The DocYard

Bombay Beach

Sean — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:34:08 +0000

The rusting relic of a failed 1950s development boom, the Salton Sea is a barren Californian landscape often seen as a symbol of the failure of the American Dream. A sea in the middle of the Colorado desert.

True to her roots as a photographer, video artist, and music video director, Alma Har’el crafts an adamantly atypical and artistically innovative film telling the story of of three protagonists: Benny Parrish, a young boy diagnosed with bipolar disorder whose troubled soul and vivid imagination create both suffering and joy for him and his complex and loving family. CeeJay Thompson, a black teenager and aspiring football player who has taken refuge in Bombay Beach hoping to avoid the same fate of his cousin who was murdered by a gang of youths in Los Angeles. And that of Red, an ancient survivor, once an oil field worker, living on the fumes of whiskey, cigarettes and an irrepressible love of life.

Together they make up a triptych of American manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea’s land of thwarted opportunity.

Bombay Beach is a dreamlike poem that sets these personal stories to a stylized melding of observational documentary and choreographed dance, to music specially composed for the film by ZACH CONDON of the band BEIRUT, and songs by BOB DYLAN. The result is a moving and madly inventive documentary experience—an evocative, symbolic portrait of rural America and its inhabitants.

March 5 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Alma Har’el

Emerging Cinematic Vision – Camden International Film Festival
Special Jury Mention – Sheffield Doc Fest

Official Website

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Battle for Brooklyn

Sean — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:25:50 +0000

BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN follows the story of reluctant activist Daniel Goldstein as he struggles to save his home and community from being demolished to make way for a professional basketball arena and the densest real estate development in U.S. history. Along the way, he falls in love, gets married and starts a family while living in a vacated building located at the heart of the project site. Over the course of seven years, Daniel spearheads the movement against the development plan as he and the community fight tenaciously in the courts, the streets, and the media to stop the abuse of eminent domain and reveal the corruption at the heart of the plan.
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN is the epic and universal tale of one man under pressure, and how far he will go to save his community and his home from the private developers who want to build a basketball arena on top of it. Along the way, he loses a fiancée, falls in love again, gets married, and starts a family. Shot over the course of eight years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by the Prospect Heights community to save their neighborhood from destruction.

Daniel Goldstein spent five years carefully looking for the perfect apartment. Not long after he had begun to settle in, he was informed that he and his neighbors would be cleared out to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project. This massive plan to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 skyscrapers, had been arranged by a private developer. This company, Forest City Ratner, claimed that the building of Atlantic Yards would provide jobs and additional housing, and that the arrival of the New Jersey Nets would be important to the community. In turn, Goldstein and a host of Brooklynites formed the group “Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn” to counter Ratner’s proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project.

The effort to stop the project pits Goldstein and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, and those residents taken in by the promises of jobs, housing, and a basketball team on their turf. Focusing on the Goldstein’s struggle to save his property from becoming center court, the film tells a story of the infuriating erosion of individual rights in the interest of corporate concerns and political maneuvering.

March 19 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley

Official Website

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Scenes of a Crime

Sean — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:20:36 +0000

SCENES OF A CRIME explores a nearly 10-hour interrogation that culminates in a disputed confession, and an intense, high-profile murder trial in New York state. Police video-recordings allow directors Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock to unravel the complicated psychological dynamic between detectives and their suspect during the long interrogation.

Detectives, prosecutors, witnesses, jurors and the suspect himself offer conflicting accounts of exactly what happened in this mysterious and disturbing true-crime documentary.

April 2 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock

Grand Jury Award, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2011
Grand Jury Award, DOC NYC “Viewfinders” 2011
Winner, Gotham Award by Filmmaker Magazine for BEST FILM NOT PLAYING AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU

Official Website

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Marathon Boy

Sean — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:15:26 +0000

MARATHON BOY is the story of a four-year-old boy who is plucked from the slums of India by his coach and trained to become India’s greatest runner, but what starts in hope turns into the stuff of film noir: a tale of greed, envy and broken dreams.

April 16 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Gemma Atwal

WINNER – CINE Golden Eagle Award, 2011
WINNER – Grand Jury Award for Best New Director, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, 2011
WINNER – Top 3 Feature Documentary Finalist, IDFA 2010
WINNER – Special Mention, Sheffield Docfest, 2010

Official Website

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Campaign

Sean — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:35:38 +0000

This is democracy — Japanese style. Campaign provides a startling insider’s view of Japanese electoral politics in this portrait of a man plucked from obscurity by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to run for a critical seat on a suburban city council. Kazuhiko “Yama-san” Yamauchi’s LDP handlers are unconcerned that he has zero political experience, no charisma, no supporters and no time to prepare. What he does have is the institutional power of Japan’s modern version of Tammany Hall pushing him forward. Yama-san allows his life to be turned upside down as he pursues the rituals of Japanese electioneering — with both tragic and comic results.

