Films by directors Barbara Kopple, Kristina Sorge, Douglas Sloan, Kent Jones, Jason Hutt, Marc Levin, Stephen Maing, Jimmy Goldblum, and Amy Berg are Kurt Brokaw’s critic’s picks from DOC NYC, the all-documentary festival that runs from November 12-19, 2015.
ITVFest’s executive director Philip Gilpin thinks the peaceful Vermont location adds an invaluable dimension to the festival focused on Internet entertainment. Plus, he said that when execs are shocked by the line-up because “what they’re seeing is better than what they are watching most nights on TV. A lot of these projects are screen ready.”
Remember 2008’s spectacular doc-based-on-a-book Man On Wire? Now it’s fictionalized as The Walk and Kurt Brokaw LOVED it. Find out what else our senior critic adored at this year’s New York Film Festival, running September 25-October 11, 2015.
How did the buying and selling stack up at this year’s TIFF? Courtney Sheehan takes the temp of the ever-feverish world of independent film exhibition and distribution by talking with Adam Birnbaum (Avon Theatre), Julie Anderson Friesen (Cinema Falls), and Andrew Carlin (Oscilloscope Laboratories).
If cinema can function as a vehicle for a nation’s collective memory, Afghanistan only recently began to recollect itself. Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary, A Flickering Truth, mines the Afghan Film Archive for the nation’s cultural history and follows the team of people who are working to protect it and share it with the world.
Lizzie Velasquez turned down interest from a lot of TV outlets and documentarians before agreeing to work with first-time director Sara Hirsh Bordo. Together they capture Velasquez’s inspiring story of personal triumph and anti-bullying political activism. A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story hits theaters and VOD on September 25, 2015.
Forget summer reading. (Or don’t. We love books over here, too!) Either way, add The End of The Tour, Queen of Earth, and Tangerine to your summer “watching” list.
The Independent’s Mike Sullivan talks with Scott Brock, who has worked as an editor and consultant with our 10 to Watch filmmaker Thomas Ikimi on several of his projects.
Senior critic Kurt Brokaw commends Tribeca’s Sharon Badal on her “peerless curating” in his annual selection of festival favorites. From the buzzy The Wolfpack to the under-the-radar shorts such as Big Boy selected by Badal, this year’s picks thus far include dramatized dance, rock legends (but not conspiracy theories), and under-helicoptered children.