Tag: documentaries

Review: ‘Sugarcane’ (2024), starring Julian Brave NoiseCat, Ed Archie NoiseCat, Charlene Belleau, Whitney Spearing, Willie Sellars, Rick Gilbert and Martina Pierre

August 10, 2024

by Carla Hay

Julian Brave NoiseCat and Ed Archie NoiseCat in “Sugarcane” (Photo by Emily Kassie/National Geographic Documentary Films)

“Sugarcane” (2024)

Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Canadian province of British Columbia (and briefly in Vatican City, Italy), the documentary film “Sugarcane” features a predominantly Indigenous group of people (with some white people) who are connected in some way to the now-defunct, Catholic Church-owned residential schools for Indigenous people in Canada.

Culture Clash: Several former students at these schools tell harrowing stories of experiencing or witnessing abuse, racism and suspected murder, with most victims never getting justice from law enforcement.

Culture Audience: “Sugarcane” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about Indigenous culture that give personal accounts of a shameful period in North American history.

Whitney Spearing and Charlene Belleau in “Sugarcane” (Photo by Emily Kassie/National Geographic Documentary Films)

“Sugarcane” is a personally intimate examination of the abuse and suspected murders in Canada’s Indigenous residential schools. Some of the investigative elements come up short, but this documentary is a powerful testament to survivor resilience. “Sugarcane” also tells a memorable story of how one particular family has been trying to heal from the generational wounds inflicted by abusers and systemic biases.

Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, “Sugarcane” features several members of Julian Brave NoiseCat’s family, including his father Ed Archie NoiseCat; Ed’s mother Kyé7e; and Ed’s aunt Martina Pierre. Julian is also featured prominently in the movie, which includes several poignant scenes of Julian and Ed going on a father-son road trip together. “Sugarcane” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat won the Sundance grand jury’s Directing Award for U.S. Documentary. Kassie is also a cinematographer and a producer for “Sugarcane,” which is the feature-film directorial of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Kassie.

“Sugarcane” begins with a memorable image of a statue of the Virgin Mary holding an infant Jesus outside of one of these now-defunct schools. The statue is splattered with an unidentified red substance that looks like blood but could be paint or something else. Whatever the red substance is, this striking image is symbolic of the documentary’s undeniable message: The clergy who operated these schools and committed heinous crimes and/or helped cover up these crimes have blood on their hands and have seriously damaged untold numbers of people.

An introduction caption in Sugarcane” gives a very brief summary of what these schools (which also existed in the United States) were about: “Beginning in 1894, the Canadian government forced Indigenous children to attend segregated boarding schools. The schools were designed to ‘get rid of the Indian problem.’ Most were run by the Catholic Church. For years, students spoke of abuse and whispered about missing classmates.” The documentary includes black-and-white archival footage clips of these residential schools in the 1950s and 1960s.

The main community that is the focus of this documentary is Sugarcane Indian Reserve near Williams Lake in British Columbia. Several of Sugarcane’s residents (including members of the NoiseCat family) were Shuswap tribe members and students at St. Joseph Mission Residential School, which operated from 1891 to 1981. It’s mentioned that at schools like St. Joseph’s Mission, Shuswap students were ordered not to speak Secwépemc, the native language of Shuswap people, and were forced to speak English instead.

The documentary also features three people who are active investigators into the abuse and other crimes committed at St. Joseph’s Mission: Willie Sellars, the chief of the Williams Lake First Nations; investigator Charlene Belleau; and investigator/archaeologist Whitney Spearing. Each investigator has uncovered hundreds of stories of horrific abuse that took place at St. Joseph’s Mission. Most of the abuse victims and perpetrators are now deceased. However, “Sugarcane” has interviews with some of the abuse survivors.

Sellars (who has an upbeat and friendly personality) is more of an “out in the field” investigator, who visits different people in the community in person and attends various events such as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (also known as Orange Shirt Day), a Canadian holiday (held annually on September 30) to recognize the troubled legacy of the Canadian Indian residential school system. There’s a scene where Sellars is one of the people standing next to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who gives a short speech to Williams Lake First Nations people on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Trudeau, who said he was invited by Sellars, essentially says a version of “we’re sorry this happened to you” in his speech and then declares of the long journey to try to make things right: “There’s work to do.”

Belleau and Spearing are more focused on research and records for their investigations. “Sugarcane” has multiple scenes of the two women poring over archives and reading aloud some of the harrowing personal letters from witnesses, as well as newspaper clippings, that detail many of the abuse and other crimes. Belleau and Spearing also decorate the walls with some of these archives and maps of the crime scenes, just a like an investigation room at a police department.

