Documentary

VIDEO: Watch SAVING CAPITALISM Trailer, Documentary Ask “Why is American Economic System Failing?”

Here is the new trailer for the documentary Saving Capitalism based on Robert Reich’s 2015 book; and looks at the reasons why the economic system that once made America strong is suddenly failing, as well as how it can be fixed. The film debuts November 21 on Netflix. Directed by Jacob Kornbluth, Saving Capitalism is a clear-eyed examination of a political and economic status quo that no longer serves the people, exposing the powerful alliances between Washington and Wall Street, as well as the extreme wealth disparity in our country. Visionary and acute, Saving Capitalism helps build the path toward restoring America’s fundamental promise of opportunity and advancement. Diving deep into the political economic system, this documentary is not about being democratic or republican, but refocuses the conversation on how we can fix it. Who is Robert B. Reich? Robert B. Reich is an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Also, he was appointed a member of then-President-elect Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board. He has published 14 books, including the best-sellers Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few; The Work of Nations; Reason; Supercapitalism; Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; and a best-selling e-book, Beyond Outrage. The Robert Reich-Jacob Kornbluth film INEQUALITY FOR ALL won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Utah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9E2DBzAaI
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VIDEO: Watch Jon Alpert’s CUBA AND THE CAMERAMAN Trailer – See Life in Cuba Over the Course of 45 YEARS

Cuba and the Cameraman, directed by multiple-Emmy award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentarian Jon Alpert, captures life in Cuba over the course of 45 years, from the country’s cautious optimism during the early 1970s, to the harrowing 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the death of Fidel Castro last year. In the film, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Alpert focuses on three Cuban families and their growth and struggle throughout the decades. He was also astonishingly able to obtain unprecedented access to Castro himself, exposing a more intimate side of Castro never before seen by the public. Cuba and the Cameraman will be launching on Netflix and opening in select theaters on Friday, November 24. Since 1959, when Fidel Castro ascended to power in the revolution that marked an era, no one had ever gone as deep inside Cuba as Jon Alpert (Baghdad ER, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province). The multiple-Emmy award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentarian began filming in Castro’s Cuba in 1972, having become fascinated with the country, its people, and its culture years earlier. Alpert brought along a small crew and a portable camera, beginning a fascinating, intimate, decades-long chronicle of the Communist country that was 90 miles off the coast of Florida, a longtime political foe, but a mystery to much of the world. Compiled from more than a thousand hours of footage and filmed over 45 years, Alpert follows three families and Fidel Castro. He was there for Cuba’s optimistic socialism of the early ’70s, and for the 1980 Mariel Bay boatlift, when over 100,000 Cubans fled the island accompanied by inmates released from prisons and insane asylums. He returned to cover the hardships of the 1990s; the harrowing “Special Period” after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba literally went dark. He documented how these families and the Cuban leader dealt with the serious challenges gripping their country. Among the revelations in the Netflix original documentary Cuba and the Cameraman is Castro himself – unguarded, off-the-cuff, and unedited. In their numerous on-camera interviews, the cigar-chomping revolutionary affectionately called the straight-shooting Alpert “The Journalist,” and showed a side of himself never seen publicly. Alpert was one of the last Americans to see Castro before his death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsZ8hDutkeM
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VIDEO: Watch a Clip from Parenting Documentary FAR FROM THE TREE Featuring Andrew Solomon

Check out a new clip – on discovering the true nature of family featuring Andrew Solomon, from new parenting documentary Far From The Tree, directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Rachel Dretzin. Far From The Tree will World Premiere at the 2017 DOC NYC on Friday, November 10, 2017. More than a decade ago, acclaimed author Andrew Solomon embarked on a remarkable journey that was at once intensely personal and unmistakably universal. Inspired by his family’s difficulty in accepting his differences from them, Solomon began researching children who fall “Far From The Tree” in a variety of ways. The result was Solomon’s bestselling book Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. Based on Solomon’s award-winning book, the new documentary Far From The Tree explores the difficulties and rewards of raising and being a child whose experience of the world is vastly different from their parents. Directed and produced by Emmy-winning filmmaker Rachel Dretzin, it follows families coping with the challenges presented by Down syndrome, dwarfism, autism and even having a child in prison as they share their intimate stories with touching candor in an illuminating look at a complex bond. Each family tells a unique story, but Dretzin deftly uncovers parallels that touch on issues of community, understanding and self-acceptance. Deeply compassionate, the film illustrates how families that face extraordinary challenges meet them in the most ordinary ways: with love, empathy, and a desire to understand one another, and encourages us to cherish loved ones for all they are, not who they might have been. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI1L-Fwm7NY
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VIDEO: Watch New Clip from THE PROBLEM WITH APU, Premieres on truTV on November 19

