Documentary Features

 

Black Box Diaries

Shiori Ito, Eric Nyari and Hanna Aqvilin

Journalist and filmmaker Shiori Ito takes her sexual assault by a high profile entertainment professional to the police. They ignore it, bungle it, disbelieve it, even with some video evidence substantiating her claim. As a result of her going public, the entire Japanese justice system is put on trial. If you're not filled with outrage when you watch this excellent and very personal story, take a hard look in the mirror.

No Other Land

Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham

In a shocking turn of events, the Oscars once again nominates a film whose sole purpose is to make Israel look bad. I don't know much about the details of this history, and from the documentary, I would agree that Israel is in the wrong. But why is there never, in the history of stories about Israel at the Oscars, anything about just plain old Israelis living their lives? Nothing about the peace activists who spent every day driving Palestinians to medical appointments but getting slaughtered by those very people? It's so one note that this film barely deserves comment.

Porcelain War

Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev, Aniela Sidorska and Paula DuPre' Pesmen

While most of the people in Ukraine have left with their lives, 2 artists and their many friends (who were not soldiers before the war) stay back to fight as citizen soldiers. One of the artists does have military expertise, and he will train anyone who will help. Watching this juxtaposition of beauty and warfare is jarring and heartbreaking. It sure puts recent comments by certain political "leaders" under a microscope in terms of who are the aggressors and despots.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

Johan Grimonprez, Daan Milius and Rémi Grellety

The strange bedfellows of popular jazz and Congolese politics come together in this long and somewhat meandering documentary. I found it hard to watch despite the incredible line up of jazz greats who spoke up when Patrice Lumumba was essentially dragged from office by the United Nations and the United States. Ironically, Russia is one of the countries to speak up against the interference in sovereign nations. This was not really my favorite, and I think it could have used an editor.

Sugarcane

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie and Kellen Quinn

There is a haunting similarity to the Nickel Boys in this documentary, this time with eyes to the Canadian Indian residential school system, the tyrants who ran these schools and the mysterious disappearance of Native family members. Only to discover that these children were often beaten to death. The ones who survived carry years of painful memories and PTSD. It's a hard one to watch, but excellent.