Paul Almond in 1971 (Photo by Norma James, Toronto Star via Getty Images)

With so much attention being paid to Richard Linklater’s twelve year project BOYHOOD last year while other (possibly more deserving) long term doc equivalents like Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson’s AMERICAN PROMISE fly confidently under the radar, it’s important to remember where the seed for these projects was originally planted: Michael Apted and Paul Almond’s half-century spanning UP series. Sadly, this passed week Paul Almond died of complications of a recent heart attack at the age of 83. Margalit Fox of the New York Times wrote a profile of the man’s life and work, as did David Colker of the LA Times and Mike Barnes of The Hollywood Reporter. The Guardian’s Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Realscreen’s Kevin Ritchie also reflected on Almond’s filmmaking career.

We at Stranger Than Fiction are playing host to a pair of film screenings this week in Tuesday’s work-in-progress showing of director Howard Weinberg’s NAM JUNE PAIK & TV LAB: LICENSE TO CREATE, which explores the collaborative collisions of the TV LAB through the prism of one of the giants of 20th century video art, and Thursday’s showing of director Nick Broomfield’s AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER, the follow-up work to his clear-eyed profile of America’s first female serial killer and the greed and paranoia that surrounded her case in AILEEN WUORNOS: THE SELLING OF A SERIAL KILLER. Both filmmakers will be on hand for Q&As at the IFC Center for their respective screenings.

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My wife, Valerie Rettberg-Smith, and I at the Lumière! Inventing Cinema Exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris

I hate to brag, but the last few weeks have been quite lovely, with getting married to my partner in life, Valerie Rettberg-Smith, and our subsequent honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam and all. That said, I have returned, not quite rested, but full of hope, love, fresh perspectives and just now getting back into the swing of things. While I was away, Rachel Donadio of The New York Times wrote a piece on the Grand Palais’s Lumière! Inventing Cinema exhibition which opened March 27th, just in time for me to investigate. The exhibit, put together in partnership by the Grand Palais and the Institut Lumière, features an incredible history of film technology and the impact the Lumières continue to wield in artifacts and copious amounts of newly restored Lumière productions, some on film and others in various interactive displays. Celebrating over a hundred years since the Lumière brothers brought cinema as we know it into being, the exhibition runs now through June 14th.

Most of the Lumière films were in fact brief documentaries, running no more than a few minutes at most. The format continues to be more than relevant, as the stark cell-phone documentation of Walter Scott’s horrifically unjust murder by officer Michael T. Slager proves this past week. Writing for Time, Errol Morris commented on the necessity of documentation in terms of sorting out the truths in such a situation, while Ty Burr of The Boston Globe wrote at length on what he calls, “the cinema of evidence” and its essential pivot point in the battle against abuses of power in America. One would think such blatant injustices would have been curbed after this past year’s outrage in the wake of Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s murders by overzealous police, but alas, the preposterous bloodshed continues.

On a lighter note, tomorrow marks the start of the Spring ’15 season of Stranger Than Fiction with KING GEORGES, Erika Frankel’s documentary on the fiery French chef Georges Perrier and his crusade to keep his 40-year-old landmark restaurant, Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia, relevant. Both director Erika Frankel and film subject Georges Perrier will be on hand for a post screening Q&A. Info on the film and tickets are available here.

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Isaac Bashevis Singer (יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער) was a Nobel Prize-winning Polish author and a celebrated leader of the Yiddish literary movement in America. Although he was married to Alma Singer, Tuesday’s documentary, THE MUSES OF ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, shows that he had many women in his life.

Muses is a biopic that tells the story of Singer’s “harem” of female translators and proofreaders who he picked up with firm confidence, charmed and beguiled, and often bedded during his 85-year lifetime. These women served as the inspiration for the characters in his novels, which were charged with lustful desire.

Singer wrote and published dozens of collections of short stories in addition to 18 novels, 14 children’s books, several memoirs, and numerous essays and articles. He wrote them all in Yiddish and then sat with women who translated them line-by-line into English, and many more languages. One of the translators says in the film that he was a tireless worker with a remarkable ability to concentrate on one story for however long it took to finish it. “We will polish it until it will shine!” he would exclaim. Even bathroom breaks were frowned upon during the translation process.

Another translator in the film reads from the book, The Art of Translation, “A good translator must be both a sage and a fool.” His translators were loyal to him and many adored him, but he did not share the benefits of his fame with them. At the Q&A session with co-director, Asaf Galay, one of Singer’s fifty translators, Carol, was a surprise showing in the audience. She told some of her personal experiences with him and admitted that he only ever wrote her one check for her labors, which was a pittance that you couldn’t buy much of anything with.

Galay explained that he tried to edit the film like one of Singer’s stories. He constantly felt like Singer was behind him, watching over his shoulder, and he wanted to make a story that would have satisfied him. The film attempts to pose more questions than it does give answers in a similar style to a Singer story. And yet, the film reveals Singer as a controversial figure.

In 1983, Singer’s story, Yentl, was adapted into a film that starred singer, Barbara Streisand. In the Q&A session, Galay said that Singer didn’t get along with Streisand because he did not like the Hollywood movie adaptation of his novel. She would not participate in the documentary, because she did not want to rehash turbulence of the past.

Galay said that Singer was also very much at-odds with the Orthodox Jewish community, because of the morally precarious themes that permeate his writings. In an archival interview with Singer in the film, he was asked if he was a good Jew, to which he replied, “I’ve been a good man, so how could I be a good Jew? I’d like to be a good man and a good Jew, but who knows how you do that?”

Stranger Than Fiction begins again on Tuesday April 14 for its 27th season! STF Spring 2015 opens with KING GEORGES, followed by a Q&A with director Erika Frankel and film subject Georges Perrier. The line-up includes sneak previews of highly anticipated docs such as SUNSHINE SUPERMAN and THE WOLFPACK along with revivals of classic docs such as Alan and Susan Raymond’s THE POLICE TAPES (1977) and Nick Broomfield’s AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER (2003). The series takes place each Tuesday night at the IFC Center.

Writing by Maya Albanese, a New York City based multimedia reporter, writer, producer, and filmmaker covering social and environmental sustainability as well as innovation in the arts, food, and technology worlds. Maya has produced content for print, digital, and broadcast media, including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, GreenBiz.com, Fresh Cup, Coffee Talk, Heritage Radio and TellurideTV. In 2015, she is producing two documentary films and will receive a Masters degree with an emphasis in Documentary Filmmaking from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Twitter @mayaalbanese.