Check out a new clip from the highly-anticipated comedic documentary The Problem with Apu which is set to premiere on truTV on Sunday, November 19 at 10PM ET/PT. The Problem with Apu will have its World Premiere at DOC NYC on November 14. In the hour-long film, creator and star Hari Kondabolu, a South Asian-American comedian, confronts his long-standing “nemesis” Apu Nahasapeemapetilon – better known as the Indian convenience store owner on The Simpsons. Kondabolu discusses how this controversial caricature was created, burrowed its way into the hearts and minds of Americans, and continues to exist – intact – nearly three decades later. In this highly-personal, insightful and timely exploration of minority media representation, Kondabolu speaks with prominent South Asian actors about the damaging legacy of Apu – an animated character voiced by a white actor with a heavily exaggerated, stereotypical Indian accent. Aziz Ansari, Kal Penn, Aasif Mandvi, Hasan Minjaj, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Aparna Nancherla, Russell Peters, Sakina Jaffrey and Maulik Pancholy share poignant stories about their own experiences with Apu and the broader questions about the comedy and representation he evokes. With additional interviews with EGOT-winner Whoopi Goldberg, W. Kamau Bell, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Mallika Rao, and many more, The Problem with Apu takes a humorous look at how even a beloved television series can have a blind spot. “I was obsessed with The Simpsons growing up and it has greatly influenced my comedy. However, as my mother proves, you can criticize something you love because you expect more from it,” said Kondabolu. “For the longest time, Apu was the most prominent representation of South Asian Americans – and despite how much our society has changed in the last three decades – the character persists today. I made this film to not only talk about the origin of Apu and highlight the impact of such images in media, but also to celebrate the diversity and complexity of my community.” Hailed as “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today” by The New York Times, Brooklyn-based comedian Kondaboluis the host of the popular podcast “Politically Re-Active” alongside W. Kamau Bell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nUp5EG-5Kc
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VIDEO: New Trailer for QUEST, An Epic Portrait of an American Family, Opens in NY on Dec. 8

Here is the new trailer for Quest, Jonathan Olshefski’s moving chronicle of a close knit African-American family living in North Philadelphia. Filmed with vérité intimacy for almost a decade, Quest has swept top documentary awards at festivals across the country since it premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, including the Grand Jury prize at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. It will open in Philadelphia on December 1 (Landmark’s Ritz at the Bourse), New York on December 8 (Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles (Laemmle Monica) on December 15. A wider national rollout will follow. Beginning at the dawn of the Obama presidency, the film follows the Raineys: father Christopher “Quest” Rainey, who juggles various jobs to support his family; Christine’a “Ma Quest,” who works at a women’s shelter; Christine’a’s son William, who is undergoing cancer treatment while caring for his baby son; and PJ, Quest and Christine’a’s young daughter. In a neighborhood besieged by inequality and neglect, they nurture a community of hip hop artists in their home music studio. It’s a safe space where all are welcome, but this creative sanctuary can’t always shield them from the strife that grips their neighborhood. Epic in scope, Quest is a vivid illumination of race and class in America, and a profound testament to love, healing and hope.
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170 Documentary Feature Films Submitted for 90th Academy Awards

