SCREENINGS & MEANINGS

By Gerald Schmitz

Giving Tribeca’s top documentaries their due

Documentaries form an increasingly important part of many film festivals, Cannes being the major exception, and they can almost always be relied upon to deliver. At Tribeca this year, Canadian selections took the top documentary as well as narrative feature jury prizes. Nisha Pahuja’s winning The World Before Her examines social tensions in today’s India through the contrasting lenses of young women competing in a beauty pageant and the women’s wing of a Hindu fundamentalist movement. It’s truly eye-opening and expertly composed. The film went on to win the award for best Canadian feature at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival in May. Given that momentum hopefully it will arrive in theatres before too long.
Here are my choices of 11 other top docs from Tribeca’s 11th edition.

1. High Tech, Low Life (China/U.S.)
Director Stephen Maing offers an amazing portrait of intrepid young and middle-aged Chinese bloggers who defy the authoritarian system’s efforts to control the flow of information. These cyber-guerillas are fascinating characters who go by code names such as “Zola” and “Tiger Temple.” The rise of such citizen reporters taking risks to reach a growing audience of “netizens” provides another perspective on the transformations taking place in the world’s most populous country.

2. Searching for Sugar Man (U.K./Sweden)
Winner of the Sundance audience award, Malik Bendjelloul’s exploration of the life of Mexican-American Motown singer Sixto “Jesus” Rodriguez is stranger than fiction. After recording several albums in the early 1970s Rodriguez disappeared and was rumoured to be dead. However, unknown to him, a bootleg copy made its way to South Africa where he became the superstar of a restless anti-apartheid generation. Discovered living in obscurity, his trip there in 1998 was as if Elvis had been resurrected. The man and his music are astonishing.

Sixto Rodriguez performs at City Winery, NYC Tribeca, April 27, 2012. It was a special performance in connection with film screening of Searching for Sugar Man and the first time he has performed in public in the U.S. in decades, though he is a superstar in South Africa and fills stadiums there. (G. Schmitz photo)

3. Burn (U.S.)
A very different Detroit story from the above, this Tribeca audience award winner records the frontline struggles of firefighters in an embattled city that has more fires than any other in the nation. With a population that has fallen by more than half since 1950, industrial decay that has left 80,000 structures vacant, 95 per cent of these fires are the result of arson. We see the challenges at gut level through the eyes of workers injured on the job and hampered by inadequate equipment, as well as in the determination of a new fire commissioner to cope with severe budgetary pressures and other burning issues.

4. The List (U.S.)
The Iraq War is a chapter of American interventionism that most want to forget. But not only did it leave huge numbers of displaced persons and refugees, it endangered the lives of many thousands who collaborated with the invaders. This is the remarkable story of how idealistic young USAID worker Kirk Johnson, who strongly opposed the war, has nevertheless become the principal advocate for those seeking sanctuary in the U.S. — his list reached 3,500 in 2010 — in the face of shameful indifference and administrative obstacles.

A Tribeca Talks panel discusses the documentary The List April 24, 2012 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. From left: moderator New York Times author George Packer, director Beth Murphy, Anna, an Iraqi refugee on Kirk Johnson’s list, Paul Rieckhoff, founder and director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and human rights lawyer Marcia Maack. (G. Schmitz photo)

5. On the Mat (U.S.)
What could a story of competitive high school wrestling in Washington state teach us about life? Quite a lot, actually. Fredric Golding’s raw and poignant observation of a year in the life of these often troubled boys and their devoted coach is a revelation. There’s a lot of growing up in each moment of heartbreak and triumph, turmoil and tenacity. Even more than Oscar winner Undefeated, this is a sports doc that will not leave you unmoved.

6. Planet of Snail (South Korea)
Seung-Jun Yi’s profile of the remarkable relationship between a deaf and blind man, Young-Chan, and his disabled petite partner Soon-Ho, was awarded the top prize at last November’s Amsterdam international documentary festival, the world’s largest, and it’s easy to see why. The way the young couple communicate by touch on the hands and the way they overcome each day’s challenges is a testament to perseverance and to the power of their bonds of love to inspire the joy of living.

