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Sundance: L’Immensità

Clara (Penelope Cruz) and Felice (Vincenzo Amato) move their family, including their three young kids, to a new apartment building. It’s the 1970s and the city of Rome is in flux. New construction attracts wealthy families and transient workers who live almost side by side. On the other side of the reeds outside the new apartment building, Adriana (Luana Giuliani), who now goes by the name Andrew, meets Sara (Penelope Nieto Conti), a young Romani girl. Sara accepts Andrew as a boy and they form a tender bond despite the social expectations that threaten to keep them apart. At home, Andrew’s family is falling apart. Felice cheats on Clara and beats her. He also refuses to accept Andrew’s identity as a boy. Clara escapes her tumultuous marriage by tapping into her inner child and connecting with her children through music and play. Throughout it all Andrew struggles to shed his identity as Adriana and be embraced as his true self.

Penelope Nieto Conti and Luana Giuliani in L’Immensità. Courtesy of Sundance.

 Directed by Emanuele Crialese, L’Immensità is a heartfelt coming-of-age story that treats its subjects with great reverence and care. It’s as much a story about a preteen coming into his identity as it is about a grown woman’s struggle with adulting. There are a handful of musical numbers that, while not really necessary, add levity to the film. Cruz and Giuliani both deliver strong performances. The audience is given enough context about the characters’ situation and the social atmosphere of their given place and time while still maintaining an air of mystery. 

L’Immensità is an autobiographical story about director Crialese’s own upbringing. When this film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Crialese revealed that he is a transgender man and that Adriana/Andrew’s story is his own. While I would have liked to have learned more about Andrew’s trans journey, I also appreciated the delicate handling of the matter. It’s an important part of the story but not the film’s main focus. L’Immensità reminded me a bit of Céline Sciamma’s film Tomboy (2011) which also explores gender identity in a similar way.

L’Immensità was screened at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Posted BIPOC

Sundance: Little Richard: I Am Everything

“I let it all hang out… every bit.”

Little Richard

Little Richard was a Rock ‘n’ Roll icon. He called himself the “brown Liberace” but really he couldn’t be compared with anyone else. He was a groundbreaking in his delivery and had a style all his own. He rocked a pencil thin mustache, a tall bouffant and his signature wardrobe. Songs like Good Golly Miss Molly, Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally have become bonafide classics. But Little Richard was never really given his due for just how influential he was.His explosive energy made him a force to be reckoned with on stage and inspired countless musicians including  The Beatles, Elvis, David Bowie, James Brown, The Rolling Stones and more.

A new documentary sets out to set the record straight about who Little Richard really was. Directed by Lisa Cortés, Little Richard: I Am Everything paints the portrait of a man who was a walking contradiction. The film goes into depth about his music career, his early influences, how he molded his image and took the nation by storm and the many times he went unrecognized for being a trailblazer. It also explores LIttle Richard’s sexuality and how it often conflicted with his deeply religious beliefs.

The documentary is a bit on the long side and includes some stylistic elements and flourishes that seemed unnecessary.  And ending felt rushed. With that said, the film was quite engrossing. It does a tremendous job demonstrating his impact on the industry as well as the dichotomy between his private and public life. 

Talking heads include Mick Jagger, John Waters, Billy Porter, Tom Jones, Nile Rodgers, scholars, historians, family members and more.

Little Richard: I Am Everything premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It will air on CNN and stream on HBO Max at a future date.

Posted Female Filmmakers

Sundance: Sometimes I Think About Dying

Office worker Fran (Daisy Ridley) lives a simple and quiet life. Her days consist of work, cottage cheese, glasses of wine and Sudoku. She’s painfully shy which makes partaking in office culture, her only social sphere, all that more awkward. During quiet moments she daydreams about death, imagining the various ways her dead body could be discovered. Things change when Robert (Dave Merheje) joins the office. He’s sociable, funny and he’s taken an interest in Fran. Thus begins a courtship that requires an incredible amount of patience for Robert as he tries to lure Fran out of her shell. 

Directed by Rachel Lambert, Sometimes I Think About Dying is on the surface a story about female loneliness. Fran, brilliantly played by Daisy Ridley, is an introvert severely lacking in social skills and awareness, preventing her from establishing meaning relationships with other people. However, the movie’s strength lies in how it captures corporate monotony and contemporary work culture. Lambert’s film examines every minutiae when it comes to work interactions. There is much to take away from how the film depicts the intricacies of office politics from meaningless rituals to strict expectations on behavior.  Ridley and Merheje play off each other beautifully and it’s easy to become invested in their relationship. I appreciated that Lambert leaned more on a slow build up with the two protagonists rather than rely solely on the shock value of cringey behavior.

Sometimes I Think About Dying premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Update: Oscilloscope Laboratories is releasing Sometimes I Think About Dying in New York and Los Angeles on January 26th, 2024 with a larger rollout on February 2nd.

Posted BIPOC

Double Exposure: Hazing

Directed by Byron Hurt, Hazing explores the brutal culture of hazing with a particular focus on HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Hurt meditates on his own experience with hazing in a fraternity to explore why hazing, despite it being illegal in many states, still persists in college culture. Several victims who have died as a result of hazing are profiled. Their stories are harrowing and you can’t help but feel for their families. These needless deaths are a result of an ingrained culture in which young people are socialized to endure violence as a means of attaining respect in their given group.  The initiated blindly trust the upperclassmen who then put them through barbaric rituals for no reason other than attaining pleasure from their own gross abuse of power.

Hazing has an important message to convey but it can get lost in a documentary format that is too long and a bit muddled. 

Recommended viewing: For Men Only (1952)

Hazing was part of the 2022 Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival.

Posted Documentaries

Mill Valley Film Festival: Path of the Panther

“You have to show people the animal in order to create that connection, that love and appreciation. It’s all about setting the stage and waiting.”

— Carlton Ward Jr.

This quote made a big impact on me as soon as I heard it. As someone who has a deep love and appreciation for wildlife, I have long championed the preservation of these creatures and their habitat. And this quote struck me as to why all of those beautiful National Geographic photos and those awe-inspiring wildlife documentaries were important. We need to see in order to both understand and empathize.

Directed by Eric Bendick, Path of the Panther is a documentary that does just that. It allows the viewers to see the Florida panther in all its glory while also learning about the creature’s struggle to survive. With the encroaching suburbs shrinking its natural habitat and a mysterious neurological illness affecting kittens,panthers are up against a big battle in order to not go instinct. That’s where Carlton Ward Jr. steps in. As a photographer for the National Geographic, he truly understands that in order to save the panther people must see the panther. He and his team set up a sophisticated camera system in an area of the Florida Everglades in order to capture images of the panther in all its glory. And these images are truly breathtaking. The documentary also follows the efforts to rehabilitate injured panthers and to stop a new toll road from taking away even more of the panther’s habitat.

Path of the Panther is as stunning as it is revelatory. Come for the important conservation message, stay for some incredible images of the Florida panther.

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