Documentaries

It's safe to say that at 90, boasting a career that spans nearly six decades, Frederick Wiseman is America's premier documentarian, a pioneering figure of a filmmaking school known as cinema verité and observational cinema. Modest to a fault, Wiseman has dismissed both labels, claiming, 'cinéma verité is just a pompous French term that has absolutely no meaning as far as I'm concerned.

The Italian American documentarian Gianfranco Rosi, who's 56, is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers working in cinema today. His latest feature, Notturno ('Nocturne'), shot over the course of three years in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon and offers a timely and urgent chronicle of ordinary people in war zones of the Middle East as they struggle to exist and hope for more peaceful lives.

The Italian American documentarian Gianfranco Rosi, who's 56, is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers working in cinema today. His latest feature, Notturno ('Nocturne'), shot over the course of three years in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon and offers a timely and urgent chronicle of ordinary people in war zones of the Middle East as they struggle to exist and hope for more peaceful lives.

He is a young Swedish writer, cinematographer, and documentarian who had a few projects in the pipeline when he heard about a 15-year old schoolgirl who was staging a lone protest in Stockholm. Intrigued, he took his gear and his cameraman and went down to see what it was all about.

Aviva Kempner who recently met with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as part of our Roundtable series talked about the documentary she made about businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, who partnered with Booker T. Washington and African American communities to build over 5,000 schools in the Jim Crow South, and whose Rosenwald Fund also provided grants to support a Who's Who of African American artists and intellectuals.

Award-winning filmmaker Ramona Diaz, who gave us such memorable documentaries as Imelda, Motherland, and Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey, is now premiering her latest passion project, A Thousand Cuts, a documentary on internationally acclaimed journalist-activist Maria Ressa, founder of the online news site Rappler and Time’s Person of the Year in 2018. An outspoken critic of the government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, especially of his “war on drugs” which has led to the violent killing of thousands of Filipinos, Ressa and a former staffer at Rappler, Reynaldo Santos, Jr.

Greta Thunberg’s strong words that have loudly echoed across the Globe for the past three years, her actions, her personality, and her mission is compelling enough for an upcoming documentary titled Greta. This week 17-year old climate activist Greta Thunberg was named as the first recipient of the Gulbenkian “Prize for Humanity” which comes with a 1 million euro endowment from the Portuguese fund.

One is a former First Lady who almost became the US President, the other is a brutally honest stand-up comedian who completed a national tour suffering from morning sickness. What could Hillary Clinton and Amy Schumer have in common? Turns out they are friends, and both have given audiences an intimate peek into their lives with behind-the-scenes high-profile documentaries.

For almost 40 years, the legacy of iconic movie star Natalie Wood has been overshadowed by her tragic drowning in 1981 at age 43, off the coast of Catalina Island, California  Now, her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner wants to bring the focus back to her mother’s remarkable life with the documentary, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind. “We didn't want it to be a fluff piece or a love letter to her,” says the 49-year-old actress and co-producer of the HBO documentary that premieres on HBO now.

Filmmaker-documentarian-artist-sculptor, Matthew Taylor, is a lifelong admirer of groundbreaking artist Marcel Duchamp, the famous French-born painter, and sculptor who broke down the boundaries between works of art and everyday objects. Art was always an integral part of Taylor’s life.