7. The Flat (Israel/Germany)
When director Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother died at age 98, he had to empty the Tel Aviv flat, stuffed with all manner of memorabilia, that she had shared with her husband since their emigration from Nazi Germany to what was then Palestine in 1936. Their ardent Zionism was well-known. But what shocked Arnon in sifting through the piles was the evidence of their close friendship with a senior Nazi SS officer — the recruiter of Adolph Eichmann! — that continued even after the Holocaust. That the goal of getting Jews out of Germany should have led to such a collaboration is stunningly brought to light through this secret family history of an unthinkable past that haunts us still.

8. Side by Side (U.S.)
A must for cinephiles that premiered in Berlin, director Chris Kenneally provides an impressive exploration of the impact of the digital revolution on all aspects of filmmaking and film distribution. Producer and narrator Keanu Reeves interviews some of the most engaging talents behind the camera on the pros and cons of a transformation that threatens to make tradition photo-chemical film stocks obsolete. As much as fellow Canadian James Cameron celebrates the marvels of digital effects, I admire holdout Christopher Nolan’s insistence on shooting his upcoming July blockbuster The Dark knight Rises on celluloid.

9. Queen: Days of Our Lives (U.K.)
It’s hard to imagine a better tribute to one of the globally dominant bands of recent decades than this stirring BBC rockumentary that follows its unusual rise during the 1970s through to the early 1990s. Inseparable from that was the turbulent high-wire life of its flamboyant bisexual lead singer Freddie Mercury (born Farrockh Bulsara in Zanzibar) who died of AIDS in 1991. Footage from his iconic performances of anthemic hits before massive crowds — such as We are the Champions at the 1985 Live Aid concert — will send chills down your spine.

10. Wagner’s Dream (U.S.)
If Queen was known for its operatic indulgences and excesses (remember Bohemian Rhapsody?), Canada’s theatrical impresario, and sometime filmmaker, Robert Lepage tackled the mother of all opera challenges in a daring five-year quest to bring a new interpretation of Wagner’s daunting 19th century Ring Cycle to New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Susan Froemke’s probing camera follows the emotional rollercoaster behind the scenes and divided reactions to the controversial stage design. Select Cineplex theatres have been showing the film and parts of the actual opera.

11. El Gusto (Ireland/Algeria/United Arab Emirates)
Music is also the subject of Safinez Bousbia’s uplifting project for the restoration of “chaabi”-a popular hybrid of Arabic and European sources that resounded through the casbah of Algiers during a time of Jewish, Muslim and Christian harmony among its devotees. The revolution and its aftermath shut down this thriving scene until its remarkable revival bringing together in joyous concert the now elderly practitioners of an almost forgotten tradition.

Let me add a few honourable mentions. Antonino D’Ambrosio’s Let Fury Have the Hour is an incisive musical and cultural mash-up of political protest and resistance from the Thatcher-Reagan era to the present. Petter Ringbom’s The Russian Winter follows the unusual concert journey through Russia of John Forté, a rising musical talent who served 14 years for drug possession before being released. The prolific Morgan Spurlock brought Mansome, a somewhat mischievous look at male grooming fashions, beards and body hair obsessions. Ivana Mladenovic’s Turn Off the Lights is a rough and raw portrait of young Roma men in Romania as they leave prison and return to a violent society. Last but not least, in Downeast the team of David Redmon and Ashley Sabin expose the struggle of an economically depressed coastal village in Maine to revive a seafood processing industry. Many of the workers are women and senior citizens; the enterprise at constant risk of political bickering and financial uncertainties. It’s an unsparing look at a hard-up America that resonates in these recessionary times.

Schmitz is an ambassador member of the Canadian Film Institute.