Bealleau, like most of the Indigenous people in the documentary, has a personal and tragic connection to St. Joseph’s Mission: Her uncle committed suicide when he was a student at the school. Bealleau bitterly comments that a coroner didn’t even bother doing a report for her uncle’s death. She says of the attitude that many people in law enforcement had at the time: “It’s just another dead Indian. Who cares?”

Many of the students at St. Joseph’s Mission and similar residential schools died while trying to escape. Others died from torture and other abuse, according to many eyewitness statements uncovered in personal letters and police records. Sexual abuse, usually perpetrated by clergy, was rampant. Girls who got pregnant from rape either had their babies given up for adoption or taken away to be secretly murdered. The school campus and nearby property became a horrific graveyard full of sinister secrets.

“Sugarcane” is not one of those flashy and slick true crime documentaries with quick-cutting editing, actor re-enactments or predictably ominous music. “Sugarcane” deliberately takes its time to introduce the NoiseCat family and slowly unpeels the layers of secrets and trauma in the family. The haunting stories they tell are similar or the same to those of other families with former St. Joseph’s Mission students.

When Julian is first seen on screen in the documentary, he calls to wish his father a happy birthday. He is then seen participating in a traditional pow wow, where he wins in the category of men’s traditional dance. Julian gives a triumphant hug to his grandmother Kyé7e, who has been watching in the audience. It all looks like a happy family at first.

But then, there’s a scene where Julian explains to his father Ed that he wants to know the family’s whole story. Ed, with anguish written all over his face, seems to shut down emotionally and replies, “It’s too damaging.” (Julian’s mother is not seen in the documentary. There’s no explain for why she isn’t in the movie, but it can be assumed she chose not to participate.)

Ed (who was born in 1959) is dealing with his own issues over the family’s history: He is haunted by the stigma and the shame of knowing that when his mother Kyé7e was a student at St. Joseph’s Mission, she gave birth to him and put him in a garbage incinerator. This type of garbage incinerator was believed to have been used to murder an untold number of babies who were born from priests and other clergy raping female students. “Sugarcane” includes a short interview with a witness named Wesley Jackson, who says he was ordered to incinerate the bodies of dead babies on the St. Joseph’s Mission campus.

The trauma that gets passed down through generations is shown in a heart-wrenching scene where Julian confronts Ed about abandonment issues. Ed says that he’s never really gotten over the feeling of knowing that his mother rejected him when he was a newborn, and it led him down a path toward abusing alcohol. Julian brings up how he often felt abandoned by Ed, who was an absentee father for much of Julian’s childhood. The emotions they express are raw and real as they try to come to terms with the knowledge that emotional damage caused by abuse can be inflicted on victims’ loved ones too.

The topic of Ed’s birth is too painful for his mother Kyé7e to discuss on camera. When she does talk about it, it’s on an audio recording. Pierre (Kyé7e’s sister/Ed’s aunt) comments to Ed, “I felt dirty as an Indian, all my life, in a residential school. Residential schools taught us shame and guilt, so your mom’s still carrying that.”

Rick Gilbert, a former chief of the Williams Lake First Nations, was a former St. Joseph’s Mission student who opens up about his own generational trauma. He was born from a rape caused by a priest at the school. And then, Gilbert himself was sexually abused by another priest at the school. Accompanied by his wife Anna Gilbert, Rick tries to find some healing by traveling to Vatican City to hear Pope Francis make a public apology for the Catholic Church failing victims of abuse that was perpetrated by Catholic Church clergy.

Some other St. Joseph’s Mission alumni who are abuse survivors are also interviewed in the documentary, but their comments are fairly short. Many of these survivors say they coped with the emotional pain by abusing alcohol and other drugs. Addiction and self-harm are common results that happen to victims of abuse. The abuse is often even more traumatic when the perpetrators get away with their crimes.

St. Joseph’s Mission abuse survivor Jean William says, “Everything was so secretive … When you’re brought up in an institution like the Catholic Church, there are strict rules … The ones who were telling us it was a sin, they were the ones doing all the [sinful] action.”

Rosalin Sam, another St. Joseph’s Mission abuse survivor, adds: “I was abused by Father Price. No one listened to me.” Sam says that she reported the abuse to several authorities, who did nothing. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told her father, Sam says her father’s response was to beat her up. She then began abusing alcohol shortly afterward.

