After a week off for the holidays and the first real snow of the season, we’ve landed squarely in 2016 – but first a brief look back. Each new year brings with it a sense of renewed hope and fresh perspective, so it seems only appropriately timed that Film Comment‘s long standing editor Gavin Smith has stepped down after 15 years at the helm and Nicolas Rapold has stepped in as interim editor of the publication.
Others spent the last couple weeks summing up the best of last year’s docu offerings. Christopher Campbell listed is favorite docs of 2015 at Nonfics, while he also posted the results of the Nonfics end of year poll which placed Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE LOOK OF SILENCE firmly at the top. Tom Roston agreed in his top 10 posted at the POV Blog. At Newsweek, Paula Mejia, Ryan Bort, Cady Drell, and Zach Schonfeld pieced together their favorites, as did the staff at Realscreen, while Peter Knegt listed his Oscar predictions at indieWIRE. Broadening the conversation a bit while giving voice to a host of films overlooked by the general populous, indieWIRE’s Anthony Kaufman and Film Comment’s Eric Hynes both wrote features on the some of the best docs of 2015 that are still looking for distribution.
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This week Lotfy Nathan's film 12 O'CLOCK BOYS entered theaters.
This week the film 12 O’CLOCK BOYS from director Lotfy Nathan hit theaters. In his Filmwax podcast, Adam Schartoff spoke with Nathan, while NPR featured a piece on Nathan and his film. Mekado Murphy of the New York Times wrote up the film, and Eric Kohn of Indiewire reviewed it, giving it an A minus. In his weekly Docutopia post at the SundanceNOW blog, Anthony Kaufman considered both 12 O’CLOCK BOYS and RICH HILL, and Andrew Parker of Dorkshelf interviewed Nathan. Also, Josh Slates profiled the film in a piece for the International Documentary Association (IDA) website.
At Nonfics.com, Christopher Campbell issued a list of the best docs out of the Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Slamdance Film Festival. Campbell and Daniel Walber also dedicated the latest episode of their The Realness podcast to Sundance. Ondi Timoner released the first part of a long Bring Your Own Doc episode about Sundance this week, along with a second report from the festival. Writing for Ion Cinema, Jordan M. Smith turned out a few reviews, one for THE NOTORIOUS MR. BOUT and another for THE OVERNIGHTERS. And Sean Flynn wrote a piece for Indiewire on the interactive projects featured in Sundance’s New Frontier section.
This week Stranger Than Fiction is hosting a screening of LOU REED: ROCK AND ROLL HEART about the late rock legend Lou Reed on Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 8pm at the IFC Center in Manhattan. Following the screening, director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders will be in attendance for a Q&A. For more information or to purchase tickets please go here.
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