The Tribeca Film Festival award-winning documentary Bobbi Jene directed by Elvira Lind, looks at the exhilarating journey of a dancer finding her place in the world. The film swept the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival documentary awards, winning for Best Documentary Feature, Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Bobbi Jene will be released in New York at the Quad Cinema on Friday, September 22, with additional cities to follow.
After a decade of stardom in Israel, American dancer Bobbi Jene Smith decides to leave behind her prominent position at the world-famous Batsheva Dance Company, as well as the love of her life, to return to the US to create her own boundary-breaking art. Tracking the personal and professional challenges that await her, Lind’s film lovingly and intimately documents the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. Observing the artist in both private and public settings, the film moves between uninhibited scenes of life at home, grueling rehearsals, and Bobbi Jene’s revealing choreography. Baring her body, her new work explores both the physical and emotional complexities of female sexuality. Bobbi Jene delves into what it takes for a woman to gain her own independence in the extremely competitive world of dance and to find self-fulfillment in the process.
Documentary
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Tribeca Film Festival Award-Winning Documentary BOBBI JENE Dances into Theaters on September 22 | Trailer
The Tribeca Film Festival award-winning documentary Bobbi Jene directed by Elvira Lind, looks at the exhilarating journey of a dancer finding her place in the world. The film swept the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival documentary awards, winning for Best Documentary Feature, Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Bobbi Jene will be released in New York at the Quad Cinema on Friday, September 22, with additional cities to follow.
After a decade of stardom in Israel, American dancer Bobbi Jene Smith decides to leave behind her prominent position at the world-famous Batsheva Dance Company, as well as the love of her life, to return to the US to create her own boundary-breaking art. Tracking the personal and professional challenges that await her, Lind’s film lovingly and intimately documents the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. Observing the artist in both private and public settings, the film moves between uninhibited scenes of life at home, grueling rehearsals, and Bobbi Jene’s revealing choreography. Baring her body, her new work explores both the physical and emotional complexities of female sexuality. Bobbi Jene delves into what it takes for a woman to gain her own independence in the extremely competitive world of dance and to find self-fulfillment in the process.
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VIDEO: Watch Trailer for Documentary SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME World Premiering at Toronto Film Festival
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Sammy Davis, Jr. takes aim in a backstage photo with his dancers in a scene from the documentary SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME. Photo Credit: The Estate of Altovise Davis[/caption]
The trailer premiered today for the new documentary Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me directed by the legendary documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard, which will have it’s world premiere this September at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine Davis’ vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.
Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.
Featuring new interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis’ vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.
I want to live, not merely survive
And I won’t give up this dream
Of life that keeps me alive.
I’ve gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me
The dream that I see makes me what I am.
I’m Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored, and married to a white woman.
When I move into a neighborhood, people start running in four ways at the same time.
–Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8AV81ANTw
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THE WORK, Documentary Set Inside California’s Folsom Prison, Gets Release Date
The Work is a documentary film that follows a group of outsiders into California’s Folsom Prison to join inmates in an intense four-day therapy session intended to help prepare them to succeed back outside prison.
The film was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival 2017, and Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017. Directed by Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous, The Work will open in New York on Friday, October 20, and in Los Angeles on Friday, October 27, with a national rollout to follow.
Set inside a single room in Folsom Prison, The Work follows three men from outside as they participate in a four-day group therapy retreat with level-four convicts. Over the four days, each man in the room takes his turn at delving deep into his past. The raw and revealing process that the incarcerated men undertake exceeds the expectations of the free men, ripping them out of their comfort zones and forcing them to see themselves and the prisoners in unexpected ways. The Work offers a powerful and rare look past the cinder block walls, steel doors and the dehumanizing tropes in our culture to reveal a movement of change and redemption that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation.
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THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST on Controversial Anti-Vaccination Dr. Andrew Wakefield Sets Release Date
The Pathological Optimist directed by Miranda Bailey documents Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the man behind one of the most highly controversial, intensely debated topics in modern medicine: the anti-vaccination movement. The film will be released theatrically by The Film Arcade on September 29th followed by a VOD release via Gravitas later this year.