Ed Archie NoiseCat has an uncomfortable reunion with a former St. Joseph’s Mission student named Laird Archie, who used to bully Ed when they were students at the school. (Ed used to be physically attacked and cruelly taunted by being called Garbage Can Kid.) Archie is remorseful about this bullying and tells Ed that he was going through his own personal problems at the time, including having adopted parents who were abusive alcoholics. Archie also says his adoptive father, who had 11 kids, sexually abused the kids in the family.

In “Sugarcane,” Belleau and Spearing say that only three people were convicted of sex crimes committed at St. Joseph’s Mission, and only one of them is still alive. He’s identified in the movie only as Brother Doughty, but public records show that his full name is Glenn Doughty. Belleau makes an unnannounced call to Doughty that is brief and unproductive. Doughty cuts the conversation short when she mentions the names of certain students at St. Joseph’s Mission.

There’s a scene where Rick Gilbert meets with Louis Lougen, a superior general for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Lougen is apologetic to Rick Gilbert for the abuse that Rick Gilbert suffered at St. Joseph’s Mission. “I’m so sorry,” Lougen tells Rick Gilbert: “It can’t be justified, but it’s a sickness that grew in the [Catholic] Church.” (Rick Gilbert died in 2023. “Sugarcane” includes a tribute to him in the end credits.)

What “Sugarcane” doesn’t do is question why the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate funded and provided housing for paroled priests and other clergy who were convicted of sexual abuse. Doughty was one of the convicted sex offenders who received these housing privileges and benefits after he was released from prison, according to several news reports. It’s a noticeable part of the “Sugarcane” documentary that doesn’t dig deep enough to investigate the systemic reasons why it’s so hard for these abuse victims to get justice.

Also mostly ignored in the documentary are discussions about the movement for Indigenous victims or their living direct descendants to get reparations for the abuse inflicted at these racist residential schools. Sellars, who is involved in political activism, should have provided some insight and commentary in “Sugarcane” about the reparations issues. If the “Sugarcane” filmmakers asked him about these issues, it didn’t end up in the final cut of the documentary.

“Sugarcane” is not an easy film to watch for anyone who is disturbed by the knowledge of how long and how many people were damaged by these tragic crimes. It’s a searing but necessary reminder that abuse often hides in plain sight and is frequently perpetrated, enabled, and/or covered up by those who are supposed to protect abuse victims. “Sugarcane” not only serves as wake-up call for those who want to look the other way but it’s also a call to action for people in communities to be more vigilant in protecting abuse victims and seeking legal justice, no matter how difficult it all might be.

National Geographic Documentary Films released “Sugarcane” in New York City on August 9, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on August 16, 2024.

Review: ‘Hollywoodgate,’ starring Mawlawi Mansour and M. Javid Mukhtar

August 10, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ibrahim Nash’at (pictured at far left) and Mawlawi Mansour (pictured at far right) in “Hollywoodgate” (Photo courtesy of Rolling Narratives)

“Hollywoodgate”

Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at

Pashto and Dari with subtitles

Culture Representation: Filmed from 2021 to 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan, the documentary film “Hollywoodgate” features a predominantly Arab group of people (with a few white people) who are involved in some way with the Taliban.

Culture Clash: After the United States withdrew military forces from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban took possession of weapons, aircraft and other resources that were left behind by the CIA and the U.S. military.

Culture Audience: “Hollywoodgate” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing an inside (but admittedly restricted) account of what the Taliban did and plans to do with discarded war items in Afghanistan.

A scene from “Hollywoodgate” (Photo courtesy of Rolling Narratives)

Is the documentary “Hollywoodgate” propaganda for the Taliban in Afghanistan, or is it a warning to people who oppose the Taliban? “Hollywoodgate” has elements of both because it’s a raw chronicle that came with filming restrictions. “Hollywoodgate” is compelling to watch, even though it states from the beginning that “Hollywoodgate” director Ibrahim Nash’at was allowed filming access under certain limiting conditions.

Egyptian filmmaker Nash’at (who makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Hollywoodgate”) filmed “Hollywoodgate” from August 2021 to most of 2022, after the United States had withdrawn U.S. military forces from Afghanistan. Nash’at was given permission by the Taliban to film Taliban activities in Afghanistan, on the conditions that (1) he only focus on two Afghan military officials and (2) Nash’at had to be under constant surveillance by the Taliban. “Hollywoodgate” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival.

“Hollywoodgate” was filmed cinéma vérité-style. The documentary begins with a brief captioned introduction that states: “In 1996, after a generation of war and more than 1 million casualties, the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. After 9/11, the U.S. and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, hoping to overthrow the Taliban for their role in harboring Al Qaeda. On August 3, 2021, the Taliban reclaimed Kabul.”

