Documentary

Check out the trailer for The Blind Chess Players of India in ALGORITHMS, a First Run Features film which opens in Los Angeles on October 17 and in New York City on October 24.  In India, a group of boys dream of becoming Chess Grandmasters. But this is no ordinary chess and these are no ordinary players.  Algorithms, the debut feature documentary from filmmaker Ian McDonald, is a film that transports us into the little known world of Blind Chess.  Chess is an ancient and universal game with origins in India. 

Filmed over three years in different parts of India, Algorithms follows three boys and an adult champion who not only aspires to bring global recognition to India’s blind chess players, but also wants to encourage all blind children to play chess. The filmmakers travel with the players to competitive tournaments, including the World Junior Blind Chess Championship. They also film them in their home milieu where they reveal their struggles, anxieties and hopes. Moving through the algorithms of the blind chess world, the film is a tactile and mindful journey that challenges the notion of what it means to “see.”

The Chess Players



Charudatta Jadhav from Mumbai is a champion player turned pioneer. He discovered the game of chess soon after he went blind in his teenage years. It gave him confidence and a purpose in life. Convinced of the power of this game, he has dedicated his life to develop chess for the blind. A highly successful IT professional, Charu is a man of great drive and ambition, and he aims to situate India in the top five countries for Blind Chess.



Darpan Inani from Baroda is the most talented and highest ranked totally blind player in India. This idiosyncratic, confident and highly intelligent teenager is focussed on what he wants to achieve in chess, and in life. Darpan possesses a wisdom that belies his young age. He is a topper in his sighted school and  wants to be the first blind entrepreneur of India.



SaiKrishna S.T. from Chennai is the ambitious rising star of blind chess in India. He is fun-loving, gregarious and makes friends easily. But as a partially sighted boy faced with the possibility of going totally blind, there is a lot more steel to Sai’s character than at first appears. Sai studies in a blind school and is again a topper. He wants to be the first blind journalist of India.



Anant Kumar Nayak from Bhubaneshwar is a promising new talent. He is a gentle boy with an endearing if slightly eccentric personality. With a strong sense of moral duty and responsibility, the totally blind Anant struggles to balance his commitment to chess and studies. Anant has come second in training exams for IAS and hopes to be a rare blind IAS officer of India.

http://youtu.be/vkDse3PJguU

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Cinedigm has released the trailer for the documentary REMOTE AREA MEDICAL directed by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman which opens in NY on November 28th and nationwide on December 5th. The film was shot during a three-day clinic held at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway where, some of the country’s sickest individuals finally received health care. Their extraordinary stories create a lasting impression about the state of modern health care in America.

During the U.S. debate about healthcare reform, the media—reporters and news crews and filmmakers— failed to put a human face on what it means to not have access to healthcare. REMOTE AREA MEDICAL fills that gap—it is a film about people, not policy. Focusing on a single three-day clinic held in the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, REMOTE AREA MEDICAL affords us an insider’s perspective on the ebb and flow of the event—from the tense 3:30 a.m. ticket distribution that determines who gets seen to the routine check-ups that take dramatic turns for the worse, to the risky means to which some patients resort for pain relief. We meet a doctor who also drives an 18-wheeler, a denture maker who moonlights as a jeweler, and the organization’s founder, Stan Brock, who first imagined Remote Area Medical while living as a cowboy in the Amazon rainforest, hundreds of miles from the nearest doctor. But it is the extraordinary stories of the patients, desperate for medical attention, that create a lasting impression about the state of modern health care in America. 

http://youtu.be/l71S9goU37A

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MONK WITH A CAMERA: The Life and Journey of Nicholas Vreeland, the latest documentary by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara (Chris & Don: A Love Story), will open on November 21 at The Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York City, and the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on December 12, and expanding to other national markets in the following weeks.  

Nicholas (Nicky) Vreeland, the grandson of legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk in 1972.  He moved to India, cut his ties with his pleasure-filled world, and began living in a monastery with no running water or electricity. There, he would spend the next 14 years studying to become a monk.

Featuring up-close conversations with actor Richard Gere, his Holiness the Dalai Llama, and Vreeland’s Buddhist teacher Khylongla Rinpoche, among many others, MONK WITH A CAMERA gracefully chronicles Nicky Vreeland’s cultural and spiritual journey, as well as his lifelong (and often conflicting) relationship with photography.

Trained early on by famed American photographer Irving Penn, Nicky Vreeland developed a sophisticated aesthetic and was on a path to become a world-class photographer himself. But once a monk, he abandoned his cameras to focus on his studies and devote himself to a monastic life.  

