Socially conscious documentaries at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival perceptively examined female roles and the culture wars, and brought well-deserved attention to unconventional heroes. Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her, the festival’s Best Documentary Feature winner, adds considerable depth to the usual superficial contrasts of Indian women as either Bollywood stars or slumdogs. The beautiful […]

Directed by Jon Shenk Produced by Richard Berge & Bonni Cohen Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films English & Dhievi with English subtitles USA. 101 min. Rated PG The Island President makes climate change dramatic, political, personal, and the right stuff of leadership. The imminent future of the 400,000 people who live on the beautiful islands […]

Directed by Ruaridh Arrow Produced by Arrow & Richard Shaw Released by Seventh Art Releasing UK/Egypt/Serbia and Montenegro. USA.  87 min. Not rated Gene Sharp holds a PhD from Oxford, has held research appointments at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, and is the founder and senior scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution. Where most […]

Directed by Chad Freidrichs Produced by Chad Freidrichs, Jaime Freidrichs, Paul Fehler & Brian Woodman Written by Chad & Jaime Freidrichs Released by First Run Features USA. 83min. Not Rated The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History begins with a shocking image. Not the dramatic, notorious television footage of the 1972 implosion of an 11-story building […]

Directed by Werner Herzog Produced by Erik Nelson Released by Sundance Selects USA. 106 min. Not rated With Into the Abyss, director Werner Herzog takes a startlingly clear-eyed look at crime and capital punishment in Texas. His subtitle, “A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life,” emphasizes how he edits a series of frank interviews […]

For the last three years, the New York Film Festival has showcased international television mini-series that not only have creative and production values worthy of the big screen, but are not yet available on American television, even though media boundaries these days are so permeable. Dreileben will particularly appeal to fans of dark mysteries for […]

Directed by Nick Broomfield & Joan ChurchillProduced by Marc Hoeferlin Released by Freestyle Releasing UK/USA. 90 min. Not rated Trolling the frozen streets of Wasilla, Alaska, to explore the roots of its hometown media and political sensation, Sarah Palin: You Betcha! isn’t the hatchet job that her suspicious local allies expected. But documentary directors Nick […]