With The Pathological Optimist, director Miranda Bailey brings us a character study of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, one of 13 co-authors of a notorious 1998 paper in the UK medical Journal The Lancet, but who became the very public face of what has come to be known as “The Anti-Vaccination Movement.” An expat from Britain who currently resides in Austin, Texas, Wakefield allowed Bailey and her team to follow him and his family for five years beginning in 2011 as he fought a defamation battle in the courts against the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer. The results of that case – and the self-reflection, pronouncements, and observations of Wakefield, his legal team, wife, and his children – create a complex and incisive look at one of our era’s most fear-provoking and continuingly provocative figures. The Pathological Optimist takes no sides, instead letting Wakefield and the battles he fought speak for themselves.
The Pathological Optimist is the sophomore effort of prolific indie producer Miranda Bailey, whose debut Greenlit premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW in 2010. In a 15-year filmmaking career, Bailey has distinguished herself by producing over 20 films, among them the Oscar-nominated The Squid Whale and the Spirit Award-winning The Diary of a Teenage Girl, as well as James Gunn’s Super and the Sundance Film festival hit Swiss Army Man.
Bailey also recently completed production on her narrative feature debut You Can Choose Your Family, starring Jim Gaffigan.
“I’ve always gravitated towards controversial subject matters in the many films I’ve produced. The minefield of strong opinions and disagreements on who Andrew Wakefield is or what Andrew Wakefield has done intrigued me. What I found was a startling portrayal of a modern day sisyphus; punished by the media and the public yet continuing to push his rock up the hill over and over again.” stated Bailey.
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Documentary RAT FILM, Uses Rats to Explore History of Baltimore, Gets September Release Date | Trailer
Rat Film is a feature-length documentary that uses the rat to explore the history of Baltimore. The film directed by Theo Anthony will open in theaters on September 15, in New York at Film Society at Lincoln Center, and Baltimore at Parkway Theater.
Across walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. Rat Film is a feature-length documentary that uses the rat—as well as the humans that love them, live with them, and kill them–to explore the history of Baltimore. “There’s never been a rat problem in Baltimore, it’s always been a people problem.”
Rat Film director Theo Anthony is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker currently based in Baltimore, MD. His work has been featured by the The Atlantic, Vice, Agence-France Presse (AFP), and other international media outlets. His films have received premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Anthology Film Archives. In 2015, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDy3Mtot7IA
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Sundance 2017 Documentary SCHOOL LIFE on Irish Boarding School, Sets Release Date | Trailer
The documentary School Life is a charming portrait of a year in the life of the only primary-age boarding school in Ireland and the two inspirational teachers at its heart. Directed by Irish husband-and-wife filmmakers Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane, the documentary was a favorite of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival (where it was known as In Loco Parentis). School Life will open in New York at the IFC Center on Friday, September 8, with additional cities to follow.
Headfort, a school not unlike Hogwarts with its 18th century buildings, secret doors and magical woodlands, has been home to John and Amanda Leyden for 46 years and a backdrop to their extraordinary careers. For John, rock music is just another subject alongside math, English and Latin, all of which are taught in a collaborative and often hilarious fashion. For his wife Amanda, the key to connecting with children is the book, and she uses all means to snare the young minds. The level of attention and the concern the Leydens have for their students lead to some remarkable developmental transformations as the children journey from being homesick and afraid to confident young people, tearful upon realizing that school is over and they must go home. As John and Amanda ponder retirement, the film poses a quietly profound question: Will their intimate and caring cultivation of future generations live on, or will it vanish like so many community-centered practices?
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SFFILM Selects 10 Finalists for 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund Grants
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The Feeling of Being Watched[/caption]
SFFILM has selected ten finalists for the 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund which will award $125,000 to support feature-length documentaries in postproduction.
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund is a partnership with the Jenerosity Foundation and was created to support singular nonfiction film work that is distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters and an innovative visual approach. Finalists were selected from more than 300 applicants, and winners will be announced in early September.
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for championing important films that have gone on to earn great acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Peter Nicks’s The Force, which won the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary and SFFILM Festival’s Bay Area Documentary Award, and will be released this fall by Kino Lorber; Peter Bratt’s Dolores, which won the 2017 SFFILM Festival Audience Award for Documentary Feature following its Sundance premiere; Jamie Meltzer’s True Conviction, which won a Special Jury Mention for Documentary Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival; and Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature; among many others.
Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has distributed nearly half a million dollars to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide. The 2017 Documentary Film Fund is made possible thanks to an expanded gift from the Jenerosity Foundation.