[caption id="attachment_25315" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Gaga: Five Foot Two[/caption] One hundred seventy features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 90th Academy Awards. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December. Films submitted in the Documentary Feature category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories. Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 23, 2018. The 90th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide. The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are: Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Aida’s Secrets Al Di Qua All the Rage All These Sleepless Nights AlphaGo The American Media and the Second Assassination of President John F. Kennedy And the Winner Isn’t Angels Within Architects of Denial Arthur Miller: Writer Atomic Homefront The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography Bang! The Bert Berns Story Bending the Arc Big Sonia Bill Nye: Science Guy Birthright: A War Story Bobbi Jene Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Born in China Born to Lead: The Sal Aunese Story Boston Brimstone & Glory Bronx Gothic Burden California Typewriter Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story Casting JonBenet Chasing Coral Chasing Trane Chavela Citizen Jane: Battle for the City City of Ghosts Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives Cries from Syria Cruel & Unusual Cuba and the Cameraman Dawson City: Frozen Time Dealt The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson Destination Unknown Dina Dolores Dream Big: Engineering Our World A Dying King: The Shah of Iran Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) Earth: One Amazing Day 11/8/16 Elian Embargo Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars Escapes Everybody Knows… Elizabeth Murray Ex Libris – The New York Public Library Extraordinary Ordinary People Faces Places The Farthest The Final Year Finding Oscar 500 Years Food Evolution For Ahkeem The Force The Freedom to Marry From the Ashes Gaga: Five Foot Two A German Life Get Me Roger Stone Gilbert God Knows Where I Am Good Fortune A Gray State Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement and the Swami Who Started It All Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story Hearing Is Believing Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS Human Flow I Am Another You I Am Evidence I Am Jane Doe I Called Him Morgan Icarus If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast The Incomparable Rose Hartman An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power Intent to Destroy Jane Jeremiah Tower The Last Magnificent Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower Karl Marx City Kedi Keep Quiet Kiki LA 92 The Last Dalai Lama? The Last Laugh Last Men in Aleppo Legion of Brothers Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982 – 1992 Let’s Play Two Letters from Baghdad Long Strange Trip Look & See Machines Man in Red Bandana Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance Motherland Mully My Scientology Movie Naples ’44 Neary’s – The Dream at the End of the Rainbow Night School No Greater Love No Stone Unturned Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press Nowhere to Hide Obit Oklahoma City One of Us The Paris Opera The Pathological Optimist Prosperity The Pulitzer at 100 Quest Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman The Rape of Recy Taylor The Reagan Show Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan Risk A River Below Rocky Ros Muc Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World Santoalla School Life Score: A Film Music Documentary Served Like a Girl The Settlers 78/52 Shadowman Shot! The Psycho Spiritual Mantra of Rock Sidemen: Long Road to Glory The Skyjacker’s Tale Sled Dogs Soufra Spettacolo Step Stopping Traffic: The Movement to End Sex-Trafficking Strong Island Surviving Peace Swim Team Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton Take My Nose… Please! They Call Us Monsters 32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous Tickling Giants Trophy Twenty Two Unrest Vince Giordano – There’s a Future in the Past Voyeur Wait for Your Laugh Wasted! The Story of Food Waste Water & Power: A California Heist Whitney. Can I Be Me Whose Streets? The Work
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VIDEO: Watch Election Day Film “11/8/16” Trailer, Opens in Theaters on November 3rd

Check out the new trailer for the Election Day Film 11/8/16, Jeff Deutchman’s second installment in his election film series. The film opens in theaters and on iTunes on November 3, 2017. On the morning of Election Day 2016, Americans of all stripes woke up and went about living their radically different lives. These were the hours leading up to Donald Trump’s unexpected, earth-shaking victory, but, of course, no one knew that yet. What did that day look like? With 11/8/16, producer/creator Jeff Deutchman’s second installment in his election film series, viewers are afforded a uniquely cinematic look at the chaotic glory of American democracy from sea to shining sea. Featuring footage captured by a carefully curated group of some of America’s finest documentary filmmakers, 11/8/16 follows sixteen subjects spanning the country’s geographic, socioeconomic and political divides through the course of that history-altering day. 11/8/16 was an election unlike any other. 11/8/16 brings us back to that day with the immediacy of great nonfiction filmmaking, and shows the vibrant directness how life happens as history is being made.
The film is directed by Duane Andersen, Yung Chang, Garth Donovan Vikram Gandhi, Raul Gasteazoro, Andrew Beck Grace, Jamie Goncalves, Alma Har’el, Daniel Junge, Alison Klayman, Ciara Lacy, Martha Shane, Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Bassam Tariq, Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce, Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker; and curated and produced by Jeff Deutchman
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The Orchard Will Release Award-Winning Documentary TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!

