

BR: We’re really hopeful that the film can be a small part of the conversation of turning things around, and saying we all have a role to play in this. We’re all either part of the problem or part of the solution of the problem of division. We think it’s so easy—and I was like this—it’s easy to say those other people on the other side, they’re the ones being unreasonable. But we end up throwing a lot of gas on the fire—in social media, in our friend groups—by not taking any ownership of our own side of the street. The narrative needs to shift to one of what can I be doing differently? How can I heal my personal relationships, my family relationships, people I’ve fallen out of favor with? So there’s this moment now where it feels like there’s a ground swell of awareness after the Capitol attack and with a new administration, like them or not, for a sense of unity, and trying to set that tone in words and in actions, people might debate that. But there’s a realization that this isn’t working. So all the solutions should be on the table because there are a lot of people digging in their heels and saying “until we agree on the facts we can’t move forward”. Or “Until they take the blame, we can’t move forward”. That is going to continue to make it even worse. There’s 300 million people in this country. How do we each take responsibility because as citizens it’s not just the rights that we have, we have responsibilities, because freedom isn’t free. We have to actually take action where we are with what we have right now. That’s something we have a choice over.

EL: I agree. I think we’re at a crossroads in many ways, in which we each individually have a choice to make. That choice, I think, collectively speaking, will determine where we go from here as a nation. There’s so much anger and animosity. I recently heard someone say, “It’s easier to be angry than it is to be hurt.” I think we have to decide to be courageous enough to feel the pain of the moment and engage in that pain in order to move into the actual choice of do we want to be united states? Is that what we want as a nation? We’re at a watershed moment, I think, where we get to decide. I don’t think a President can say we’re united, and poof it magically appears. We all have work to do in our hearts and our minds and with our words. This is like Kindergarten 101. Do you want to be kind? Or do you want to be mean? In some sense we’re actually complicating something that’s actually simple. It’s what do you want? We have to decide that as a nation. It’s not about are we all going to agree on the facts. We’ve never agreed on the facts. That’s never been part of our ethos. Disagreement is kind of woven into the fabric of who we are as a nation. We’ve forgotten how to do that with love and honor. If we don’t find our way back to that place, I think we’re on a very dangerous path moving forward. We all have a decision to make.

Filed Under: Interviews, VOD Tagged With: Documentarty

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