Documentaries

A world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, where filmmaker CJ Hunt was feted with a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director, The Neutral Ground is a timely, remarkable, and engaging work of social inquisitiveness. The film is set for a limited theatrical run in advance of its national broadcast premiere across PBS stations, to be followed by a period of exclusive streaming.

The massive difficulties of consensus-building in a polarized world are ably highlighted in The First Step, a sociopolitical documentary that should find engaging reception with both those acutely interested in the sharp-elbowed realm of American political gamesmanship as well as those just contemplating real-world events of the past several years. Taking as its central subject lawyer, author, and activist Van Jones, director Brandon Kramer’s movie, fresh off its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and accompanying presentation at AFI Docs, focuses on the efforts of his nonprofit organization #cut50 (now Dream Corps) as it lobbies for criminal justice reform.

An idiosyncratic and engaging work that finds a way to mimic the at-odds kineticism and inherent melancholy present in its subject’s music, Moby Doc serves as both a bouncy nonfiction exploration of pioneering electronica artist Moby and a document of therapeutic self-examination. Directed and edited with considerable aplomb by Rob Gordon Bralver, the movie holds at bay some of the (very present) clichés of rock star bio-docs, from drug abuse to suicidal ideation, by way of an atypical structuring and the use of various narrative end-arounds and filters.

“What a shit year it was,” Dave Chappelle said by way of greeting the live audience. “I’m so sorry if you lost someone, or lost something, during this pandemic.

 If there's one team sport in the U. S.

There have been many documentaries and films about Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ creative force, widely recognized as genius due to his novel approaches, pop composition, exceptional aptitude and mastery of recording techniques. But most have focused on his 1960s heyday or the difficult times during struggles with mental illness and drug addiction.

Leonard Bernstein was one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history. A renowned conductor and composer, a music educator and author, a humanitarian activist.

Inspired by Matthew Van Meter’s “non-fiction novel” Deep Delta Justice, Nancy Buirski’s documentary, A Crime on the Bayou depicts a series of systemic and systematic wrongs committed against two vastly different men, the Black Gary Duncan and the Jewish Richard Sobol. The film’s release is timed to this year’s Juneteenth commemoration of the end of slavery announced in Texas in 1865, the last Confederate state to formally adopt President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation.

The dark shadow of the mystery behind a shocking suicide looms over Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Morgan Neville's documentary about the world-renowned chef and TV celeb. On June 8, 2018, the body of the beloved author and host was found in his hotel – he had taken his own life during the shoot of a new episode of his TV show.

Queen of trash? Feminist writer? Powerful emissary of women’s secret sexual desires? Gay icon? Insightful, affectionate, none too critical, Laura Fairrie's new documentary about the life of novelist Jackie Collins, aptly titled Lady Boss, aims to reveal the “real” woman behind and beyond the exterior veneer. Over a period of four decades, Jackie Collins, who was born in London in 1937, produced 32 novels, all of which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.