Consolation Champs

Lost Children (Germany/Uganda, 2005, Directors: Ali Samadi Ahadi, Oliver Stoltz, 98 minutes): All three of the films I saw today were about “children in peril” but none were more horrifying than this one. Northern Uganda has been caught up in civil war for almost twenty years. The rebels of the “Lord’s Resistance Army” make it […]

[Read more →]

Bunso (The Youngest) (Philippines/United Kingdom, 2004, Directors: Ditsi Carolino, Nana Buxani, 64 minutes): Tony is 13, Diosel and Bunso are 11. They are in prison for stealing. All around them are hundreds of other inmates, both minors and adults. The directors had unprecedented access to one of Manila’s prisons where the population are pretty much […]

[Read more →]

Xiara’s Song (USA, 2004, Director: Liz Garbus, 36 minutes): Xiara is a precocious 7-year-old whose beloved father is in prison. She is not alone. More than 10 million children in the US have a parent incarcerated. This film examines the effect on the life of young Xiara. It’s clear that she idolizes her rapper father, […]

[Read more →]

The Swenkas (Denmark, 2004, Director: Jeppe Rønde, 72 minutes): This film was really unlike any other documentary I’ve ever seen. The Swenkas are a group of about 20 Zulu men who gather each weekend to “swank”: they dress up in fancy suits and jewellery and compete before a judge to see who is the most […]

[Read more →]

A Perfect Fake (Canada, 2004, Director: Marc De Guerre, 57 minutes): Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion forms the basis for this exploration of how technology is helping us design more and more convincing representations of human beings. Whether it’s CG movies, games, pornography, or latex “love dolls”, people (mostly men) are looking for other people (mostly […]

[Read more →]

Lifelike (Canada, 2005, Director: Tally Abecassis, 52 minutes): This may very well be the first film ever made about taxidermists. Lifelike takes a whimsical look at the people who make their living stuffing and mounting dead things. It turns out that these are people who take their jobs seriously, but not themselves. Dave can laugh […]

[Read more →]

Gymnast (USA, 2005, Director: Edet Belzberg, 96 minutes): Filmed over a period of at least four years, this film follows three elite gymnasts as they try to qualify for the 2000 US women’s Olympic team. There is two-time national champion Kristin, serious and shy, bubbly and beautiful Alyssa, who tends to lose her concentration at […]

[Read more →]

Say Amen (Israel, 2005, Director: David Dery, 65 minutes): Director David Dery is the youngest son in a large Moroccan-Jewish family. For this Orthodox clan, family and children are the first priority, and for gay David, this poses a serious problem. He has only shared his secret with his two sisters, and the rest of […]

[Read more →]

Keep Not Silent (Ortho-Dykes) (Israel, 2004, Director: Ilil Alexander, 52 minutes): This film takes us into very strange territory, following the lives of ultra-orthodox Jewish women who happen to also be lesbians. Most of these women are not able to live openly, so the filmmaker had to film very discreetly, blurring faces or filming behind […]

[Read more →]

Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire’s Edge (Canada/USA, 2004, Director: Stephen Marshall, 84 minutes): Most of the documentaries produced about the Iraq war (and also, for that matter, the Vietnam War) have really been about ourselves. Our motives, our politics, our guilt. What Stephen Marshall has done in Battleground is let us see the war […]

[Read more →]