Off to Independent Film Festival of Boston!
jolene
Every time around this year, when Tribeca is going full force (you know, the constant email updates, the sold out tickets, the dim possibility of scoring rush tickets being dangled before you), I head for the hills and make my annual pilgrimage to Boston for the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Sure, I lived in Boston for several years and always jump at a chance to get back there. And yes, it was the place where I realized I wanted to go into documentary film (at a fateful Tupperware! screening at the MFA). But over the years, as IFFBoston’s programming lineup has grown and as they’ve become more and more attentive to documentary, I find myself making the trip for the films alone (well, that and the good people who make the festival happen). Here are what I consider to be the documentary highlights this year:
The Lottery (Dir. Madeline Sackler) delves into the contentious debate around the future of education reform. By following closely the stories of four young charter school hopefuls, the film exposes the high-stakes school lotteries in New York City.
Boston filmmaker Chico Colvard’s Family Affair just took home the Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival (Arts Engine’s own Angela Tucker was on the jury). I’ll be there at tomorrow’s screening of Family Affair, a film that pulls back the curtain on family secrets. The word “intense” keeps coming up when people attempt to describe Colvard’s film.
Documentaries that traverse imaginary worlds never cease to grab me (thank you, Henry Darger and Jessica Yu). And for this reason, Marwencol looks irresistible. Mark Hogencamp cooks up his own solution to personal trauma by building a 1:6-scale fictional town, set in World War II–era Belgium.
From the talented team that brought you Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell comes a “stylistic homage to the mid-20th-century jazz-ballet musical” called NY Export: Opus Jazz. Choreographer Jerome Robbins’ ballet of the same name takes to unlikely locales in a 2008 restaging, artfully captured I’m sure.
Time to catch the bus to Boston!
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| Posted on April 23, 2010
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