2017 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND FINALISTS
The Feeling of Being Watched Assia Boundaoui, director/producer; Jessica Devaney, producer When a filmmaker investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community. Hale County, This Morning, This Evening RaMell Ross, director; Joslyn Barnes and Su Hyeon Kim, producers What is the experience of coming-of-age in the Black Belt region of the US? This film presents the lives of two young men in a series of visual movements that replace narrative arc with orchestral form. Heaven Through the Back Door Anna Fitch and Banker White, co-director/producers; Sara Dosa, producer Heaven Through the Backdoor is a contemplative documentary that tells the story of Yo (Yolanda Shae), a fiercely independent 88-year old woman whose unique brand of individualist feminism impacts how she chooses to live in the final years of her life. (Former SFFILM FilmHouse Resident) How to Have an American Baby Leslie Tai, director/producer; Jillian Schultz, co-producer There is a city in Southern California that abounds with pregnant women from China. Told through multiple perspectives, How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage behind the closed doors of the Chinese birth tourism industry. (SFFILM FilmHouse Resident, SFFILM fiscally sponsored filmmaker) The Judge Erika Cohn, director/producer; Sara Maamouri, co-producer The Judge provides rare insight into Shari’a law (Islamic law), an often misunderstood legal framework for Muslims, told through the eyes of Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s religious courts. (SFFILM fiscally sponsored filmmaker) El Lugar de la Memoria Juan Pablo González, director; Makena Buchanan, Jamie Gonçalves, and Ilana Coleman, producers As economic and social conditions become dire, a wave of suicides among young people disrupts life in a small Mexican town. Through daily rituals and ceremonies amongst the people in this community, El Lugar de la Memoriapresents a reflection on the reconfiguration of rural life in Mexico. A Machine to Live In Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, co-directors; Sebastian Alvarez, producer; Andrew Benz, co-producer Hovering over what remains of Brazil’s modernist future, this film looks at how social control, rational design, and space-age architecture gave rise to a vast landscape of transcendental and mystical utopias. Midnight Family Luke Lorentzen, director; Kellen Quinn, producer; Daniela Alatorre,and Elena Fortes, co-producers In Mexico City, 16-year-old Juan Ochoa struggles to legitimize his family’s unlicensed ambulance business, as corrupt police in the neighborhood begin to target this cutthroat industry. Pahokee Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan, co-director/producers; Maida Brankman, producer Pahokee, Florida (pop. 6,094): one hour by car across Palm Beach County from the presidential opulence of Mar-a-Lago. Against a backdrop of industrial agriculture and economic isolation, high school students from different racial and cultural backgrounds forge a sense of meaning and community via elaborate and colorful rites of passage. Pigeon Kings Milena Pastreich, director/producer; Michael Sherman and Matthew Perniciaro, producers Keith London, the godfather of Birmingham Rollers, and his mentee, Choo Choo, survive life in South Central LA through their dedication to somersaulting pigeons. image via The Feeling of Being Watched
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VIDEO: Watch Official Trailer for “Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators”
The Orchard has released the official trailer for Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators, a documentary film about Curious George creators, Hans & Margret Rey. The film directed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki will be released by The Orchard On Digital and On Demand August 15th.
Featuring a narrow escape from the Nazis on makeshift bicycles, Monkey Business explores the extraordinary lives of Hans and Margret Rey, the authors of the beloved Curious George children’s books.
Curious George is the most popular monkey in the world. Since his introduction in the first publication in 1941, the beloved series has sold over 75 million books in more than 25 languages. MONKEY BUSINESS explores the lesser-known tale of George’s creators, Hans and Margret Rey. Originally from Hamburg, Germany, the Reys first met when Hans was dating Margret’s older sister. Years later, having heard that Hans was wasting his artistic talents as a bookkeeper in Rio, Margret traveled to Brazil to persuade him to marry her and do something creative together. After their four-week honeymoon to Paris turned into a four-year residency, they accidentally became children’s book authors when a publisher suggested they create a book out of a cartoon Hans had drawn. Being German Jews, however, their life in Paris abruptly came to an end in June 1940 when the Reys were forced to escape from the Nazis by riding makeshift bicycles—a manuscript of the first Curious George book was one of the few possessions they could smuggle out with them. Arriving in New York as refugees, they started their life anew and over the next three decades they created a classic that continues to touch the hearts and minds of children around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayjx-0wZxpg
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WALK WITH ME a Journey into World of Mindfulness of Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh | Trailer
Walk With Me, directed by Marc J. Francis and Max Pugh is ‘a cinematic journey into the world of mindfulness of Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh’, narrated by Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch. The film which received its world premiere at 2017 SXSW Film Festival earlier in the year, opens in the San Francisco on Friday, August 11 and will screen in New York City at the Rubin Museum of Art from August 18 through August 26. Then it will be released in theaters across the United States.