The Orchard will release the award-winning documentary film “TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!” in the United States and Canada on all digital and on-demand platforms beginning on January 9, 2018, director Kron’s 90th birthday. The film is currently finishing its Oscar® qualifying theatrical run in theaters in Los Angeles and New York. The acclaimed film, directed by the 89-year-old, first-time filmmaker Joan Kron (former contributing editor at large of Allure Magazine for 25 years and former fashion reporter of the Wall Street Journal), looks at the pressure on women to be attractive through the lens of comedy, and features well-known funny women including Jackie Hoffman, Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Lisa Lampanelli, Giulia Rozzi and a who’s-who of female comedy icons. “I am excited to be working with The Orchard to bring this film to a larger audience,” said director Kron. “We learned in festivals and in our theatrical screenings how the picture resonates with women–and men–by opening up for discussion a topic often spoken about in whispers. After years as a print journalist, it is thrilling for me to see how a film can affect audiences viscerally. Not only is “TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!” entertaining – even hilarious – it is visual truth serum, giving viewers permission to talk about their own experiences with age or appearance discrimination and their attitudes, pro and con, toward cosmetic surgery.” “Some people are surprised,” Kron adds, “that at this late age, I could learn to work in another medium, but I tell them, if I could start writing at age 41, I can become a director in my 80’s.” Prior to its theatrical run, “TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!” was a selection of many film festivals around the country including the Newport Beach Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, and San Francisco DocFest among others. The film won the Audience Award at the Miami Film Festival and at the Berkshire International Film Festival. “TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE!” follows two comedians as they deliberate about going under the knife. Emily Askin, an up-and coming improv performer, has always wanted her nose refined. Emmy-nominated Jackie Hoffman, a seasoned headliner on Broadway and TV, considers herself ugly and regrets not having the nose job offered in her teens. And maybe she’d like a face-lift, as well. As we follow their surprisingly emotional stories, we meet others who have taken the leap – or held out. Putting it all in perspective are surgeons, sociologists, and cultural critics. And for comic relief and the profundity only comedians can supply, there are some high-profile cameos.
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30th IDFA to Open with World Premiere of Egyptian Documentary AMAL

The 30th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will open on November 15 with the world première of Amal by Egyptian director Mohamed Siam. This coming-of-age documentary follows an Egyptian teenager during the revolution and its long resonating aftermath until today. Panning through 6 years, we see how Amal searches for her identity in a country in transition. Amal is fierce and undaunted. But, as a young woman among men, she has to fight to survive and to find her own place in the streets and in all other areas of life. Amal has been selected for the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary and the focus program Shifting Perspectives: The Arab World. Artistic director (interim) Barbara Visser: “In its choice of Amal as its opening film, IDFA has been able to combine almost everything it considers important: cinematic depiction of reality, an intimate story, and showcasing work by up-and-coming film talent from all over the world.” Siam (1982) is a fiction and documentary filmmaker from Egypt whose first work Whose Country? (2016) was amongst others selected for the New York Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival. He has previously won the Robert Bosch Film Prize, Durban FilmMart Afridocs Prize and Thessaloniki Award. For Amal, he took on the roles of writer, director, cinematographer and producer. This film was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) and attracted finance at the IDFA Forum. This year, 57 projects have been selected from 23 countries, for IDFA Forum Selection 2017, including new projects by Victor Kossakovsky, Nino Kirtadze, Jian Fan and Maite Alberdi.
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NAILA AND THE UPRISING, Story of the Role Women Played in First Intifada, Premieres at DOC NYC