Nash’at is an intermittent narrator for the documentary, mostly in the beginning of the film and at the end. He occasionally appears on camera. In the beginning of the film, Nash’at says in voiceover narration: “Just days after the last American soldier left Afghanistan, I arrive in Kabul with only an Afghan translator and my camera. I came to see whose hands this country was left.”

Using his connections as an investigative journalist, Nash’at says he made arrangements to document the Taliban’s transition from being an insurgent militia to a military regime. The two Taliban officials whom Nash’at was required to focus on for this documentary are Air Force commander Mawlawi Mansour and Air Force lieutenant M. Javid Mukhtar, also known as M.J. Mukhtar.

“Hollywoodgate” gets its title from the numerous warehouse-styled bases with doors marked Hollywood Gate 1, Hollywood Gate 2, Hollywood Gate 3, etc. that are shown in the documentary. It’s repeatedly mentioned in the documentary that the CIA used these bases during the U.S. war in Afghanistan. There are several scenes of Taliban soldiers, usually led by Mansour, who are on these bases to take possession of the many weapons, aircraft, technology equipment and other resources used in war.

These abandoned bases are usually in extreme disarray, with broken doors, damaged and overturned furniture, garbage-strewn rooms and graffiti with pro-U.S. messages. It gives the distinct impression that the Americans who used to work in these bases had to leave in a hurry but made sure that they left their mark behind, by destroying as much as they could before they could leave. Despite the messy conditions, the Taliban soldiers scavenge through the remains with a certain amount of glee. One unidentified soldier says, “The Americans left us an enormous treasure.”

Even though Nash’at was given permission to film Mansour and Mukhtar, the higher-ranking Mansour is the one who gets most of the documentary’s screen time. And it’s easy to see why. Mukhtar isn’t very talkative and seems to be have a very guarded personality. He reveals very little about himself. The documentary footage of Mukhtar is essentially just “ride along” footage.

By contrast, Mansour has a “larger than life” personality, for better or worse. Mansour, who has an authoritarian swagger, strides confidently through the throngs of military soldiers who are at his beck and call. Mansour gives the impression that he expects to be the center of attention wherever he goes. He’s treated like a military rock star and has a demeanor that suggests he can be a loyal ally and a ruthless enemy. He also tries to project an image of being a very patriotic family man.

Even though Mansour at times appears friendly and smiling with certain people, he has a leadership style that is about instilling fear. One minute, he could be laughing and casually joking with some people. The next minute, he could be assaulting someone or ordering an assault of anyone whom he thinks is being disobedient or disloyal. You get the feeling that the worst punishments were never filmed by Nash’at because he was never allowed to have that type of access.

Mansour is the type of leader who can be both inspiring and demeaning to his subordinates. There’s a scene where he gives a rousing speech to a group of dozens of cheering soldiers and proudly tells them: “You are the heroes of a generation because you defeated the U.S. and Taliban.” But there’s also a separate scene where Mansour tosses aside an empty plastic water bottle while he’s walking somewhere, only to immediately order a minion soldier to pick up the bottle.

When people in the documentary are surprised to see Nash’at filming them, Mansour tells them firmly that Nash’at was given permission to film. In one such scene, Mansour adds in a cold tone when he speaks about Nash’at, who can be seen filming the scene in a nearby mirror: “If his intentions are bad, he will die soon.” It’s a chilling warning to Nash’at that he should not feel safe when filming this documentary.

The chameleon-like sides of Mansour’s personality can be seen throughout the documentary. He plays the role of charismatic host to political officials in a scene where he enthusiastically greets ambassadors from Russia, Iran and Pakistan on a recently repaired aircraft that had been abandoned. Only the Russian official’s first name (Nikoli) is mentioned.

But there are also scenes where Mansour icily asserts his authority and reminds Nash’at that Nash’at can be prevented from filming certain things. Later, Mansour is a deferential subordinate when Afghanistan minister of defense General Yaqoob Mohammad and Afghanistan prime minister Mullah Akhund speak at a rally attended by Taliban officials and soldiers.

Because “Hollywoodgate” was filmed cinéma vérité-style, there are no interviews that were filmed for the documentary. Nash’at seems to have an unassuming presence when filming (he doesn’t talk much and is clearly not doing this documentary to be the star of the movie), but there are scenes where there’s obvious and continuing mistrust of Nash’at. For example, when some unidentified Taliban officials look over a ledge and describe seeing a barrel of weapons, one of the officials can be heard saying about this cache of weapons: “Don’t show it to the filmmaker.”

