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Posted Film Festivals

Woodstock Film Festival: My Dead Dad

“Sometimes what a man wants to do and what he’s able to do are two different things.”

Lucas (Pedro Correa) was just hit with some devastating news. His dad Augusto (Ricardo Molina) is dead. Lucas has had a strained relationship with his father and its been 10 years since he’s seen him. So it came as a surprise when his dad left him a Los Angeles apartment building as an inheritance. Lucas leaves his mom and loser friends in Reno to make his way to LA. His plan is to quickly sell the joint, collect the money and go back to Reno. However, he finds himself more and more invested in the building and its tenants. Lucas gets tough love from the building’s supervisor Frank (Raymond Cruz) and has to be wary of his uncle (Steven Bauer) who is a little too eager to help Lucas sell the building. Lucas falls for Sophie (Courtney Dietz) who happens to be in a relationship with ne’er-do-well Gavin (Simon Rex). What Lucas didn’t expect was that in LA he’d find himself on a journey of discovery where he learns more about himself and his dead dad than he ever thought he would.

Co-written by Pedro Correa and Fabio Frey, My Dead Dad is a deeply empathetic coming-of-age story.  We become invested in Lucas’ journey as he pieces together a new narrative about his dad. The film weaves in home video style footage of Lucas’ dad and an audio recording that really makes the “dead dad” a fully realized character. I enjoyed the fish-out-of-water theme as well as how the main character grows and evolves throughout the story. There is a motley crew of supporting characters, all quirky and interesting in their own way. 

Throughout the film there are shots of LA, particularly tent cities, which offers a subtle nod to LA’s homeless situation. Correa is founder of Hollywood for Homeless, which according to Never Norm Films’ website their mission is to “collect excess wardrobe and snacks from film and TV sets, shop for bulk necessities, package them with care, and deliver them directly to those who need it in the streets of LA.”

“I hope it gives our audience a sense of catharsis, the way it did for us, and the courage to revisit memories they have buried away.”

Director Fabio Frey

My Dead Dad had its world premiere at the 2021 Woodstock Film Festival. Visit the film’s official website for more information.

Posted Documentaries

Woodstock Film Festival: Our American Family

“If 21 million Americans are struggling with addiction, how many family members are struggling alongside them?”

Hallee Adelman

Directed & Produced by Hallee Adelman & Sean King O’Grady, Our American Family is a brutally honest  documentary that gives viewers an inside look into how addiction affects families. 

Nicole is a drug addict who has been in an out of rehab over the years. In fact, she got pregnant in during one stint at rehab and is now leaning on her mother Linda to help her raise her daughter while she goes back for treatment for the tenth time. As the matriarch, Linda feels enormous pressure to not only help Nicole stay on track with her sobriety but also to raise her granddaughter and keep things together on the homefront. Her two grown sons are skeptical that Nicole will recover and are resentful about how much energy is diverted to dealing with their sister’s rollercoaster ride of addiction and sobriety. And to add to the familial strain, Nicole and Linda frequently find themselves butting heads.

Our American Family follows Nicole and her family as they navigate the ongoing repercussions of addiction. There are no interviews, just footage of the family living their day to day. The fly-on-the-wall perspective thrusts the audience right into the center of the evolving tension. This family could be any family in America dealing with the ongoing battle between addiction and recovery.

Our American Family will have its world premiere at the 2021 Woodstock Film Festival. Visit the film’s official website for more information.

Posted Documentaries

Woodstock Film Festival: My So-Called Selfish Life

“I’m childfree and it’s fabulous.”

Marcia Drut-Davis

Women carry the burden of the many expectations society has for them. The biggest one: motherhood. If a woman in her childbearing years decides against having children, she’s considered selfish. In fact, if she makes any reproductive choices at all, including the use of contraceptives and birth control, voluntary hysterectomies or having an abortion, she will be criticized by someone who feels they have a say in the matter. Many women are seen as walking uteruses rather than individuals who have a lot to offer other than giving birth. And those who want children but can’t have them due to many factors, including infertility, socioeconomic inequality and forced sterilization, are often seen as some sort of failure because they couldn’t achieve the goal assigned to them by societal norms. Being childfree or childless can make women feel like outcasts. Or worse. Silenced. 

