DOK LEIPZIG 2020: NAKED TRUTHS – INTIMACY IN DOCUMENTARY FILM

If there’s one panel that really catalyzed my mind this virtual festival year it was DOK Leipzig’s “Naked Truths – Intimacy in Documentary Film” discussion. Expertly led by moderators Djamila Grandits (who seemed to be posing questions straight from my head) and Carolin Weidner, both members of the fest’s selections committee, the participants ranged from sex-on-film veterans to those who defined intimacy in completely clothed terms. There was longtime producer and Berlinale programmer Jürgen Brüning, founder of Pornfilmfestival Berlin, and his co-organizer and curator at the fest, Paulita Pappel, who is also the cofounder of Lustery. And Pia Hellenthal, director of 2019’s exquisite Searching Eva (which Brüning had selected to premiere at last year’s Berlinale). And rounding out the lineup was Julia Palmieri Mattison, whose short Play Me, I’m Yours was playing DOK Leipzig.

To read Part 2 of my panel coverage visit Hammer to Nail.

“Women of Blumhouse: Shaping Genre Storytelling at the Iconic House of Horror” at the 2020 SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Appropriately presented the day before Halloween, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s “Women of Blumhouse: Shaping Genre Storytelling at the Iconic House of Horror” provided an intriguing peek inside the multifaceted production house from a female POV. Moderated by Variety’s Deputy Awards and Features Editor Jenelle Riley, the three executives Zooming in included Blumhouse Television’s head of physical production, Lisa Niedenthal; Blumhouse Productions’ executive vice president of development for feature films, Bea Sequeira; and Blumhouse Productions’ head of casting, Terri Taylor.

To learn how these ladies are leading the way to a more inclusive scary movie future read my coverage at Filmmaker magazine.

DOK Leipzig 2020: Naked Truths – Intimacy in Documentary Film

DOK LEIPZIG: DOK Leipzig provided the informative panel discussion Naked Truths - Intimacy in Documentary Film. Safe to say that in all my years covering nonfiction fests around the globe, Naked Truths – Intimacy in Documentary Film is a panel title I’d never seen listed in any program. Until now. Presented at this year’s hybrid DOK Leipzig, this thrillingly enlightening (virtual) talk posed a lightning rod question rarely wrestled with: Namely, what is the place of sexually explicit imagery in the nonfiction, non-porn world? (And since we’re getting all philosophical, what is, in fact, intimacy itself?)

To hear all about the philosophical discussion visit Modern Times Review.

Wonder Women: Producers Zoom In at the 2020 SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Moderated by Megan Lombardo, a professor in the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Film & Television department, this year’s Wonder Women: Producers panel was an all-Zoom affair. And taking to the computer screen were six diverse (albeit all white) women with a variety of career stories to tell. There was Jayme Lemons, whose Dawn Porter-directed doc The Way I See It had played the virtual fest earlier in the day, and who runs Jaywalker Pictures (with another wonder woman Laura Dern). Also Julie Christeas, founder and CEO of Tandem Pictures, who most recently produced Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear; and Libby Geist, Vice President and Executive Producer, ESPN Films and Original Content (and one of the forces behind Jason Hehir’s epic Michael Jordan/Chicago Bulls series The Last Dance). Geist was also behind Bao Nguyen’s Bruce Lee doc Be Water, from British producer Julia Nottingham, who likewise participated on the panel. As did Nottingham’s countrywoman Alison Owen, perhaps the most veteran of the producers, and whose long list of credits includes everything from 1998’s Cate Blanchett vehicle Elizabeth to last year’s coming-of-age-in-the-90s comedy How to Build a Girl. And rounding out the lineup was Cate Blanchett’s American business partner Coco Francini, their Dirty Films having most recently produced Mrs. America for FX Networks.

To read all of my coverage visit Filmmaker magazine.

Wonder Women: Below the Line at the 2020 SCAD Savannah Film Festival

While laudable causes to achieve gender parity in the film industry have been all the rage for a number of years (remember the mad rush of fests signing on to – and then publicizing their signing on to – the 5050×2020 pledge?), too often the result seems to be simply seating a woman in the director’s chair and forgetting about the rest of the table. Which is why the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Wonder Women: Below the Line panel (which, like everything else these days, took place via Zoom at the all-digital fest) struck me as so important. How could aspiring craftswomen see themselves pursuing crucial, behind-the-scenes roles in the industry if they rarely ever saw (or heard) from the women already succeeding in those roles?

To find out read my coverage at Filmmaker magazine.

“A Vindication of the Primal Nature of Creativity, Spontaneity, and the Uniqueness of Each Human Being”: Gustavo Sánchez on I Hate New York

For those of us who spent most post-midnight hours of the Giuliani years on the smoke-choked dance floors of places like Limelight and The Pyramid Club, I Hate New York, the debut feature of Barcelona-born journalist Gustavo Sánchez, is a walk down an age of innocence memory lane. A pre-9/11 time when nightclub royalty such as Amanda Lepore and Sophia Lamar were as ubiquitous as the flyers in the St. Mark’s record stores that showcased their names.

For those not steeped in trans-fabulous NYC lore, the aforementioned Lepore is best known as the longtime (Jessica Rabbit-esque) muse of David LaChapelle, while (Lepore’s former friend) Lamar is a no-nonsense refugee from Castro’s Cuba who began her reinvention as an avant-garde artist during NYC’s punk heyday. For over a decade (2007-2017), Sánchez tagged along with each on their various East Village excursions, as well as followed trans and AIDS activist Chloe Dzubilo, lead singer of the pioneering punk band Transisters, and activist/DJ/rapper T De Long. The resulting film, a clear-eyed downtown history lesson, is distilled from hundreds of hours of interviews, fly-on-the-wall observations, and VHS-style footage. From contemporary Tompkins Square Park to flash-from-the-past SqueezeBox, I Hate New York is also, thankfully, more nostalgia-free love letter than cinematic poison pen.

On the day of the film’s September 1st digital release, Filmmaker caught up with Sánchez, who in grade school became the youngest radio host in Spain, to find out why and how he decided to document the dogged survivors of a long corporate-coopted underground scene.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

In Opposition to “A Very Particular Mode of Transness”: Isabel Sandoval On Lingua Franca

The struggles of outer borough working class folks is nothing new to NYC-set dramas. But, in the outsider eyes and busy hands of director/writer/producer/editor/actress Isabel Sandoval, one of the newest auteurs of Filipino cinema — who makes her English-language debut in her adopted city with her third narrative feature Lingua Franca — classic tropes are updated to reflect our current intersectional reality.

The Venice International Film Festival 2019-premiering movie follows live-in caregiver Olivia (Sandoval), who, in the course of looking after an elderly Russian resident of Brighton Beach (Lynn Cohen), becomes romantically entwined with the woman’s ne’er-do-well grandson Alex (Eamon Farren), who labors under his uncle in a meatpacking plant while struggling to get his life back on track. The fact that Olivia is trans and undocumented while blending into her Brooklyn surroundings as cisgender female and assimilated makes the story all the more complicated — not to mention heartbreaking against a political backdrop in which pushing the marginalized back into the shadows and closet has become US government policy.

The day after the film’s August 26th Netflix release, Filmmaker caught up with Sandoval to learn about her project.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.