“Hollywoodgate” viewers might also notice that in this very patriarchal military society, women are barely seen and are certainly never in any leadership positions. Women and children in the documentary are only briefly seen as bystanders in places where the Taliban soldiers are passing through. And if it isn’t clear enough how oppressively sexist the culture is, Mansour says matter-of-factly in a conversation that his wife is a medical doctor but he refused to marry her until she gave up her medical practice.

The access that Nash’at was given for this documentary can certainly be commended for its uniqueness. However, to its detriment, “Hollywoodgate” can never shake the tone that Nash’at and the other “Hollywoodgate” filmmakers are just being used by the Taliban for Taliban image-making public relations instead of being a truly independent documentary. Scene after repetitive scene in the documentary is about showing Taliban soldiers amassing the abandoned weapons, equipment and other items.

“Hollywoodgate” has multiple of scenes of Mansour consulting with technicians on the abandoned bases, as the technicians give him briefings on how they can repair the aircraft or equipment that was found damaged. The intention is obvious: The Taliban plans to use whatever was abandoned by the U.S. and add it to the Taliban’s military arsenal. The Taliban’s message is very clear: “We’re now more armed than ever. Enemies beware.”

Some viewers of “Hollywoodgate” might be shocked by the statistic mentioned at the end of the documentary and in the movie’s trailer: According to the U.S. Pentagon, the U.S. left behind an estimate $7.12 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan. “Hollywoodgate” might not be able to change the Talban’s intended uses of this military equipment, but the documentary offers a glimpse into how and why this military equipment was accumulated in the first place.

Rolling Narratives released “Hollywoodgate” in select U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024.

Review: ‘Daughters’ (2024), starring Aubrey Smith, Keith Swepston, Ja’Ana Crudup, Frank Walker, Santana Stewart, Mark Grimes, Razia Lewis and Alonzo Lewis

August 9, 2024

by Carla Hay

Aubrey Smith (pictured at right) and her father Keith Swepston in “Daughters” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Daughters” (2024)

Directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae

Culture Representation: Filmed from 2019 to 2022, and taking place in the area of Washington, D.C., the documentary film “Daughters” features a predominantly African American group of people (with a few Latin people) who are involved in some way with Girls for a Change, a Richmond, Virginia-based non-profit group that empowers African American girls and other girls of color.

Culture Clash: Girls for Change began a Date With Dad event for incarcerated fathers and their underage daughters to spend time together during a father-daughter dance at the prisons where their fathers are incarcerated.

Culture Audience: “Daughters” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries that show the vulnerabilities and challenges of families who are affected by incarceration.

A scene from “Daughters” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Daughters” is quite simply one of the most impactful documentaries of the year. This tearjerking account of a father-daughter dance in a prison tells a larger story of the long-term effects of separation from incarcerated parents. “Daughters” does not ask viewers to pity these fractured families but to take an honest and often-uncomfortable look at the circumstances that led to these traumas.

Directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae (their feature-film directorial debut), “Daughters” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won two prizes: the Festival Favorite Award and the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary. Patton (who is prominently featured in the documentary) is also the founder of Girls for Change, a Richmond, Virginia-based non-profit group that empowers African American girls and other girls of color.

Girls for Change offers Date With Dad, a weekend event (which includes a formal dance) where underage daughters are reunited with their fathers who are incarcerated in prison. “Daughters” does not mention the crimes for which the fathers are incarcerated, which is the movie’s way of not letting these fathers’ identities be defined by their crimes. The fathers who participate in the Date With Dad event have to go through a 10-week orientation program first. According to Girls for Change, about 93% of the fathers who are paroled after participating in the Date With Dad event do not go back to prison.

The Date With Dad event was the idea of a girl in the Girls for Change program in 2008. The first Date With Dad event happened in 2009. “Daughters” (which was filmed from 2019 to 2022) chronicles what happened before, during and after a 2019 Date With Dad event at an unnamed prison in Washington, D.C., where prisoners have to pay for the privilege of seeing visitors, who can only be seen on video without any touching. The Date With Dad event is an exception to the “visitors on video” rule.

“Daughters” focuses on four girls and their fathers who go through this experience:

  • Aubrey Smith (who was 5 years old in 2019) and her father Keith Swepston
  • Ja’Ana Crudup (who was 11 years old in 2019) and her father Frank Walker
  • Santana Stewart (who was 10 years old in 2019) and her father Mark Grimes
  • Razia Lewis (who was 15 years old in 2019) and her Alonzo Lewis

For some of these daughters, the dance will be the first time that they will get to touch their father in years. In addition to interviews with the fathers and daughters, the documentary has interviews with the girls’ mothers, most of whom are single mothers. They all express a range of emotions: bitterness, hope, fear and bravery.

