New York Jewish Film Festival 2016 – Critic’s Choices
Senior film critic Kurt Brokaw selects his favorites from the 25th edition of the NYJFF, which runs January 13-26, 2016. Among them are Ellis, Rabin, The Last Day, Dear God, and The Law.
Documentary
DOC NYC 2015: Critic’s Picks
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.
TIFF 2015: Frederick Wiseman on Thoughts at the Edge of His Brain
Fittingly, Frederick Wiseman attended the 40th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival with his 40th documentary, In Jackson Heights, about a diverse New York neighborhood in flux. The Independent asks Wiseman to discuss the editing process, the communities he discovered in Jackson Heights, and the notion of screening all of his films in a continuous 100 hour stretch.
TIFF 2015: Doc Breathes Life Into Afghan Film Archive
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.
Introducing the World’s Most Beautiful Woman
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.
Filmmakers and Their Global Lens: Jem Cohen
Counting is a personal, essayistic documentary in 15 chapters where Cohen composes images, sound and music with remarkable intensity, combining them into a hypnotic foray through the metropolises of our world: New York, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Porto and a city intended to remain unknown. Time passes and stands still at the same time. Counting has it’s North American Premiere at BAMcinemaFEST 2015 on Saturday, June 27th – a Q&A with Cohen will follow the screening.
Filmmakers and Their Global Lens: Sophie Deraspe
“It is indeed a documentary about a huge fiction!” says Sophie Deraspe, the director of The Anima Profile, to Staff Writer Dana Knight, during their recent conversation.
10 Filmmakers to Watch in 2015: Amelia Evans
New Zealand human rights lawyer turned filmmaker Amelia Evans is not one to shy away from controversy. She follows the lives of pedophiles to find ways to prevent child abuse and understand their taboo attraction to children in her thought-provoking documentary Minor Attraction.
Filmmakers and Their Global Lens: Inuk Silis Høegh
“SUMÉ – The Sound of a Revolution is the story of the first Greenlandic rock band and its huge impact in the new awakening of the Greenlandic people in the 1970s.” says Inuk Silis Høegh