In Hello Dankness, the opening scenes of Joe Dante’s 1989 film The ’Burbs play out as usual—except Tom Hanks’s character has a “Bernie 2016” sign in his yard, while his neighbor has GOP elephant stickers on his windows. Annette Bening’s character from American Beauty (1999) drives by, an “I’m With Her” bumper sticker on her van. Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World (1992) are now Donald Trump supporters rather than harmless, rock-loving goofballs. Trump’s election hits this world as a literal cataclysm, rendered via apocalyptic scenes from the apocalypse comedy This Is the End. These characters and many more from myriad film and television sources—ranging from Napoleon Dynamite to Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) sometimes crossing over with his character from Zombieland (2009)—collectively experience the 2016 election, Trump’s presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chaotic 2020 election.
Interview
Narcissa Wright is best known for breaking the world record for speedrunning 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' in 2014. Speedrunning, the practice of using glitches in a game to bypass huge segment sections and play through the entire game as quickly as possible, has a huge online fan base and viewership on Twitch, a popular live-streaming platform.
In films like 'Hoop Dreams' (1994), 'Stevie' (2002), and 'The Interrupters' (2011) and television series like 'America to Me' (2018) and 'City So Real' (2020), Steve James has established himself as one of the preeminent observational documentarians in the US. Over nearly 30 years, he’s chronicled social change in Chicago via various ordinary citizens, from aspiring basketball players to antiviolence activists. In a departure for James, his latest film, 'A Compassionate Spy,' is a real-life espionage thriller about Theodore Hall, a young physicist on the Manhattan Project.
In January, factual program-making veteran Emma Hindley has been appointed to head the BBC strand Storyville , overseeing the BBC’s flagship slot
Morzaniel Ɨramari, an Indigenous documentary-maker from the Amazon rainforest, is traveling with his third film, Mãri Hi - The Tree of Dream, in order to raise awareness about his people’s current plight. He is the first filmmaker from among the Yanomami, an ethnic group of roughly 35,000 foraging agriculturalists stewarding a Nebraska-sized swathe of the Amazon, who live in equilibrium with nature. During Bolsonaro’s reign, through a calamitous combination of state neglect and an influx of illegal miners hungry for gold, the Yanomami suffered what President Lula da Silva terms “an attempted genocide.”
An Interview With Natalia Almada: For over two decades, Natalia Almada has combined artistic expression with social inquiry to make films that are both personal reflections and critical social commentaries, focusing on topics ranging from contemporary Mexico to our relationship with technology. Her work straddles the boundaries of documentary, fiction, and experimental film. On the occasion of the theatrical release of her latest feature Users (2021), New York’s BAM Film is presenting a complete retrospective of Almada’s work, running June 9–15, 2023.
A Conversation With Jamie Shor and Sky Sitney Washington, DC, is getting its newest documentary showcase with the launch of DC/DOX Film Festival
The new documentary by Italian directors Valentina Cicogna and Mattia Colombo, Pure Unknown, has its North American premiere at Hot Docs this week after bowing at Visions du Réel in Nyon. The co-directors follow Dr. Cristina Cattaneo, a forensic pathologist and anthropologist, founder, and director of LABANOF, the Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic Odontology at the University of Milan.