Yet, in an ironic twist of fate, Nicky went back to photography in part to help rebuild the monastery after the 2008 economic crisis left them without much-needed financial assistance. Recently, the Dalai Lama appointed Nicky as Abbot of the monastery, making him the first Westerner in Tibetan Buddhist history to attain such a highly regarded position. MONK WITH A CAMERA: The Life and Journey of Nicholas Vreeland chronicles Nicky’s journey from playboy to monk to artist.

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THE DECENT ONE, a documentary that reveals the secret personal writings and photographs from the private life of Nazi SS Commander Heinrich Himmler, simultaneously providing a remarkably authentic account of the reality of Nazi Germany, will be released this Fall by Kino Lorber.. Winner of the Best Documentary award at the 2014 Jerusalem Film Festival, THE DECENT ONE premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, and will open at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on October 10 and at Film Forum in New York on October 1. A national release will follow.

A recently discovered cache of hundreds of personal letters, diaries and photos belonging to the Nazi Gestapo chief seems to reveal a thoughtful, loving husband and devoted father to his daughter. The documents first found in the Himmler’s family house in 1945 were hidden in Tel Aviv for decades and sold to the father of the Israeli documentary filmmaker, Vanessa Lapa. Through readings of Himmler’s and his family’s most personal writings and rarely seen restored film footage from key German archives, Lapa has fashioned a fascinating case study: a portrait of the man responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War, who thought of himself in heroic terms.

On Hitler’s behalf, Himmler formed the country death squads, masterminded its concentration camps and built Nazi Germany’s extermination camps. As the facilitator and overseer of these camps, Himmler directed the killing of some 6 million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people, and an untold number of other victims including homosexuals, Communists, as well as Polish and Soviet citizens.

Psychologists, historians and moralists have long debated how seemingly ordinarily people can do monstrous things. The jaw-dropping discrepancies Lapa discovers between Himmler’s self-image and his historical role casts a new, piercing light on the human capacity for self-delusion and the very nature of evil.

http://youtu.be/XuqgHir41gk

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The trailer has been released for Neil Berkeley’s HARMONTOWN, a documentary chronicling Dan Harmon’s podcast tour following his firing from his cult-like creation, NBC’s “Community.”  Featuring appearances from Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman, Jason Sudeikis, and Joel McHale, among others, HARMONTOWN provides untapped insight to Harmon’s personal demons and his ever-present talent that is poised to redeem him.  HARMONTOWN will be released by The Orchard on October 3rd in LA and on VOD and on October 10th in NYC.

http://youtu.be/KisiU9b_2EU

A kindred spirit to nerds everywhere, writer-comedian Dan Harmon has achieved celebrity via the hit series “Community,” but cut his teeth writing for shows such as “The Sarah Silverman Program” and the Jack Black/Ben Stiller pilot “Heat Vision and Jack.” After being fired from his signature creation, Harmon hits the road with his popular podcast and performs live for his cult-like fan base across the country. Known for his wit, cynicism, and disarming vulnerability, HARMONTOWN finds Harmon bathed in the adoration of his fans as he confronts his personal demons and comes out on the other side.

From acclaimed filmmaker Neil Berkeley (BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING), and featuring past and present collaborators Sarah Silverman, Jack Black, Allison Brie, Joel McHale and many more, HARMONTOWN tells Harmon’s story with unabashed candor — showing his highs, his lows, and everything in-between.

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PELICAN DREAMS, a documentary film by Judy Irving, the director of “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” will open at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and at the Angelika Film Center in New York, and at the Royal, Playhouse 7,  and Town Center in Los Angeles on November 7. A national release will follow.

Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker Judy Irving (with her first film since the widely acclaimed and loved “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”) follows a wayward California brown pelican from her “arrest” on the Golden Gate Bridge into care at a wildlife rehabilitation facility, and from there explores pelicans’ nesting grounds, Pacific coast migration, and survival challenges of these ancient birds, sometimes referred to as the flying dinosaurs.

The film is about wildness, and asks the following questions: how close can we get to a wild animal without taming or harming it? Why do we need wildness in our lives, and how can we protect it? PELICAN DREAMS, stars “Gigi” (for Golden Gate) and Morro (a backyard pelican with an injured wing). 

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 Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Bahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box Films

Music Box Films will release FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS, the award-winning documentary film by Mitra Farahani in the U.S. The film had its World premiere as the Official Selection at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival and screened at numerous film festivals including New York, Telluride, and Seattle. FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS will open at the Lincoln Plaza in New York on August 8, and at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on August 15. A national release will follow.

