Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday..
This past weekend saw the release of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” the latest in a recent string of impressively strong and commercially successful biographical documentaries (other recent standouts include “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be my Neighbor?”).
This week’s question: What is the best biographical documentary ever made?
Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice, /Film
The best and arguably most important documentaries ever made are complimentary pieces by Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Act of Killing” (2013) and “The Look of Silence (2015). They’re set against the backdrop of Indonesia’s 1965-66 genocide, believed to be sponsored by the C.I.A., but they’re each rooted in the lives of singular subjects and their diametrically opposed journeys.
The cleansing, of an estimated three million ethnic Chinese, changed the face of the nation in terrifying ways,...
This past weekend saw the release of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” the latest in a recent string of impressively strong and commercially successful biographical documentaries (other recent standouts include “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be my Neighbor?”).
This week’s question: What is the best biographical documentary ever made?
Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice, /Film
The best and arguably most important documentaries ever made are complimentary pieces by Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Act of Killing” (2013) and “The Look of Silence (2015). They’re set against the backdrop of Indonesia’s 1965-66 genocide, believed to be sponsored by the C.I.A., but they’re each rooted in the lives of singular subjects and their diametrically opposed journeys.
The cleansing, of an estimated three million ethnic Chinese, changed the face of the nation in terrifying ways,...
- 7/9/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
When Hot Docs, the documentary film festival held annually in Toronto, staged its first event back in 1994, the program presented a mere 21 features, including the Noam Chomsky profile “Manufacturing Consent” and Nick Broomfield’s “Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer.”
From the humble beginning, this celebration of nonfiction short subjects and features has become the largest of its kind, and one of the most internationally recognized, receiving 3,000 submissions from across the globe for possible inclusion in the 2018 event.
“We’re in the golden age of documentary, and we’re seeing that in the volume of films submitted,” says Hot Docs director of programming Shane Smith, “but also the range and quality of the stories being told. I never have trouble finding films for the festival. The problem is deciding on the final selection because of the number of quality films that we see.”
This year’s Hot Docs,...
From the humble beginning, this celebration of nonfiction short subjects and features has become the largest of its kind, and one of the most internationally recognized, receiving 3,000 submissions from across the globe for possible inclusion in the 2018 event.
“We’re in the golden age of documentary, and we’re seeing that in the volume of films submitted,” says Hot Docs director of programming Shane Smith, “but also the range and quality of the stories being told. I never have trouble finding films for the festival. The problem is deciding on the final selection because of the number of quality films that we see.”
This year’s Hot Docs,...
- 4/20/2018
- by Robert Ham
- Variety Film + TV
The phrase "serial killer" is most often attributed to the late FBI agent Robert Ressler, who coined the term along with fellow agent John Douglas as they began profiling and researching murder cases in the 1970s. His work led him to have direct contact with serial killers, with Ressler apparently receiving a painting from killer John Wayne Gacy with an inscription that apparently read: "Dear Bob Ressler, you cannot hope to enjoy the harvest without first laboring in the fields. Best wishes and good luck. Sincerely, John Wayne Gacy, June 1988."
The inscription sounds like it came out of a movie, which perhaps isn't so surprising since Hollywood has been making movies about serial killers since the silent era. Sometimes these movies are about real-life killers, other times they are based on real-life killers or events, or, and perhaps even more disturbing, they are based on nothing but imagination. Either way,...
The inscription sounds like it came out of a movie, which perhaps isn't so surprising since Hollywood has been making movies about serial killers since the silent era. Sometimes these movies are about real-life killers, other times they are based on real-life killers or events, or, and perhaps even more disturbing, they are based on nothing but imagination. Either way,...
- 5/21/2014
- by Ryan Gowland
- Reelzchannel.com
Nick Broomfield has completed his documentary about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The film is being screened for buyers this week in Los Angeles, The Hollywood Reporter says, and could also be screened at September's Toronto Film Festival. Broomfield is known for a number of documentaries about high-profile figures, including Biggie & Tupac, Kurt & Courtney, 1992 film Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and its 2003 follow-up Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. (more)...
- 6/27/2011
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
At 'the Cinema Paradiso of Zanzibar' old films are watched under open sky – director Nick Broomfield hopes to put the roof back on
Every Friday they gather there, seven or eight elderly men in a ramshackle auditorium of cobwebs and broken chairs. Sitting under an open sky (the roof fell in long ago) they watch the flickering images of old films projected on to the wall.
"It's the Cinema Paradiso of Zanzibar," said Martin Mhando, director of the annual Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff), which takes place on the Tanzanian island next month. "Cinema Paradiso was heavenly compared to what's there."
This is the Majestic, one of Africa's first cinemas, an art deco gem from the 1920s that lost its lustre. Mhando is leading a campaign to restore the ruin to its former glory – vital, he says, because where Tanzania and its islands once had 53 cinemas, now there are only two.
Every Friday they gather there, seven or eight elderly men in a ramshackle auditorium of cobwebs and broken chairs. Sitting under an open sky (the roof fell in long ago) they watch the flickering images of old films projected on to the wall.
"It's the Cinema Paradiso of Zanzibar," said Martin Mhando, director of the annual Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff), which takes place on the Tanzanian island next month. "Cinema Paradiso was heavenly compared to what's there."
This is the Majestic, one of Africa's first cinemas, an art deco gem from the 1920s that lost its lustre. Mhando is leading a campaign to restore the ruin to its former glory – vital, he says, because where Tanzania and its islands once had 53 cinemas, now there are only two.
- 6/3/2011
- by David Smith
- The Guardian - Film News
No one ever accused Nick Broomfield of being a particularly elegant filmmaker. A certain studied clumsiness is central to his whole aesthetic. In documentaries like Kurt & Courtney and Aileen Wuornos: The Selling Of A Serial Killer, Broomfield, the sly Columbo of non-fiction filmmakers, calculatingly plays the fool so that his sleazy subjects will let their guards down and let the ugliness and greed at the core of their being ooze out. With its occasionally stilted acting and clumsy dialogue, Broomfield's scrappy new docudrama Battle For Haditha sometimes feels like an amateur remake of Jarhead. Yet it ultimately derives much of its primal power from its bluntness and simplicity. Like Broomfield's documentary work, it stumbles purposefully onto harsh truths about the ugliness of human nature. Based on the Haditha killings and filmed documentary-style using former servicemen and a rough outline instead of a detailed script, Battle For Haditha...
- 5/8/2008
- by Nathan Rabin
- avclub.com
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