Childfree — won’t have children

Childless — can’t have children

Written, directed and produced by Therese Shechter, My So-Called Selfish Life gives a voice to the women out there who live their lives without birthing children, whether it was their choice to do so or not. It’s a profoundly important documentary about a subject that is often swept under the rug. Any childfree or childless woman, including myself, who has endured awkward and hurtful conversations with people in their lives about their situation  will feel not only validated but redeemed to hear so many women in similar situations. And for those who cast judgement on others about the idea of maternal regret, they may learn a thing or two about compassion. 

The documentary includes interviews with a variety of experts including doctors, authors and activists. These are bolstered with historical context and pop culture references. Almost every possible approach was taken making this a very thorough exploration on the subject matter. With that said, I wish the film had explored how social media platforms, including TikTok, are being used to openly discuss childfree living but it unfortunately does not.

I can see this documentary doing well through word-of-mouth recommendations, with childfree and childless women sharing it with others to encourage discussion and understanding.

My So-Called Selfish Life premiered at the 2021 Woodstock Film Festival. Learn more about the documentary on the official website.

Posted Documentaries

Algren

“One of the greatest writers America ever produced.”

Nelson Algren gave a voice to the voiceless. The Detroit-born writer made his way to Chicago where he became fascinated with that city’s seedy underbelly. He got to know those whom the American dream was elusive and every day meant trying to survive some battle. Algren got to know and eventually wrote about junkies, drug dealers, pimps, hookers, gamblers, drunks, etc. He became the poet for the disenfranchised with novels like The Neon Wilderness and A Walk on the Wildside. He’s best known for his 1949 novel The Man With the Golden Arm which was the first to win a National Book Award for Fiction. It went on to be adapted in 1955 by director Otto Preminger and stars Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker. Even with that acclaim, his novels were poorly packaged and marketed, portraying Algren as a master of pulp rather than a literary genius.

“Nelson Algren told the stories of the people who came out of WWII yet who could never achieve the American Dream. Those people are still with us, still being kept down by a brutal and unfair system. It is my hope that by telling Algren’s story, that the next generation will be similarly inspired to focus on the people at the bottom, those whose tales still need to be told.”

Michael Caplan

Director Michael Caplan’s documentary conveys the importance of Nelson Algren’s life and literary contributions through interviews with the people who admired him best. Talking heads include artists, professors, writers, booksellers, film directors and friends. Notable figures include Billy Corgan and William Friedkin. It’s clear that these interviewees admired Algren for his genius and his singular personality. There is also plenty of archival footage and photos, as well as narration of what I believe is Algren’s memoirs. The documentary explores Algren’s journey from journalism to fiction writing, his torrid affair with writer Simone de Beauvoir, his relationship with Chicago and much more. The documentary can be hokey at times. Although I wished it was a bit more polished, I was transfixed by Algren’s story. 

Algren is a compelling documentary about a literary genius who became a voice for America’s disenfranchised.

Algren opens in theaters October 1st. Visit the First Run Features website for more details.

Posted Film Festivals

TIFF: Sundown

Neil (Tim Roth) tags along with his sister Allison (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her two teenage children for a luxury vacation in Mexico. Their idyll is interrupted by terrible news. Neil and Allison’s mother has taken ill and is dying. The family rushes to the airport but Neil has to double back because he forgot his passport. Or did he? Neil makes no effort to recover his old passport or get a new one. Instead he checks into a sketchy motel in a dangerous neighborhood, makes friends with the locals and starts a romantic relationship with a gorgeous shopgirl Bernice (Iazua Larios). Even when he learns that his mother has passed away and his sister, with whom he runs a successful pig slaughtering business, needs him back home in England to arrange the funeral, Neil cuts off communication. Neil knows what he should do but either refuses to or can’t compel himself to follow through. Will Neil’s complacency, willful or not, come at a cost?

Directed by Michel Franco, Sundown is a modern day Bartleby, the Scrivener demonstrating, in this case, the severe consequences of inaction. Roth is superb  as Neil. The character holds the audience and the other people in his world at arm’s length making him equal parts frustrating and fascinating. The movie took a dark turn I didn’t quite expect.

A deeply disturbing meditation on the consequences of inaction; Sundown is a must-see.

Sundown was part of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival Special Presentations slate.

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