Mitra Farahani’s lyrical documentary explores the enigma of provocative artist Bahman Mohassess, the so-called “Persian Picasso,” whose acclaimed paintings and sculptures dominated pre-revolutionary Iran.  Irreverent and uncompromising, a gay man in a hostile world, Mohassess had a conflicted relationship with his homeland—revered by elites in the art scene and praised as a national icon, only to be censored later by an oppressive regime.  Known for his iconoclastic art as well as his scathing declarations, Mohasses abandoned the country over 30 years ago for a simple, secluded life in Italy.

Bahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box Films

While the new Iranian government destroyed many of his works, Mohasses himself obliterated even more– in rage at man’s inhumanity to man, environmental destruction, and the futility of idealism.  Ranging from tender to playful to haunting to grotesque, these unforgettable pieces were as mercurial as the man himself, a chain-smoking recluse with the mouth of a sailor and the soul of a poet, touched by a mischievous spark and as likely to lapse into a political rant as a burst of eccentric laughter.

Determined to interview Mohassess, fine artist/filmmaker Farahani discovers him living alone in a hotel room in Rome and begins to craft the perfect final biography, in his own words and on his terms.  Along the way, the inimitable spirit of the man behind the image is laid bare—both painfully sensitive and crudely comical, “condemned to paint,” but unable to compel himself to leave anything behind as a legacy.   When a pair of artist brothers and ardent fans of Mohassess commission him for an ambitious project, the elderly man is inspired with a renewed sense of purpose and returns to painting after decades of dormancy.  A lasting tribute to an elusive artistic genius, FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS affirms the power of creative freedom, the right of the artist to create and to destroy, and above all, to have no regrets.

http://youtu.be/50Isgf9j9Dw

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SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, a documentary film by Eric Merola, will open at Cinema Village in NYC on August 29, and at Laemmle Music Hall in LA on September 5. A national release will follow.  SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering is the remarkable true story of a young science-writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who risked everything by blowing the whistle on a massive cover-up involving a promising cancer therapy.

The War On Cancer, launched in the early 1970s, set the stage for a massive influx of new ideas in fighting the disease of cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, America’s leading cancer research center at the time, was assigned the task of testing an unconventional therapy called “Laetrile” in an effort to curb the public’s “false hope” in the alleged “quack” therapy. Ralph W. Moss PhD, a young and eager science writer, was hired by Sloan-Kettering’s public relations department in 1974 to help brief the American public on the center’s contribution to the War On Cancer. One of his first assignments was to write a biography about Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the Center’s oldest and leading research scientists as well as the original co-inventor of chemotherapy.

While meeting with this iconic scientist to pen a biography on his 60-year career at Sloan-Kettering, Moss discovered that Sugiura had been studying this “quack remedy”
in laboratory mice, and with unexpectedly positive results. Shocked and bewildered, Moss reported back to his superiors what he had discovered, only to be met with backlash and denial from Sloan-Kettering’s leaders on what their own leading scientist had found. Fueled by respect and admiration for Sugiura—Ralph W. Moss attempted to publicize the truth about Sugiura’s findings. And after all diplomatic approaches failed, Moss started living a double life, working as a loyal employee at Sloan-Kettering while also recruiting fellow employees to help anonymously leak this information to the American public—
through a newly formed underground organization they called—“Second Opinion”.

http://youtu.be/GcCyawsaWZQ

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CARDBOARD, the latest work by Seattle-based filmmaker Matt Longmire will get a well deserved screening at Portland Oregon’s Northwest Film Center on July 3rd. Director Matt Longmire will be in attendance to introduce his film.

Encountering panhandlers with their rumpled cardboard signs asking for help is an everyday occurrence in Seattle. Many are veterans, many have issues with mental illness, and most make between $10 and $60 a day. Longmire was inspired to interview many of them to understand the corrugated trails that led to these street corners. What is their background? How do they survive? Seattle’s mayor, Mike McGinn, who made the highly controversial decision to veto the city’s ban on panhandling, offers political context balanced with countless other outlooks from Seattle’s citizens. (89 mins.)

http://youtu.be/zDVprC9ET3U

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Sundance Selects will open the new documentary BOUND BY FLESH, about conjoined twin superstars Daisy and Violet Hilton theatrically in New York (IFC Center) and select theaters, VOD, and iTunes on June 27.  The award-winning film was directed by Leslie Zemeckis (BEHIND THE BURLY Q).