February 20 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Kazuhiro Soda

Official Website

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Our School

Sean — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:36:07 +0000

Our School follows three Roma (commonly known as “Gypsy”) children in a rural Transylvanian village who are among the pioneer participants in an initiative to integrate the ethnically segregated Romanian schools. When their school begins to desegregate, Alin, Benjamin, and Dana set out for the city school, optimistic for education and new friendships, even as funds earmarked for integration are questionably used to renovate the old Roma-only school in their village.

Shot over four years, the filmmakers’ tender portrait of rural village life and its rhythms fosters an intimacy in the children’s profound reality and admiration for their indomitable spirit, which is then punctuated with shocking instances of prejudice and ignorance. Their story touches on issues ranging from institutionalized racism, public education, and the intractability of poverty, culminating in an outrageous finale that cements the Roma children’s struggle in the annals of egregious human rights violations. Our School is an absorbing, infuriating, and ultimately bittersweet story of tradition and progress.

February 6 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Mona Nicoara

Sterling Award – Best US Feature – Silverdocs 2011

This Screening is Co-Sponsored by Women in Film & Video New England

Official Website

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Space Coast

Sean — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:37:46 +0000

Michel Negroponte and Ross McElwee follow three residents of Cape Canaveral, Florida, several years after the phasing out of Apollo moon missions: a salty newspaper reporter who has witnessed 1,600 consecutive launches; an out-of-work maintenance man who now leads a motorcycle gang; and the owner of a small construction company who sidelines as the clown-host of a local kids television show. Negroponte and McElwee transcend the “God, guns, and family” clichés of small town America in this emotionally complex, novelistic portrait of people living in hard times. - Museum of Modern Art

January 23 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre

Directed by Michel Negroponte and Ross McElwee

Director’s Statement by Ross McElwee:

While I was a graduate student in the filmmaking program at MIT, I had shot one film, Charleen, and was in the process of completing the editing of it, but wanted to begin shooting a second project before I graduated and lost access to camera equipment provided by MIT. In the Atlantic Monthly I found an article on the American space program, and in it, a reference to a newspaper reporter named Mary Bubb who lived in Cape Canaveral and, by her own reckoning, had seen 1600 consecutive rocket launches. There was something about the word “consecutive” that caught my attention – that degree of obsession – and how it might serve as a window on an aspect of American culture in which I had long been interested. Like millions of kids growing up in the sixties, I was fascinated by NASA, the astronauts, and the entire space program. I could draw all the rocket models, and to his day can describe the difference between an Atlas and a Jupiter C booster. But I went even further, organizing a group of neighborhood nerds to create LASA – the Local Aeronautics and Space Administration. Our first rockets were no better than pipe bombs – metal tubing packed with carefully proportioned chemicals ignited by gasoline. But we soon became more sophisticated, buying prepackaged rockets which were launched electrically from a console we designed ourselves. We measured the apogee of the rockets with altimeters and later launched scores of insects, amphibians, and even hapless hamsters, some of which actually survived, floating back to earth in capsules attached to parachutes. It was, quite literally, a blast.

Reading the Atlantic article, this early fascination returned to me, and suddenly, I became fixated on making a film about Cape Canaveral, with Mary Bubb as a way into the community. I very much wanted to co-direct this film with someone, and so approached my friend and fellow grad student, Michel Negroponte. Michel signed on, and we left for Cape Canaveral shortly thereafter. We shot for a total of maybe ten weeks on the Cape, and through Mary met the other people who appear in the film. We stayed in one of Papa John’s cinderblock apartment units, and wove ourselves into the texture of the community. We had no particular agenda, did no formal interviews, and for the most part just filmed things as they happened around us. For me, it was a full-fledged dive into cinema verite – the last I would attempt. There was much I loved about this style of filmmaking, but ultimately decided I wanted to try something different. After Space Coast, I began evolving a much more personal, autobiographical approach to my filmmaking.

“Space Coast has the evocative sub-kitsch clutter of an Edward Kienholz tableau or Vernon Zimmerman’s Unholy Rollers.
- Village Voice

“It is a fascinating but completely disconsoling film; the filmmakers portray America with Sartrian pessimism.”
- Het Parool, Amsterdam

Official Website

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TO BE HEARD

Current Screenings — Thu, 26 May 2011 01:56:06 +0000

To Be Heard is the story of three teens from the South Bronx whose struggle to change their lives begins when they start to write poetry. As writing and reciting become vehicles for their expressions of love, friendship, frustration, and hope, we watch these three youngsters emerge as accomplished self-aware artists, who use their creativity to alter their circumstances.

