Herb Alpert Is… (USA, 113 min.) Dir. John Scheinfeld Baby Boomer nostalgia turns the dial up to 11 in Herb Alpert Is… This celebratory portrait of the famed trumpeter sits comfortably with the seemingly endless cavalcade of music docs about the greatest hits from the 1960s and ’70s. Director John Scheinfeld deserves ample credit for delivering a
Documentary Culture
Shadow of Dumont (Canada, 88 min.) Dir. Trevor Cameron The challenge of connecting personal history and collective history can be tricky. Director Trevor Cameron offers a feature documentary about his great-great uncle, Gabriel Dumont, a Métis leader in the 1885 uprising. Cameron says that he knows little about his ancestor and that Canadians more broadly know
The Unseen (Iran, 62 min.) Dir. Behzad Nalbandi In Iran, people refer to the homeless as “cardboard sleepers.” Knowing this name evokes a disquieting sense of melancholia, as we gaze out a car window at the urban landscapes of Iran’s capital, Tehran, reconstructed entirely out of cardboard in The Unseen, which received the Asia Pacific Screen
Les heures heureuses (Our Lucky Hours) (France/Belgium/Switzerland, 77 min.) Dir. Martine Deyres Les heures heureuses is a time capsule that uses recently uncovered home videos to provide a stark if repetitive look over decades at the Saint-Alban hospital in the Lozère region of France. South of Paris, north of Marseille, the mountainous and secluded area has
Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You (USA, 90 min.) Dir. Thom Zimny Bruce Springsteen shows no signs of slowing down at the age of 71. His new film Letter to You, which debuts alongside his album of the same name on October 23, proves the Boss as prolific and powerful as ever. Only one year after his
Army of Lovers in the Holy Land (Israel, 65 min.) Dir. Asaf Galay In 1993, I wandered into a Tel Aviv record store and was immediately drawn to an album cover festooned with four flamboyant characters. They were dressed in what appeared to be S&M-themed funereal garb while a giant Star of David flag loomed
"It’s crazy to realize that any of us are potentially capable of anything depending on the circumstances. This is a raw wound and something that the community as a whole hasn’t figured out how to heal from."
Totally Under Control (USA, 124 min.) Dir. Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger and Ophelia Harutyunyan Totally Under Control ends with a title card informing viewers that American President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 one day after the film’s completion. It’s the closest that an Alex Gibney film has come to delivering a happy ending. However, if this
Makongo (Central African Republic/Italy/Argentina, 72 min.) Dir. Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino Traditional grub feeds a community’s future in Makongo. This quietly effective observational film by Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino explores two men’s desire to provide children with the access to education that they enjoyed. Ngaïbino follows the efforts of Albert and André, who are among the few members
Ecstasy (Êxtase) (Brazil/USA, 72 min.) Dir. Moara Passoni Director Moara Passoni conjures a tango between pleasure and pain in Ecstasy. As the film’s title suggests, one emotion overrides the other among the sensations felt by the protagonist. Ecstasy is a hypnotic and elliptical portrait of Clara, a young dancer with an eating disorder. She struggles with ideas of