Unmistaken Child

First of all: great title. And it’s a introspective verite film that at times pulsates with dramatic urgency. This is because Nati Baratz follows the 4-year journey of Tenzin Zopa as he searches through remote Tibetan villages for the reincarnation of his beloved teacher. It’s fascinating and poignant to watch Tenzin Zopa’s intense process to find the right child. On the one hand, the story follows the old cinema trope in which failure is not an option, and on the other hand, the indicators of success are subjective and elusive.  It makes for a great mystery, and something you really haven’t seen before.

—Katy Chevigny

Throw Down Your Heart

I’m one of this film’s biggest fans. The giant Ugandan marimba alone is worth the price of the DVD. Sascha Paladino’s team follows Bela Fleck as he travels to several countries in Africa to explore the little known African roots of the banjo and record an album. It’s beautiful to watch (gotta shout out to Kirsten Johnson!) and the sound quality of the field recordings are out of this world.

* And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that The Battle of Chile is available in all its multi-hour glory on DVD! It’s worth heralding the fact that Patricio Guzman’s film is available to wider audiences at a reasonable price.

—Katy Chevigny

More Than A Game

I am not a sports fan but for some reason, I love sports films. Maybe its because they condense games down to the good stuff. Or maybe it’s because you get to learn the emotional back-story, raising the stakes of the games themselves. Whatever the reason, More Than A Game is a sports film at it’s best. This documentary follows five teammates through the trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Ohio. Yes, the film charts the now famous LeBron James’ meteoric rise to fame but what it is really about is a powerful bond between teammates. The film also features a great soundtrack with songs by Drake, Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z.

—Angela Tucker

Prayers Answered

Being a world traveler I always enjoy media about our wonderful planet.  Prayers Answered is about a small Muslim village on the border of Pakistan and Tibet. During the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971, Iranians, Tibetans, Dardans and Mongolians settled here and formed a mixed race called Baltis.  Director Galek Palsang takes us to this remote location for a rare glimpse at this place and it’s people.  I most enjoy the Dalai Lama speaking about Pluralism and how wonderful it is.

—David Wright

Please Vote for Me

For those going through election withdrawal, take a break mid-term campaigns and take a step back in time to the world of early school politics with Please Vote For Me—a rare experiment in democracy with the first ever election for the position of 3rd grade class monitor at Evergreen Primary School in Wuhan, China.

— Maia Ermita

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

This is an unconventional recommendation for a holiday Shortlist, but worth considering for any secular soul who is perhaps jaded on all the cheer and jingle. By any measure, Wanted and Desired is a tough story, but you can’t get away from the overwhelming evidence that in 1977 justice and prosecution was a man’s world. Whether you side with Polanski or with Gailey, it’s clear that men botched the efforts to find justice in a very troubling situation. Would women have fared better? Perhaps. At least the process would likely have had less glee and submerged perversion—and I’m talking here about the lawyers, the police and the judge. One note on cinema, the film incorporates much of Polanski’s work, including an awesome jig he performed to a drumming doofus at 01:21:10. Any guess which film that is?

—Enrico Cullen

TYSON

We think we know something about Mike Tyson, former World Heavyweight boxing champ. He of the formidable fists, we remember that most of his bouts were over in the first round, after delivering a devastating punch to weak chins. We may also picture him as the misogynist bogeyman convicted of rape. But in James Toback’s TYSON, the larger-than-life pugilist reveals a vulnerability he has tried to conceal behind muscle and braggadocio.

Notorious incidents from his public life—e.g., the Barbara Walters interview side-by-side with ex-wife Robin Givens in which she reveals tales of his anger and physical abuse; the disqualification from a rematch with Evander Holyfield for biting off the latter’s ear—are given nuance via 90-minutes of an uninterrupted interview Toback conducted in a Las Vegas hotel room.