Aubrey Smith and her mother Lashawn Smith are feeling the weight of finding out if Swepston’s 10-year prison sentence will be reduced. Aubrey, who is clearly the star of the movie, is a precocious and intelligent child who is absolutely adorable. She excels in school and craves her father’s approval. “My dad is the strongest dad I know,” Aubrey says proudly in the beginning of the documentary. Lashawn, who says that Aubrey has “separation anxiety” because of Swepston’s incarceration, also mentions that Aubrey experienced the trauma of seeing Swepston being arrested when police raided their home at night.

Ja’Ana Crudup and her mother Unita Crudup have different feelings about Ja’Ana’s father, who is no longer in a relationship with Unita. Ja’Ana is looking forward to seeing her father, but admits, “My mom don’t like me going to jail to see my father.” Unita bitterly says that when Ja’Ana’s father was not in prison, he didn’t want to spend time with Ja’Ana. And now that it’s harder for him to spend time with Ja’Ana, he wants to develop a bond with her. Unita questions his sincerity and says she doesn’t want Ja’Ana to be disappointed by him again: “When you hurt her, you hurt me.”

Santana Stewart and her mother Diamond Stewart have the opposite situation: Santana’s father and Diamond have a cordial relationship, but Santana is the one who’s angry at her father. Diamond and Grimes were underage teenagers (he was 16, she was 14) when they had Santana. This teenage parenthood and the hardships the family experienced have had a profound impact on Santana, who says defiantly in the documentary: “I’m never going to be a mother. I can have a husband. I’m getting married at 35. If I do have kids, I’ll wait until I’m 45.”

Razia Lewis has a heart-wrenching story of how she’s been affected by her father’s imprisonment. She admits that not having her father around has made her depressed enough to have frequent suicidal thoughts. She says of her father’s absence: “It don’t feel right.” Razia’s mother Sherita Lewis does what she can to cheer up Razia, but the aching void that Razia feels in her heart can’t seem to be filled until she gets a chance to spend quality time with her father.

Patton is seen as a guest speaker during the fathers’ Date With Dad orientation program, which is led by Chad Morris. Morris gives a combination of pep talks and “tough love” lectures on what the men can and should learn from this Date With Dad experience. He warns the fathers that it will be very hard to say goodbye to their daughters after the event ends, but that they should use that sadness as fuel to become better men and make their children proud.

Patton explains the purpose of the Date With Dad event: “The girls needed a way to invite their fathers into their lives on their own terms.” The father-dance is held in a prison gymnasium that is set up with ballroom-styled seating. Many of the fathers have to learn how to put on a tie to go to this event. Also featured in the documentary is Clinique Marshall Chapman, a program manager for this prison in Washington, D.C.

Much of “Daughters” shows the planning and anticipation that go into the event. But nothing can really prepare viewers for the flood of emotions that will come when seeing these fathers and daughters spending time together and then having to go their separate ways again. Regret, emotional pain, tension, joy and sorrow are in abundance.

Most other documentaries that would cover this subject matter would end the documentary at the end of the dance. But “Daughters” admirably goes a step further by showing the long-term effects of the dance. And this is how “Daughters” packs an even bigger punch.

One daughter has reunited with her father, who has been paroled and turned his life around. This father and daughter now have an intact family that is on the path to healing. Another daughter doesn’t get this happy ending and hasn’t seen her father in person since the dance. The exuberant spirit she had when she was younger has turned into glumness and resentment.

The Date With Dad event represents mixed emotions that not only evoke powerful memories but also haunt those who participate in it. For some, the event is a step in the right direction and motivation to make things right if the father gets a chance to redeem himself outside of prison. For others, it’s a fleeting experience that represents a rare time with a father who is sorely missed and remains absent.

What happens when families are damaged or destroyed by incarceration? “Daughters” is an unforgettable glimpse into the promise and possibility of fathers reconnecting with their daughters without any guarantee that these special moments will ever happen again.

Netflix released “Daughters” in select U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024. The movie will premiere on Netflix on August 14, 2024.

Review: ‘Join or Die’ (2024) starring Robert Putnam, Glenn Loury, David Brooks, Hillary Clinton, Mike Lee, Eddie S. Glaude Jr. and Pete Buttigieg

August 3, 2024

by Carla Hay

JC Muhammad (center) in “Join or Die” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Join or Die” (2024)

Directed by Pete Davis and Rebecca Davis

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, the documentary film “Join or Die” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Asians, Latin people and Native Americans) who discuss the sociological benefits of joining groups.

