Chirs Galust and Lauren “Lolo” Spencer in Give Me Liberty (BAM)

Considering the large number of films festivals in New York City, BAMcinemaFest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music has carved out its own identity and stands out. Like most festivals, it aims to showcase the best films that are currently available and not yet in theaters, and the programmers have picked from Sundance, Berlin, and SXSW. In some ways, it’s a one-stop destination for those who haven’t been to Park City or Austin this year. It tends to favor edgier and less mainstream indies compared to the much larger Tribeca Film Festival—although the 2019 edition will open with a crowd-pleaser, The Farewell, starring Awkwafina—as well as emerging filmmakers (the tried and true go to the New York Film Festival). In contrast to Tribeca and NYFF, BAMcinemaFest has a slimmed-down, easy-to-navigate lineup of 21 feature film presentations.

Among the highlights is Kirill Mikhanovsky’s freewheeling, high-spirited Give Me Liberty, which keeps pace with a medical transport driver in wintertime Milwaukee over the course of a day. The film can be a bit exhausting, given that the heavily in-demand Vic (Chris Galust) barely has time to catch his breath before he has to speed off to his next errand. A tall, dark blond Russian immigrant, Vic does his best to please everyone, even though that means he’s always running further and further behind schedule. He remains the Good Samaritan even when some of his decisions go awry: instead of taking Tracy (Lauren “Lolo” Spencer), who has ALS, to her destination, he loads the van up with elderly Russian mourners who are late to a funeral.

The film maintains a lively tempo, with a large and rowdy cast of various nationalities, abilities, and, more importantly, temperaments. Whoever yells the loudest wins the argument in several of the non-stop cacophonies onboard Vic’s shuttle. With its overlapping dialogue, the ride is like a Robert Altman film on speed. Even when the mourners arrive to the funeral, there is no agreement over what song to sing—a Byelorussian, Russian, or Jewish song?—and a fight (yet again) breaks out. The ensemble is so seamless that viewers may not always know who is the experienced actor and who is the nonprofessional.

Mikhanovsky covers a wide area of Milwaukee, ricocheting from one community to another. The director balances the seemingly spontaneous mayhem with an unimposing look at the real-life participants at the nonprofit Eisenhower Center, which provides vocational training, education, and jobs for those with disabilities. The movie stands out for who it represents—older immigrants and those with disabilities, to name two examples—but more importantly, it is rollicking and thoughtful. After premiering at Sundance and less than a month after screening at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, the film screens on Monday, June 17, as the festival’s centerpiece, and will be released by Music Box Films in August.

The Amazing Johnathan performing his act (BAM)

Give Me Liberty is not the only film in the program to give viewers a bumpy ride, as the unconventional The Amazing Johnathan Documentary could also be titled The Filmmaker’s Nightmare. It’s not out of the ordinary for documentarians to face an uphill battle to get a film made, which often involves financing the project. Here, director Benjamin Berman takes on more than he imagined in following the tour of John Edward Szeles, aka the Amazing Johnathan. The Las Vegas–based Amazing Johnathan had a heyday in the 1980s through the 2000s as a shock-magician and standup comedian. In a brief montage of his career, one of his achievements involved impaling his tongue.

According to Johnathan, he has a terminal heart disease, and against his doctor’s advice, he steps out of retirement and hits the road. Berman follows him for what looks likely to be the performer’s last hurrah. The filmmaker, however, gets more than he had bargained for.  Viewers may not be too surprised that Johnathan becomes unpredictable and perhaps unreliable, given that he confesses that he habitually smokes crystal meth, and does so on camera. Meanwhile, much to the earnest and possibly naïve director’s surprise, he is not the only one trailing the performer: another documentary crew begins tagging along, making a competing documentary, and they boast an Oscar-winning connection. Even more hiccups are on the way for Berman.

Often nonfiction filmmakers present themselves as an advocate or a warrior of some sort, but here Berman depicts himself  as a possible sap or at least befuddled; he doesn’t always know what to believe about Johnathan, and the audience is not always sure what to make of Berman as well. Let’s put it this way: the filmmaker goes to great lengths to regain his subject’s trust in a way that is definitely not taught in film school.

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary will be released in theaters and begin streaming on Hulu on August 16.

Edem Dela-Seshie in So Pretty (BAM)

Many of the films in the festival will be released theatrically, but the lineup is more than an art-house preview, as quite a few don’t yet have distribution. Such is the case with the nonchalant So Pretty, which distinguishes itself from other 2019 films dealing with gender identity, which have tended to be documentaries, such as Changing the Game, which is about transgender high school athletes, and Why Can’t I Be Me? Around You, a profile of a 50-something transgender auto mechanic.

This is a low-key, languid, slice-of-life take on a queer intellectual household in Brooklyn. It would be awkward to label who is transgender, who is gay, and so forth, because identity politics are a given here. (However, the relationships within the household are definitely fluid.) Director Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli (who also plays one of the lead characters) centers her film on an insular, well-educated bubble of a foursome who sit around and hang out. Though there is a tentative story line about the shifting relationships within the household, the vibe is deliberately mellow and the outlook positive. It’s as though the camera is the fifth roommate, the quiet observer who drinks in everything but doesn’t pass judgment.

BAMcinemaFest continues until June 23.