American sideshows were in fairs, circuses and carnivals. There were acts such as glass blowers, musicians, and also the freaks. Most freaks just stood there while the audience wandered past. The Hilton sisters however were trained to put on a winning performance. They sang, they danced and played a variety of musical instruments. Once they quit the carnival world and started playing vaudeville houses they made tens of thousands of dollars, setting box office records. They were soon considered “the royalty of vaudeville,” but the exploited twins would see little of their fortunes after the money was pocketed by unscrupulous managers.

BOUND BY FLESH explores the American sideshow, its origins and its heyday when the Hilton sisters were on display for huge streams of crowds pouring into tents to get a glimpse of these gorgeous multi-talented sisters.

The film includes interviews with Ward Hall, known as the “King of the Sideshow.” He is the last of the sideshow promoters in the style of a P.T. Barnum.

In June, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Academy Award-winning director Bill Condon will stage a reimagining of the hit musical show SIDE SHOW about the famous sisters as they grow from circus attraction to famous stage performers. 

AMC recently renewed its popular series FREAKSHOW.

BOUND BY FLESH is produced, directed and written by Leslie Zemeckis, produced by Jackie Levine and executive produced by Robert Zemeckis.

http://youtu.be/kVwhd-ORjSQ

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The trailer is released for the newly restored documentary Stations Of The Elevated.  Stations Of The Elevated premiered at the 1981 New York Film Festival, but lacking appropriate music licenses, was never theatrically released in the United States. In the 30 years since its completion it has been rarely screened, developing a cult amongst cinephiles and jazz and graffiti lovers. After two years of working to secure appropriate licenses for its soundtrack, APD’s Cinema Conservancy program will finally make this crucial cultural document and cinematic experience available to the public in 2014 with a theatrical run. 

Preceeding the theatrical run, APD/Cinema Conservancy’s new restoration of Stations Of The Elevated will premiere on Friday, June 27 as part of BAMcinemaFest on the Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater. The event begins with a live performance by legendary jazz ensemble the Mingus Dynasty, the original Charles Mingus legacy band. The first band Sue Mingus organized after Charles’ death in 1979, this acclaimed orchestra continues to interpret Charles Mingus’ more than 300 compositions, and will perform as a prelude to Kirchheimer’s jazz-inflected documentary. 

STATIONS is a 45-minute city symphony directed, produced and edited by Manfred Kirchheimer. Shot on lush 16mm color reversal stock, the film weaves together vivid images of graffiti-covered elevated subway trains crisscrossing the gritty urban landscape of 1970s New York, to a commentary-free soundtrack that combines ambient city noise with jazz and gospel by Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin. Gliding through the South Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan – making a rural detour past a correctional facility upstate – STATIONS is an impressionistic portrait of and tribute to a New York that has long since disappeared.

The first-ever documentations of graffiti on film, STATIONS captures the height of the 1970s graffiti movement in New York, featuring the work of early legends including Lee, Fab 5 Freddy, Shadow, Daze, Kase, Butch, Blade, Slave, 12 T2B, Ree, and Pusher. Juxtaposing the colorful imagery of ‘tagged’ cars with shots of carefully hand-painted billboards depicting hamburgers and bikini-clad women, STATIONS forces audiences to ask: “What is urban art, and what role does it play in the daily life of a city?”

 http://youtu.be/J0iqF6A4vRI

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Frédéric Tcheng’s fashion documentary “Dior and I” which premiered to strong reviews earlier this year at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, will be released in the US later this year, by Entertainment One Films (eOne).  Filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng follows up his work on fashion films, including Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel and Valentino: The Last Emperor, with another masterful exploration of a towering fashion institution.

In Dior and I, one enters the storied world that is the House of Christian Dior with a privileged, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Raf Simons’ highly anticipated first Haute Couture collection as the iconic brand’s new Artistic Director. From conception through its ultimate exhibition, the process is shown to be a true labor of love by the stoic Simons and a dedicated, charming, and often humorous team of collaborators. Beautifully melding the everyday, pressure-filled components of fashion with an elegant reverence for the history of Dior, Tcheng’s colorful homage to the seamstresses of the atelier is nothing short of magical.

Frédéric Tcheng

Director Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker who co-produced, co-edited, and shot Valentino: The Last Emperor, the 2009 hit documentary shortlisted for a Best Documentary Academy Award. He co-directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011), and has collaborated on films with such varied personalities as the poet Sarah Riggs, the fashion brand H&M, Jimmy Choo, Ferragamo and Vogue, among others.

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