Stranger Than Fiction, our weekly documentary film series hosted by Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen and presented by IFC Center, announces its spring season for its 11th year. Each screening features a conversation with the filmmaker or other special guests, followed by a gathering at a nearby bar. The spring slate opens with DOCUMENTARY NOW! DECONSTRUCTED (pictured above), a one of a kind night with directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono presenting episodes of their hit IFC TV series starring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, that parodies and pays homage to well-known documentaries. Other highlights include sneak previews of PRESENTING PRINCESS SHAW, about a singer discovered on YouTube, with the film subject Princess Shaw in person; and THE WITNESS about the Kitty Genovese case with director James Solomon.  

“In honor of our 11th year, we’ve packed the spring season with extra films to take the line-up to 11 – just like the Spinal Tap amplifier,” said Artistic Director Thom Powers. The memorable characters include a Haitian community leader full of surprises in MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT; US Senators navigating a Supreme Court confirmation in ADVISE & DISSENT; gay Orthodox Jews struggling for acceptance in TREMBLING BEFORE G-D (15th anniversary); train passengers in Albert Maysles’ final collaboration IN TRANSIT; kidnapped film stars in THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT; grandmothers living off radioactive land in THE BABUSHKAS OF CHERNOBYL; and a legendary restaurateur in FLORENT: QUEEN OF THE MEAT MARKET. Additionally, the creators of the acclaimed FIELD OF VISION film group will present a night of new shorts.

Our spring season is sponsored by the New York Film Academy and will take place at the IFC Center every Tuesday night at 7:30 for eight weeks (plus a pre-season special on April 5 and a pair of Thursday specials on May 19 & 26). The spring season closes on May 31. The full season schedule appears below. 

 

Spring 2016 Season – 7:30pm on Tuesdays at IFC Center, Apr 5 – May 31

Each show features a Q&A with the director or other special guests

Apr 5: Pre-Season Special – MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT (2014,Q&A w/ dir Victoria Campbell & author Amy Wilentz) 

Apr 12: Opening Night of Spring Season – DOCUMENTARY NOW! DECONSTRUCTED (2015, Q&A w/ dirs Rhys Thomas & Alex Buono)

Apr 19: ADVISE & DISSENT (2012, Q&A w/ dir David Van Taylor)

Apr 26: TREMBLING BEFORE G-D (2001, Q&A w/ dir Sandi Simcha Dubowski)

May 3: IN TRANSIT (2015, Q&A w/ dir Lynn True, prod Erika Dilday)

May 10: THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT (2016, Q&A w/ TBA)

May 17:  THE BABUSHKAS OF CHERNOBYL (2015, Q&A w/ dir Holly Morris)

May 19: FLORENT: QUEEN OF THE MEAT MARKET (2010, Q&A w/ dir David Sigal & Florent)

May 24: FIELD OF VISION (2016, Q&A w/ TBA)

May 26: Thursday Special – PRESENTING PRINCESS SHAW (2015, Q&A w/ film subject Princess Shaw)

May 31: Closing Night – THE WITNESS (2015, Q&A w/ dir James Solomon)

 

Tickets for Stranger Than Fiction screenings are $16 for the general public and $13 for IFC Center members. A Spring Season Pass, good for admission to all 11 events from April 5-May 31, is available for $99 ($80 for IFC members). The Opening Night presentation of “Documentary Now! Deconstructed” on April 12 is available only to season pass holders; no individual tickets will be sold to that event. To purchase tickets, please visit STFdocs.com/buy-tickets.

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As you may have noticed, there was no Monday Memo last week thanks to the remarkable celebration of non-fiction cinema that is True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, which I had the pleasure of attending for the second year in a row. My thoughts on this year’s edition can be found over at IONCINEMA, as well as a trio of interviews that will follow shortly. Despite the festival’s rather small line-up, with each passing year it seems to garner more international attention thanks to its intelligent curation, community focused outlook and baseline fun factor. Steven Zeitchik of The Los Angeles Times wrote no less than four dispatches from the fest, outlining what sets it apart from other festivals, noting formal trends and thematic through-lines, as well as the game-shows and other carnivalesque happenings that only happen at True/False.

A whole host of other True/False round-ups were logged by indieWIRE’s Sam Adams, Hammer to Nail’s Jim Brunzell, AV Club’s Noel Murray, Alissa Wilkinson at RogerEbert.com, and Vadim Rizov, who posted a pair of dispatches at Filmmaker Magazine that focus “on the thorny subject of what happens when documentaries do — or antagonistically don’t — try to serve as compassionate ambassadors to the world on behalf of their subjects.” More specifically, indieWIRE’s Chris O’Falt reported on the emotionally charged premiere of CONCERNED STUDENT 1950, as well as exactly why a handful of filmmakers choose to have their films shown as a one of True/False’s fabled secret screenings before their world premiere at a festival geared more toward sales and distribution deals.

