Full Frame Doc Fest
One festival after the other, and it’s fine that festivals like Amdoc in Palm Springs that I have been reporting from and now also the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (that I will just drop this about) introduce non-American films to the American audience.
The festival in Durham, that starts today and runs for four days, shows fine European documentaries like the Danish ”At Home in the World” (photo) by Andreas Koefoed, Polish ”Call me Marianna” by Karolina Bielawska, Israeli ”Mr. Gaga” by Tomer Heymann, Nicole N. Horanyi’s Danish ”Motley’s Law”, the Iranian world success ”Sonita” by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami and another Polish, ”All these Sleepless Nights” by Michal Marczak.
… and there is a world premiere of ”Dixie Land” by Ukrainian Roman Bondarchuk, whose ”Ukrainian Sheriffs” is already touring several festivals as well. The charming ”Dixie Land” with a lovely old teacher and band leader and equally lovely band members, who grow up to find a place in life, will be presented in Durham by the producer, Latvian Ilona Bicevsks.
From the Amdoc program I recognise ”God Knows Where I Am” by Todd and Jedd Wider as well as Joe Berlinger’s ”Tony Robbins: I am not Your Guru” – and happy I am to see that Laura Israel’s ”Don’t Blink-Robert Frank” is offered.
Most happy, however, I am to see that the festival honours ”Cameraperson” (the title of her new film) Kirsten Johnson with a selected handful of her works as a cinematographer, including ”The Oath” (Laura Poitras) and the portrait of ”Derrida” (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering). Johnson will do a masterclass under the title ”To See and be Seen”.