A verité film, intimately shot over four years, To Be Heard is the story of three friends and the love that develops between them as they evolve as artists. This “tripod,” as they call it, is bound by proximity, circumstance, and poetry. To Be Heard is also the story of how language links people. Pearl is the support and soul of the three; Karina is the passion and heart; and Anthony is the energy and physicality. In a community where friendships are kept tenuous for many reasons, these three build a bond based on language, respect, and the need to survive.

June 6 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre (click here to buy tickets)

Directed by Amy Sultan, Roland Legiardi-Laura, Edwin Martinez, Deborah Shaffer

*Amy Sultan, Edwin Martinez, Deborah Shaffer and film subjects Karina Sanchez and Pearl Quick will be attending for Q&A

Winner: Metropolis Grand Prize/DOC NYC, Audience Award/DOC NYC, Best Documentary/San Diego Latino Film Festival, Audience Award/Sarasota Film Festival

Official Selection: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, True/False Documentary Film Fest, Seattle International Film Festival

“Simply astounding….What HOOPS DREAMS was to high school basketball, TO BE HEARD is to slam poetry.” – The Criterion Cast

“…So damned genuine; a great example of good documentary filmmaking.” Indiewire

Watch the post-screening Q&A:

Official Website

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The Kids Grow Up

benfowlie — Sun, 15 May 2011 18:49:20 +0000

In 51 Birch Street, one of the most highly praised personal documentaries of recent years, director Doug Block took a hard look at his parents’ marriage and his own relationship with his father. Now Block turns in the other direction, offering an exceptionally moving film about his relationship with his only child, Lucy.

The Kids Grow Up chronicles Lucy’s emotionally-fraught last year at home before leaving for college. Moving seamlessly between past, present, and the fast-approaching future, Block has not only crafted a loving portrait of a girl transitioning into womanhood, but also a deeply poignant look at parenting and what it means to let go.
This time of transition comes with its fair share of struggles. To his credit, Block does not shy away from these moments, nor from the humorous yet occasionally tough analysis his wife offers. The result is a personal story told with such honesty and intimacy that a singular experience unfolds into a universal tale of parenthood, marriage, and family— making this a film that fathers, mothers, sons and daughters can equally appreciate.

June 20 – 8pm

Brattle Theatre (click here to buy tickets)

Directed by Doug Block (in attendance for Q&A)

Official Selection: IDFA, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Hot Docs, Silverdocs, Stranger Than Fiction, Sarasota

Winner: Special Jury Prize, Silverdocs

Reviews:
“Remarkable…a chronicle of ordinary life that is partly a scrapbook, partly a memoir and, most movingly, an essay on the passage of time and the mysterious connection between parents and children.” — A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Intimate, funny, deeply affecting; The Kids Grow Up exemplifies personal filmmaking at its most truthful and absorbing. It’s wonderful.”
— Ann Hornaday, WASHINGTON POST

“Pitch-perfect and frequently comic.” – Anne S. Lewis – The Austin Chronicle

“What [Block] has been able to do so brilliantly with both “51 Birch Street” and “The Kids Grow Up” is take personal subject matter and present it in a manner that is dramatic and universal.” – Seth Shire, The Unpaid Film Critic

“One of the best non-fiction films of the year.”- John P. McCarthy, Boxoffice Magazine

“Intimate…distinct…complicated and surprising.” – Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters

Watch the post-screening Q&A:

DocYard: The Kids Grow Up Q&A from The DocYard on Vimeo.

Official Website

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High Rise

Current Screenings — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:22:38 +0000

UM LUGAR AO SOL (HIGH RISE) is a feature length documentary that presents an analysis of the dominant Brazilian classes through a dialogue with the inhabitants of nine penthouse apartments in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Recife. During the film, penthouse residents open up their homes to reveal their thoughts on social inequality, politics, and the world that surrounds them, as well as discussing more intimate subjects such as their desires, fears, insecurities, prejudices and personal histories. The director gained access to the inhabitants of these luxurious penthouses through a curious book that maps the rich and influential in Brazil. The book contains a list of 125 penthouse owners, nine of whom agreed to given an interview and are in this film.

July 11 – 8pm

Director Gabriel Mascaro (Q&A via Skype)

Producer Rachel Ellis (Q&A via Skype)

Winner: Jury Award – FIDCOS/Santiago International Documentary Film Festival, Special Mention – BAFICI/Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival
Official Selection: Visions du Reel, Los Angeles Film Fest

“A philosophical meditation on economic privilege…the footage is staggering.” – Peter Debruge, Variety