With unprecedented access, Walk With Me goes deep inside a Zen Buddhist community who practice the art of mindfulness with their world-famous teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.
Filmed over three years in their monastery in rural France and on the road in the USA, this visceral film is a meditation on a community grappling with existential questions and the everyday routine of monastic life.
As the seasons come and go, the monastics’ pursuit for a deeper connection to themselves and the world around them is amplified by insights from Thich Nhat Hanh’s early journals, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.
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RIP: Country Superstar and Documentary “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me” Star Glen Campbell Dead at 81
Glen Campbell, the country and pop superstar and subject of the 2014 documentary, Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, died on Tuesday in Nashville after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was 81.
Campbell revealed that he had the disease in June 2011, saying it had been diagnosed six months earlier. He then announced that he was going ahead with a farewell tour later that year in support of his new album, “Ghost on the Canvas.”
What was supposed to be a five-week tour turned into 151 shows over 15 months. Mr. Campbell’s last performance was in Napa, Calif., on Nov. 30, 2012, and by the spring of 2014 he had moved into a long-term care and treatment center near Nashville.
That tour and the way he and his family dealt with the sometimes painful progress of his disease were chronicled in a 2014 documentary, “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me,” directed by the actor James Keach.
The documentary film features those who know and love Glen, including Bruce Springsteen, Bill Clinton, The Edge, Paul McCartney, Jay Leno, Vince Gill, Jimmy Webb, Blake Shelton, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Steve Martin, Chad Smith and Taylor Swift among many others.
In addition to his wife Kimberly Campbell, he is survived by eight children, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane, Ashley, Cal, Shannon and Dillon;many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; three sisters, Barbara, Sandra and Jane; and two brothers, John Wallace and Gerald.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAtgraWN5-I
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Documentary Fairy Tale SPETTACOLO to Open in New York on September 6th
Spettacolo is described as a documentary fairy tale directed by Jeff Malberg (Marwencol) and Chris Shellen, about a tiny Italian farming village that turns their lives into a play. The film which had it’s world premiere at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival, will open in theaters in New York on September 6th, 2017.
Once upon a time, villagers in a tiny hill town in Tuscany came up with a remarkable way to confront their issues: they turned their lives into a play. Every summer, their piazza became their stage and residents of all ages played a part – the role of themselves. Monticchiello’s annual tradition has attracted worldwide attention and kept the town together for 50 years, but with an aging population and a future generation more interested in Facebook than farming, the town’s 50th anniversary performance just might be its last. Spettacolo tells the story of Teatro Povero di Monticchiello, interweaving episodes from its past with its modern-day process as the villagers turn a series of devastating blows into a new play about the end of their world.
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VIDEO: Watch Trailer for PROSPERITY Documentary Featuring Pedram Shojai (aka Urban Monk)
Prosperity is the new documentary film following Pedram Shojai as he explores how every day spending can affect the world around us. The film directed by Mark van Wijk will open in select theaters nationwide beginning September 29, 2017, in New York at IFC Center and Los Angeles at Music Hall.
Dr. Pedram Shojai is an author, filmmaker, founder of Well.Org, Urban Monk, husband and father. Prosperity is a feature documentary about his journey across the Americas to discover a more sustainable way for us all to do business and thrive on our Planet. ‘The Urban Monk’ tracks the organic roots of Rodale Publishing; the food revolution of Whole Foods Market; Guayaki’s waged war for rainforest redemption; Terra Cycle’s scheme to drain the oceans of plastic; architect CookFox’s carbon-reducing skyscraper design, alongside many others. Through these companies and more, the documentary explores an exploding conscious business movement, one fueled by social responsibility, transparency, millennials, and the realization that business-as-usual can’t go on. The film unveils effective ways for everyone to be a part of this movement and really drive the positive change needed in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGwySLuQdHQ
image via screen grab