Culture Clash: The people interviewed in the documentary say that American society has moved toward more social isolation and division, which could be harmful to communities and democracy.

Culture Audience: “Join or Die” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in sociopolitical documentaries that have general overviews, but this documentary doesn’t dig deep enough into the down sides of joining problematic groups.

Robert Putnam in “Join or Die” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Join or Die” is mostly a tribute to political scientist Robert Putnam and his teachings that advocate for people to join groups. This well-meaning documentary ignores the realities that toxic groups exist, but the movie’s overall message is admirable. In some ways, “Join or Die” bit off more than it could chew and becomes unwieldy by addressing topics too broadly. Some of the topics needed a more meaningful examination that is better suited for a docuseries, not a feature film.

Directed by siblings Pete Davis and Rebecca Davis, “Join or Die” is their feature-film debut and had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Pete Davis is the documentary’s cheerful narrator. Putnam, who is Pete Davis’ former Harvard University professor, gets a lot of screen time because this documentary was originally going to be a biographical film about Putnam. The movie’s original title was “Unraveling America.” Putnam wrote the 2000 non-fiction book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” which is the inspiration for much of the ideas put forth in “Join or Die.”

“Bowling Alone” is about the philosophy that societies are better off when people in the societies feel connected to each other. And the best way for people to feel connected with each other is to join groups. The term “social capital” is mentioned numerous times in “Join or Die.” In the documentary, Putnam says he defines “social capital” as “social networks have value.” Davis says in the documentary’s introduction narration: “This is a film about why you should join a club, why the fate of America depends on it.”

As a nation, the United States of America has gone though ebbs and flows in overall unity among residents. “Join or Die” sounds the alarm that the early 21st century has become an era of increased social isolation and a widening gap between the rich and the poor that harken back to the Gilded Age of the late 1870s to the late 1890s. The U.S. Civil War (which lasted from 1861 to 1865) was obviously the most divisive period in American history, but the Reconstruction period was also a tough recovery period of civil unrest. Putnam believes that the best way to lessen the divisiveness caused by the large socioeconomic gaps between the rich and the poor is for people who are rich and poor to interact with each other in groups.

“Join or Die” has commentary from various people in the United States and visits several states (including California, New Hampshire, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, and New York) to interview people about the benefits of joining groups. “Join or Die” also does a good job of including people with various political leanings, ranging from liberal to conservative, and those who are in between. Some “regular folks” are interviewed to talk about some of their social groups (where the groups’ main meetings are in person, not online) that they consider beneficial to their lives.

It’s a noble but ultimately flawed approach to the documentary’s premise because it ignores the down sides of certain groups. What about harmful cults? What about hate groups? What about groups that illegally discriminate against people from joining? Those questions are never explored in “Join or Die” because it seems to cling to the assumption that most groups are not harmful. And that might be true, but there are some groups that are very problematic and cause a lot of harm.

“Join or Die” puts an emphasis on in-person interactions as the healthier way for people to be part of a group, compared to online interactions. The movie doesn’t condemn online interactions but does make a case that in-person interactions are a better alternative if possible because people feel more connected when they can see each other in person. The documentary also makes clear that the type of group joining that’s discussed in the movie is about the groups that people join in their free time and of their own free will—not jobs where people are required to be together.

The rise of social media in the early 21st century gets superficial mentions in “Join or Die” as a reason for why more people are likely to be isolated from in-person interactions. There have been studies linking excessive social media use to depression and suicidal actions, particularly among young people, says U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who is interviewed in the documentary. However, “Join or Die” doesn’t go any further than this brief mention.

“Join or Die” has interviews with a number of well-known public figures, including former politician/former U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg (currently U.S. Secretary of Transportation), and Mike Lee (currently a U.S. Senator for Utah), but they don’t really say anything profound and only talk in generic terms. For example, Clinton says of the suffrage movement in the U.S. to fight for women’s right to vote: “It never would’ve happened without the spark of civic life.” Buttigieg says, “Social capital is the stuff of which cities and countries are actually made.”

Also mentioned in “Join or Die” is the Saguaro Seminar, which is Putnam’s ongoing initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The purpose of the Saguaro Seminar is to study social capital and civic engagement in the United States. Some of the Saguaro Seminar alumni include Barack Obama (years before he became the 44th President of the United States); George Stephanopoulos (currently an ABC News anchor and formerly White House Communications director for the Bill Clinton administration); and Vin Weber, former U.S. House of Representative for Minnesota. Two of the Saguaro Seminar graduates interviewed in the documentary are economist Glenn Loury and sociologist Xavier de Souza Briggs.

