Our weekly newsletter of documentary recommendations.
TOP PICKS
THE BENGALI dir. Kavery Kaul 2021 DOC NYC Personal Journeys
“In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Kavery Kaul unfolds the fascinating story of the first South Asian male immigrants to the U.S. who married African-American women and made a home in the black community.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
(Director, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross)
“No Ordinary Life, Heather O’Neill’s powerful documentary, explores the trailblazing work of female news videographers on the front lines of war, who captured some of the most vivid images of conflict and revolution across the globe only after overcoming hurdles owing to gender discrimination. The five CNN veterans open up about the adrenaline and hazards of reporting under fire and about their ‘band of sisters’ ties, as well as the tremendous cost to their personal lives of living from war zone to war zone. With white-knuckle behind-the-scenes footage of the women at work, No Ordinary Life shows what talented camerapeople can achieve, with valor, humor and humanity - a testament to the value of meritocracy without bias.”
"This innovative film from director Dan Krauss uses quasi-documentary techniques to create an emotionally engaging whodunit about one of America’s most notorious bio-terrorism incidents."
"Pavel Cuzuioc’s film is a deadpan, politically engaged work...an artful look at a part of Europe grasping towards connection, and the unsung workers who help achieve this."
WE ARE AS GODS dir. Jason Sussberg & David Alvarado
"Film lives as a testament of acknowledgment to a person and their work, even if they are ahead of their time or not entirely understood. We Are as Gods allows the world to meet, understand, and recognize Stewart Brand."
LEGACIES OF THE PAST: MEMORY AND TRAUMA IN MEXICAN VISUAL AND SCREEN CULTURES Edited by Niamh Thornton & Miriam Haddu
"Riven with unresolved traumas and appropriated by successive governments, the past haunts spaces in Mexican film and visual culture. These events, without consensus or a singular/unifying narrative, act like spectres haunting the present. To comprehend how they manifest, Legacies of the Past considers how filmmakers and visual artists have found ways of understanding these haunted spaces.
With case studies of films like El atentado (2010), Flor en Otomí (2012) and the photography of Dulce Pinzón, this collection analyses the audio-visual representations of several heightened events in Mexican history. The conbtributors’ explorations, imaginings and counter-imaginings bring the past to the foreground, creating new narratives and proposing new histories in order to show the significance of storytelling and narrative for a shared understanding of ourselves."
THEY WON’T CALL IT MURDER Directed by Ingrid Raphaël & Melissa Gira Grant
“For more than 20 years, no police officers were charged with murder for killing residents in Columbus, Ohio. Five women, bound by grief, confront the impossibility of receiving justice for their loved ones whose lives have been taken and challenge the city’s legacy of withholding answers and ignoring accountability.”
The articles linked to in Weekend Watch do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DOC NYC. They are provided as a round up of new releases in the documentary field.
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LEGACIES OF THE PAST: MEMORY AND TRAUMA IN MEXICAN VISUAL AND SCREEN CULTURES
