With Attawapiskat and its band chief, Theresa Spence, remaining in the headlines, the NFB has made Alanis Obamsawin’s new documentary on life in the First Nation community available for free. The People of the Kattawapiskak River can be streamed online at NFB.ca until Friday, January 18. Or just click the
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Art Threat: Scrap America – Friday Film Pick & Interview: Scrappers
An interview with one of the filmmakers behind the poetic documentary Scrappers.
Continue readingArt Threat: The imagination, art, and activism of Herman’s House
Last week I attended the Toronto theatrical premiere of Herman’s House, a thought-provoking documentary written and directed by Angad Singh Bhalla. This Canadian film tells the story of an artistic collaboration between Jackie Sumell and Herman Wallace. Sumell is a multidisciplinary artist from New York. Wallace is a Black Panther from Louisiana who has been […]
Continue readingezra winton: Scrap America – A conversation with Scrapper filmmaker Brian Ashby
This week’s Friday Film Pick is the beautifully shot and tenderly rendered Scrappers, a documentary that quietly follows two Chicago residents as they eke out a living from the salvaging of metallic refuse. It’s not fist-in-the-air advocacy filmmaking for the downtrodden, but in its own way Scrappers gets under the
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: The Invisible War: Rape, Sexual Assault Epidemic in U.S. Military (VIDEO)
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman unpacks ”The Invisible War” a new documentary that examines the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the U.S. military. She speaks to Trina McDonald and Kori Cioca, two subjects of the film, and the film’s Academy Award-nominated director, Kirby Dick. A recent military survey shows that
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: The imagination, art, and activism of Herman’s House
by Chanda Chevannes | Troy Media Last week I attended the Toronto theatrical premiere of Herman’s House, a thought-provoking documentary written and directed by Angad Singh Bhalla. This Canadian film tells the story of an artistic collaboration between Jackie Sumell and Herman Wallace. Sumell is a multidisciplinary artist from New York.
Continue readingArt Threat: Embedded with a West London Eco-village – Friday Film Pick: Grasp the Nettle
Filmmaker Dean Puckett is following up from his fantastic documentary The Crisis of Civilization with another doc from the front lines of the war on want. This time Puckett’s lens is set on squatters and eco-activists who set up camp and community in Puckett’s home turf of London, following the
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: The Mouse That Roared: Imagining an internet safe haven for journalists, whistleblowers and activists in Iceland
The Mouse That Roared is a documentary-in-the-making film by Judith Ehrlich, the award-winning director of “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”, which earned a Peabody, and was nominated for an Academy award for best documentary. The film centers around Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir’s efforts fights
Continue readingArt Threat: How to Make Money Selling Drugs – Documentary is part how-to video, part indictment of drug policy
Of the 372 film titles listed in the Toronto International Film Festival’s program this year, few are likely to raise more eyebrows than How to Make Money Selling Drugs, a documentary that surprisingly delivers precisely what it promises. From tiff.net: Stylishly shot and cheekily framed as a subversive educational film,
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: ‘Payback’: A Doc Inspired by Margaret Atwood’s Book
Canadian writer Margaret Atwood’s book, “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth”, is the basis for this riveting doc by filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal.
Continue readingArt Threat: Friday Film Pick: Togetherness Supreme
Barack Obama was still just a U.S. Senator in 2006, but he was already spooling up for his presidential run. Seizing on his rising visibility and popularity, Obama made a mostly-business trip to Africa. The unprecedented buzz surrounding a senatorial trip culminated in his arrival in Kenya, the birthplace of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Perverting Music – The United States Torture Program – The Sounds of War
“It is music’s capacity to take over your mind and invade your inner experience that makes it so terrifying as a potential weapon.“ – Thomas Keenan, the director of the Human Right’s Project at Bard College Hey, surprise we’re not the good guys. Ever. This is all from Al-Jazeera
Continue readingArt Threat: More houses, less prisons – A review of the compelling documentary Herman’s House
It’s hard to make a house without materials, and even harder if you are in solitary confinement in a US prison and have been there for forty years. What is required in that situation is imagination and perseverance, mixed with a healthy dose of love and anger — all of
Continue readingArt Threat: A doc that makes you want to occupy – We Are Wisconsin at Hot Docs 2012
Yesterday we caught three political docs at Hot Docs, and before I race off to The Law In These Parts, here is the first of many more micro-reviews. We Are Wisconsin, directed by Aimee Williams, is the first film I’ve seen at the festival that champions activism and calls on
Continue readingArt Threat: Hot Docs 2012 Midpoint Roundup – A guide to the political stuff at Toronto’s fest
Today is day five of Hot Docs 2012 and unlike last year, a lethal combination of meetings, movies and meanderings have kept me from a daily tally here at Art Threat. No mind, I intend to make up for in the remaining five days of the fest, beginning with this
Continue readingLeft Over: The Home Ahead….
I have long been attracted to the small house movement…it seems so perfectly revisionist, as in re-envisioning the necessary and the portable..to devolve from what we are programmed to think we need. I really feel as if this is my distant or perhaps not-too distant future..finding a bit of land
Continue readingArt Threat: Hot Docs 2012 – The good, the bad, the incomprehensible
The 19th edition of North America’s largest documentary showcase and one of the world’s largest film festivals begins this week, running from April 26 to May 6 in Toronto. With Charlotte Cook replacing Sean Farnel as head programmer, new directions (less films, more focus is the official line), new initiatives
Continue readingArt Threat: Of Waves, Bears and Oil – Friday Film Pick: Tipping Barrels
Tipping Barrels (Ben Gulliver, 2012) is one part surfing movie, one part wildlife documentary, one part guy flick and one part political commentary. It’s for parts two and four that I include it as this week’s Friday Film Pick. The short doc, running at 18 minutes, gazes in on British
Continue readingArt Threat: Emotionally devastating documentary explores Israeli bombing of Gaza – Friday Film Pick: Tears of Gaza
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Israel’s latest bombing campaign of Gaza, while the Israeli military stubbornly insists the child-killing attacks are necessary to stop “terrorism”. Such bloody assaults on Gaza are unfortunately common, and those that took place over 2008-2009 may have been the most devastating.
Continue readingArt Threat: Farmers fight back against Honduran elite – Friday Film Pick: Resistencia
Produced by Amy Miller, the documentarian behind MYTHS FOR PROFIT and her much-anticipated follow-up THE CARBON RUSH, this week’s Friday Film Pick is the film-in-progress RESISTENCIA. Directed by Jesse Freeston, the documentary follows the land-and-rights struggle by farmers against Miguel Facussé, the richest man in Honduras. Freeston is a committed
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