From left, GIRL MODEL directors Ashley Sabin and David Redmon. Photo by Tony Voisin.
Ashley Sabin and David Redmon’s disquieting film GIRL MODEL can easily be read as a scathing indictment of modern culture’s ever-narrowing definition of beauty, at least as it’s determined by the modeling and fashion industries. In its never-ending quest for a theoretical ideal of aesthetic perfection, the fashion world has seen fit to manipulate naive, teenaged aspiring models and their families, often by dangling the carrot of a huge payday that may never materialize. It’s difficult to fully comprehend the average consumer’s complicity in this process, which takes young girls from their homes and forces them to fend for themselves against uncaring agencies and clients (and in worst-case scenarios, sexual predators). The absence of any regulation or unionization leaves the young models exposed to rank exploitation by those willing to trade on their innocence for an easy buck. It makes sense, then, that GIRL MODEL relies on a color palette and score that sometimes reads tonally as something close to a horror film—horror is the only rational response to the sexualization of a child for profit. GIRL MODEL was co-presented with the PBS documentary series POV. Following the screening, POV Executive Director Simon Kilmurry spoke with directors Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, along with model Rachel Blais and Model Alliance staff members Sara Ziff and Jenna Sauers. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
Jay Bulger’s BEWARE OF MR. BAKER won the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at SXSW.
First-time director Jay Bulger’s BEWARE OF MR. BAKER on March 13 was named winner of South by Southwest’s Grand Jury Documentary Prize for his portrait of 70s drummer Ginger Baker, who played in the Eric Clapton-fronted Cream, as well as with Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti’s band. Bulger—a Washington, D.C., native—later told the Washington Post that he was so certain his film would not win any awards that he had arrived at the ceremony late. John DeFore at the Hollywood Reporter says the film “reveals a man (filmed mostly at home in South Africa) who is now ravaged by hard living and arthritis.”
Annie Eastman snagged SXSW’s Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature for BAY OF ALL SAINTS, a look at three single mothers living in poverty in Brazil. Eastman shared with the Wall Street Journal her motivations for making the film, telling the paper she became a filmmaker to tell the stories of impoverished families living on a polluted bay. Also, the Audience Documentary Spotlight award went to Katie Dellamaggiore for BROOKLYN CASTLE, a look at the effect of chess on I.S. 318 in Brooklyn. Sony Pictures and Scott Rudin Productions, in an unusual move, snapped up remake rights for the film before it secured a distribution deal for North America. Meanwhile, Joe Berlinger won the Audience 24 Beats Per Second Award for UNDER AFRICAN SKIES, which chronicles the classic Paul Simon album “Graceland.”
In other SXSW doc coverage, Mekado Murphy at the New York Times took a look at three films that caught his attention, among them TCHOUPITOULAS, by brothers Bill and Turner Ross. Basil Tsiokos of the What (Not) to Doc blog broke his coverage up into two posts, which you can find here and here. DeFore at The Hollywood Reporter also reviewed Jeffrey Kimball’s THE CENTRAL PARK EFFECT, a profile of several New York City amateur ornithologists.
From left, STF Artistic Director Thom Powers and director Carl Colby. Photo by Tony Voisin.
Former CIA Director William Colby is perhaps best known for the role he played in the hearings held by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 1970s, which were chaired by the late Senator Frank Church. Clearly a polarizing figure in many regards, Colby during the hearings personified strife within the CIA over how much deference the U.S. intelligence needed to show to Congress during America’s post-Watergate years. The fact that there were elements within the CIA angered by Colby’s embrace of transparency in the hearings even today feeds conspiracy theories that his 1996 death was not an accident, as was concluded in a coroner’s report. In his film THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, CIA SPYMASTER WILLIAM COLBY, director (and William Colby’s son) Carl Colby posits the theory that Colby’s death was deliberate, but came at his own hands. Clearly a complicated figure, Carl Colby’s film further complicates history’s take on his father, a man it seems no one really knew. Following the screening, Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director Thom Powers spoke with Carl Colby. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
Bart Layton’s THE IMPOSTER won the documentary competition at this year’s Miami International Film Festival.
The 29th annual Miami International Film Festival on Saturday announced its award winners. The Knight Documentary Competition winner was THE IMPOSTER, directed by Bart Layton and funded by A&E IndieFilms and Film 4. The film is being released theatrically by distributor Indomina. The jury also recognized two films with Honorable Mentions: UNFINISHED SPACES, directed by by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray; and Simone Rapisarda Casanova’s THE STRAWBERRY TREE, which made its US premiere at the festival. Serving on the documentary jury were Nelson George (director of THE ANNOUNCEMENT and BROOKLYN BOHEME); Carmen Guarini (director of the DocBUENOSAIRES film festival); and Alfred Spellman (producer of COCAINE COWBOYS and BROKE). Also, Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger shared his take on MIFF film YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED, Anthony Baxter’s look at the efforts by Donald Trump to build a golf course in Scotland, over the objection of nearby residents.
The Tribeca Film Festival, set to take place April 18-29, this week released its lineup of films over the past week. Nisha Pahuja’s THE WORLD BEFORE HER, about two girls’ efforts to win the Miss India contest, is set to open the world documentary competition. Also set to screen are the prolific Morgan Spurlock’s MANSOME and SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN, Malik Bendjelloul’s Sundance Film Fest crowd favorite. This year’s festival is the first to be programmed by new artistic director Frederic Boyer.
From left, producers Adam Schlesinger and Linda Saffire, director Leon Gast and Basil Tsiokos. Photo by Simon Luethi.
Photographer Ron Galella in Leon Gast’s SMASH HIS CAMERA already seems like a paparazzo out of his era. By today’s standards, Galella’s approach to stalking the bushes around the homes of public figures for the purpose of putting them on film (actual film!) seems pretty tame. The guy is old school. And he seems to have a clear sense that the paparazzi world—which today ascribes high value to grainy textured cell phone videos and saturating its subjects with an insane number of camera flashes—has already passed him by. Though Galella’s photographs are derided by some as falling short of the aesthetic standard for high art, they are certainly more artful than the images that populate TMZ.com. As former Metropolitian Museum of Art Director Thomas Hoving notes in the film, history will ultimately be the final arbiter of Galella’s work. His role in helping to foster the now ubiquitous media coverage of so-called celebrities is already cemented. Following the screening film programmer and friend of Stranger Than Fiction Basil Tsiokos spoke with Gast and producers Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