Here at Stranger Than Fiction, our winter season continues this week with a pair of screenings in Gabriel London’s THE MIND OF MARK DEFRIEST, about the legendary escape artist on Tuesday, and on Thursday, a special 10 Year Anniversary screening of the cult-hit documentary DARKON, by Luke Meyer & Andrew Neel, about American LARPers. The filmmakers of both films will be present for post-screening Q&As at each of their respective screenings. Tickets to both screenings are still available and can be purchased here.

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“It was necessary for us to go to these places where history was being made and say let’s have that alternative record.”

–Skip Blumberg, Videofreex member

In the 1960s there were three major news networks and CBS ruled the airwaves. Youth movements were in full force all over the country championing Women’s Liberation, fighting for Civil Rights, and protesting the war in Vietnam. As attitudes and perspectives changed and voices of a generation made themselves heard, technology, too, was changing. The portable hand held video camera was born. Equipped with instant playback, it imprinted on the generational landscape an inexpensive and accessible tool to capture the times. A group of intrepid journalists flocked to this method of storytelling, and baptized their renegade collective as the Videofreex.

In theaters March 9, the Stranger Than Fiction documentary series treated its audience to a sneak peek of HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX, directed by Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin. Extracted from obsolete technology, reels and reels of archival footage reveal stories of a generation documented by the Videofreex. In person for the screening, Video freak Skip Blumberg said, “We were trying to find out what was unique to this brand new medium and the fact that you could just roll.”

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At first glance, Robert Eads appears to be the picture of traditional Southern masculinity. In addition to his attire (cowboy hat, boots), he owns a gun, loves to barbecue, has a deep religious faith, and is the patriarch of his extended family. He was also born “Barbara” and his family consists of what he calls his “chosen family”: fellow transgender men and women who attempt to live their lives with dignity and integrity, despite society’s rigid gender norms. Robert’s life is the subject of the film SOUTHERN COMFORT, which premiered in 2001 and was screened Tuesday at Stranger Than Fiction. STF’s host, Thom Powers, introduced the film as one of his personal favorites, but also one that has renewed interest due to a new musical, based on the acclaimed documentary, which premiered at the Public Theater last month.

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Finally, the glitz and glam of award season has settled and despite the avalanche of awards thrown at the feet of Joshua Oppenheimer for his second monolithic work of non-fiction in two years – Cinema Eye Awards, IDA Awards, Gotham Awards, and a long list of other awards from just about every major festival on the circuit – not to mention Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday afternoon, the Academy predictably cast their vote for Asif Kapadia’s AMY, which managed to beat out THE LOOK OF SILENCE to win the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Though Oppenheimer lost, he appeared at the center of Eric Kohn‘s post-Oscar rundown at indieWIRE and in the media quite a lot leading up to Oscar night, having spoken with Errol Morris about the recent interest in true crime docs, also at indieWIRE, while his friend and subject Adi Rukun spoke out for the first time about why he risked his own life for the good of the film. Tom Roston wrote about Adi’s involvement and collaboration with Oppenheimer at Doc Soup, while both indieWIRE’s Chris O’Falt and the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor outlined how the film has brought social change abroad and right here in the US.

Just a few days prior to Oscar night, the Doc Impact Awards named CHASING ICE, CITIZENFOUR, FOOD CHAINS, MINERS SHOT DOWN, and VIRUNGA as the 2016 winners, having made the biggest social impact on the world since their release. But as we know, awards aren’t everything. A whole host of critics meditated this past week on their experiences at this year’s Berlinale and the non-fiction films they found on offer, from Artforum’s Travis Jeppesen, BFI’s Geoff Andrew, and The Guardian’s Andrew Pulver, to Ruben Demasure in MUBI’s Notebook and Kevin B. Lee at Fandor’s Keyframe. Also at Notebook, Locarno’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian praised Werner Herzog and his latest doc Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, while Samuel Wigley of the BFI listed 10 films to see at this year’s Borderlines Film Festival at 25 venues across Herefordshire, Shropshire and the Marches in the UK, including a handful of docs. And speaking of the UK,

A new three day documentary film festival named DOC10, presented by the Chicago Media Project and headed by Paula Froehle, Steve Cohen, Sarah Nobles, and programmed by Anthony Kaufman, will have its inaugural edition at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago from April 1st through the 3rd. Featuring just 10 films over 3 days, the festival aims to “present the full spectrum of current nonfiction filmmaking, from important social issue films and captivating music docs to engaging vérité and experimental work.”

After our successful Stranger Than Fiction dual screenings of last week, we return to our normal schedule tomorrow with a special 15th Anniversary screening of Kate Davis’ 2001 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner SOUTHERN COMFORT at the IFC Center. Tickets for this screening are still available here.

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