We spend our lives making documentaries or supporting filmmakers to uncover truths. Yet, in our field, there is a startling lack of honesty regarding
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Brit Fryer is an award-winning queer and trans filmmaker based in Brooklyn with a creative approach that blurs the lines between fact and fiction. His most recent film, The Script, is co-directed with frequent collaborator Noah Schamus and part of Queer Futures, a Multitude Films series consisting of four short films that celebrate joy and connection while envisioning future possibilities for queer life.
A heartfelt departure from the prison life documentaries that have become so ubiquitous in recent years, Tana Gilbert’s Malqueridas takes a novel approach to this thorny topic through a most unusual lens. Comprised solely of clandestinely shot cellphone footage—in its original vertical format—from inside a Santiago women’s prison by incarcerated mothers, the film is narrated by “Karina,” a mom who spent six years behind bars. In the film, she voices the experience of and for the collective whole, specifically the 20 or so women who participated in “extensive conversations” during the film’s research phase.
As far as multiplexes go, my local one in Wichita, Kansas, was wonderful. Eschewing the corporate homogeneity of AMC and other chains, the sprawling Art Deco–revival Warren buildings were meant to recapture the glory of old movie palaces. The red carpet climbed up the walls as wainscotting in the bathrooms, which were distinctly creepy. The ceilings were covered by murals depicting Grecian deities. Portraits of John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, and Bogie hung on the walls. But in 2017, the eight-location chain was purchased by Regal Cinemas, and while the red carpet and Grecian deities remain, we resent the corporate encroachment. I still often go alone, in the middle of the week, happy to pay whatever inflated price for 90 minutes of air conditioning, red carpet, and haunted bathrooms.
BY Winnie Wang & Victor Guimaraes
“Everything old is new again” was the phrase that kept coming to mind during this year’s 32nd edition of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Editor’s Note: On October 9, the first day of Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival’s two-day Filmmaker Forum, Darcy McKinnon delivered the following
The films of New Orleans-based filmmaker Nailah Jefferson share similar grievances despite a variety of subject matter. Some of them try to remain in
In August, ITVS welcomed new CEO and President Carrie Lozano to lead the San Francisco-based nonprofit that has, for over 30 years, funded and
In November 2020, a group of filmmakers met via a Directors Guild of America Zoom panel to discuss a harrowing commonality: missing films. On this