Naila And The Uprising Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Julia Bacha (Budrus, My Neighbourhood), Naila And The Uprising tells the remarkable story of Naila Ayesh, who played a key role in the First Intifada, the most vibrant, nonviolent mobilization in Palestinian history. Naila And The Uprising will World Premiere at the eighth annual DOC NYC festival on Sunday, November 12 at the SVA Theatre, 209 East 23rd Street. When the uprising broke out in the late 1980s, Naila was living in Gaza. Faced with a choice between love, family and freedom, she embraced all three, joining a clandestine network of Palestinian women in a movement that forced the world and Israel to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination for the first time. The film focuses on the power of women’s leadership in building a united front in the struggle for self-determination, equality and freedom in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It inventively combines animation with archival footage to explore this hidden history. Naila And The Uprising premieres in the month leading up to the 30th anniversary of the start of the First Intifada on December 9, 1987 and, following its DOC NYC screening, will launch internationally at IDFA in Amsterdam. Julia Bacha said the film was a long-anticipated Just Vision production: “The First Intifada is an iconic moment in Palestinian history, when women took the helm of leadership positions at the grassroots and guided a civil resistance effort that was highly strategic, effective and creative and, in many ways, is an example of what civil resistance can achieve in the face of overwhelming repression. It’s a story that the media at the time missed—a trend that continues today as communities organize across the region for equality, freedom and justice—and we’re thrilled to finally bring it to light.” As part of a newly announced deal with Fork Films and THIRTEEN/WNET, Naila And The Uprising will be included in the four-part Women, War & Peace II series, which is slated to have its exclusive US broadcast premiere on PBS in 2018, as well as broad international distribution. This is the second installment of the Women War & Peace series, which highlights how women in contemporary conflict zones risk their lives and lift their communities in pursuit of freedom and justice. The first installment of the series in 2011—which included groundbreaking films like Pray the Devil Back to Hell—exceeded the expectations of PBS and the series producers.
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Carolyn Jones’ Inspirational Documentary DEFINING HOPE Opens in Theaters in November | Trailer

The new documentary feature film Defining Hope from director Carolyn Jones follows eight patients with life-threatening illness, and the nurses who guide them to make critical choices along the way as they face death, embrace hope, and ultimately redefine what makes life worth living. Defining Hope will have a national theatrical release starting with a theatrical premiere in New York on Wednesday night, November 1. That same day, the film will be released and screened in over 100 movie theaters in all 50 states nationwide. The film will also have a week-long theatrical run in New York City. Any additional markets will be announced later. Ahead of the theatrical release, Defining Hope will have its world premiere at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 17 and 18 and will screen at the Carmel Film Festival in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on Saturday, October 21. Defining Hope is a documentary that weaves the stories of patients with life-threatening illness, and the nurses who guide them as they make choices about how they want to live, how much medical technology they can accept, what they hope for and how that hope evolves. It is about optimism and helps us define what ‘quality of life’ really means. The film focuses on palliative care, end of life issues, and hospice care. It offers a hopeful message about bringing power back to the patient and helping people understand that they have choices when deciding on care when confronting life threatening illness. Defining Hope explores what makes life worth living and what to do for ourselves and our loved ones as we get closer to the end of life. Through the stories of patients, families, nurses, and healthcare professionals, the conversation around quality end-of-life care is brought to the forefront. Defining Hope follows these three patients, and others, as they face death, embrace hope, and ultimately redefine what makes life worth living: Diane is a nurse caring for end-stage cancer patients who is confronted with her own complex diagnosis. 23-year-old Alena undergoes a risky brain surgery that has the potential to damage her short-term memory. 95-year-old Berthold lives with his elderly wife who struggles to honor his wish of dying peacefully at home.
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Compelling Documentary WHAT HAUNTS US by Paige Goldberg Tolmach to Premiere at 2017 DOC NYC

The documentary What Haunts Us by Paige Goldberg Tolmach, tells the story about the 1979 class of Porter Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina that graduated 49 boys. Within the last 35 years, six of these boys committed suicide. Filmmaker Tolmach graduated from this school and now digs deep with the film in discovering the dark secrets that have lingered and haunted this community that she so loves. What Haunts Us will premiere at the 2017 DOC NYC Film Festival on Monday Nov 13th. The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ William Faulkner This is the central idea in What Haunts Us, Paige Goldberg Tolmach documentary about the horrific nightmare that happened at her seemingly perfect high school…that NO ONE wants to talk about to this day. When Paige hears about the suicide of yet another former schoolmate, she begins to take a deeper look at the past and starts to ask questions that almost no one in Charleston wants to answer. As she digs deeper, she begins to hear the awful truth about a beloved teacher who methodically manipulated and molested many of his students for years. It becomes her obsession to understand how it could have happened in plain view and, as it turns out, with the knowledge of the school. Her obsession becomes a story about our obligation to speak up and protect those who can’t protect themselves. It’s a story about how silence is complicity and about finding the courage to unearth what lies below the surface in order to shine a light on the truth of our own past.
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