Did Tyson make mistakes? Absolutely. But the film does not deliver excuses or justifications for the champ’s actions. Rather, it sheds light on the internal logic guiding the bad choices he made. Even non-fans of the sweet science can probably relate to that.

— Felix Endara

In a Dream

A second strong DVD recommendation is In a Dream, Jeremiah Zagar’s portrait of his artist father. The documentary—a fiscally-sponsored project of Arts Engine—depicts Isaiah Zagar’s beautiful tile artwork in the streets of Philadelphia, unconventional family life, and ongoing struggle with depression. The son/filmmaker casts a loving, forgiving glance at a complicated man and the picture that emerges is a hopeful reminder that art and life are blissfully yet complexly entwined.

— Felix Endara

An Audience of One

“The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared. Is it still possible that one thousand people might group together in the dark and experience the dream that a single individual has directed?” - Federico Fellini

Pastor Richard Gazowsky exudes charm, charisma and authority to motivate his congregation cum film production company, Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks, documented in Audience of One as they set out to produce “Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph”, a $50 million biblical science fiction movie epic to beat all science fiction film epics.

Watch and enjoy as Gazowsky groups together his followers and attempts to realize a dream dreamt with eyes open.

—Kasmore Rhedrick

Please Vote for Me

Please Vote for Me, directed by Chen Weijun is one of the funniest documentaries I have seen in a while. It follows primary school elections in Wuhan, a modern metropolis in Central China. The children quickly turn into savvy politcos, resorting to name calling, teasing and even bribery with gifts supplied by zealous parents of course. The best part of any documentary that follows children is that you see glimpses of their personalities; habits, strengths and weaknesses that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. The best part of Please Vote for Me is that the children navigate these habits, lessons, strengths and weakness with the kind of sincerity and abandon that only children still possess.

—Kibra Yohannes

7-Up Series: 7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up and 49 Up

One of the original and most ambitious documentary series to date, this classic study of young people from different socio-economic classes growing up in England is fascinating and, as I found out, completely addictive.

Every seven years, starting in 1964, British filmmaker Michael Apted revisits and interviews 14 selected characters with the premise: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Despite presenting an inherently biased philosophy on which to base a documentary, Apted does not shy away from the characters increasingly critical views on his role in the depiction of their lives, which makes for an interesting debate to add to the class, race and gender conversations.

Looking forward to the next installment 56 Up which should be out in 2011 / 2012!

—Leah Sapin

Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman

In Flying, award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Fox travels the globe interviewing women from a variety of countries about their experiences and role models, all while using her own soul-baring story as the backbone for this investigation. I personally enjoy this film because it takes all the conversations I have with my own girlfriends and connects me with women all over the world who are having these same conversations—but in their own contexts.

This film is a unique one because it uses a camera technique Fox developed called “passing the camera,” in an effort to both ease conversation between women who are often realizing their voice for the first time and to capture the real feeling of the moment during natural conversation. It’s also unique because of Fox’s daring to break traditional documentarian/subject boundaries and include herself in the film, a choice that exemplifies the intimacy of the situations in the film.

For those not as heavily interested in psychology, sociology, and anthropology as I, it may take a while to get into Fox’s self-investigative, semi-soap-operatic backbone tale, but stick out the 6-part series and I can guarantee you will become hooked and have a hard time not examining your own inner thoughts and imagining how they link up with those around you.

—Austra Zubkovs

Trouble the Water

Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal recount a surprising tale of heroism in New Orleans, where a wannabe rapper and her husband brave the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina to rescue their neighbors. Featuring live video diary footage on the ground from the couple themselves, the Oscar-nominated documentary is both a poignant portrait of a family’s will to survive and a startling portrayal of Katrina’s devastating power.

I saw this movie when it first premiered at the IFC, but years after the event, it’s still relevent and extremely moving. Word is Will Smith might be staring in a new fictional film on how New Orleans is still dealing with the devestation.

—Austra Zubkovs

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