Other interviewees in “Join or Die” are social psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, religious scholar Eddie S. Glaude Jr., New York Times columnist David Brooks, “The Upswing” co-author Shaylyn Romney Garrett, economist Raj Chetty, labor organizer Jane McAlevey, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research director of operations Kathleen Weldon, gathering expert Priya Parker, Meetup co-founder Scott Heiferman and political scientist Hahrie Han. They all say things that affirm the documentary’s premise that society can benefit when people join groups instead of having an isolationist outlook on life.

The “regular folks” interviewed in the documentary include JC Muhammad, a Chicago-based rideshare driver who’s an organizer for an activist group called Chicago Gig Alliance; Odilia Romero, a member of a Los Angeles-based group of people of Mexican and Native American heritage; Tommy Wright and Awais Hussain, members of the Odd Fellows Lodge #80 in Waxahachie, Texas; Zahra Alabanza, a mother who formed a bike-riding group in Atlanta called Red Bike Green; and Rev. Nurya Love Parish, executive director of Plainsong Farm & Ministry in Rockford, Michigan. Parish and Brooks are among the people in the documentary who say that religion is one of the most common reasons why people join groups.

Remnants of the documentary’s original intention to be a biography of Putnam can be seen in footage where Putnam talks at length about his life. Viewers will hear details about how he met his wife Rosemary Putnam (who’s also interviewed in the documentary) in 1960, when they took the same political science class as students at Swathmore College. At the time, he was a Republican. She was a Democrat. Their first date was a rally for then-U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Robert and Rosemary both attended Kennedy’s inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C., where Kennedy gave his famous speech saying, “As not what your country can do for you. As what you can do for your country.” Robert says that these words from the speech had a tremendous impact on him and gave him clarity on what his life purpose would be. Later, Robert still gets emotional and choked up when he tells a story about being honored at the White House with the National Humanities Medal in 2013 (bestowed by President Obama) and seeing a portrait of Kennedy at the White House. It was a “full circle” moment for Robert, he says. All of this personal information about Robert Putnam adds an intimate tone to the documentary without being off-topic.

“Join or Die” ultimately puts a feel-good spin on joining groups. The documentary could have used a better examination of legal issues of joining groups that have to do with inclusion and exclusion. For example, what if there’s a group that bases its membership on members having a certain identity. but someone who doesn’t have that identity wants to join the group? “Join or Die” looks at a massive topic from a particular viewpoint that is generally upbeat and positive, but falls short when it comes to acknowledging the reality that not all groups are beneficial to society.

Abramorama released “Join or Die” in select U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024.

Review: ‘I’m Your Venus,’ starring John Pellagatti, Joe Pellagatti, Louie Pellagatti and Gisele Xtravaganza

July 28, 2024

by Carla Hay

An archival photo of Venus Xtravaganza in “I’m Your Venus” (Photo courtesy of Stick Figure Productions)

“I’m Your Venus”

Directed by Kimberly Reed

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York and New Jersey, the documentary film “I’m Your Venus” features a white and Latin group of people (with some black people) who are involved with trying to get answers and justice for the unsolved murder of “Paris Is Burning” co-star Venus Xtravaganza, 23, who was strangled to death in New York City, in 1988.

Culture Clash: Some of Venus Xtravaganza’s family members have to come to terms with their past transphobia and the transphobia that causes hate crimes and a more complicated and difficult legal process for transgender victims.

Culture Audience: “I’m Your Venus” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about transgender people, true crime and New York City trans/LGBTQ ballroom culture.

“I’m Your Venus” is a poignant and commendable documentary about how the loved ones of “Paris Is Burning” breakout star Venus Xtravanganza are trying to get justice for her unsolved murder. The movie is also a call to action for transgender rights. “I’m Your Venus” shows in unflinching ways how the family members of deceased transgender people have an extra set of challenges, including dealing with transphobia and the legal procudures to posthumously change the gender and name of a transgender person.

Directed by Kimberly Reed, “I’m Your Venus” (which had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival) is the story of two families: Venus Xtravaganza’ biological family (mostly her three brothers) and her LGBTQ family (including House of Xtravanganza mother Gisele Xtravaganza) in New York City’s LGBTQ ballroom scene. Her biological family members get most of the screen time in showing their quest for justice because, legally, they are the ones who can get access to law enforcement’s documents on the case.

The 1990 documentary “Paris Is Burning” (directed by Jennie Livingston) is considered a breakthrough LGBTQ documentary because it was the first mainstream documentary feature to chronicle the New York City ballroom culture of drag queens and transgender people. Most of the participants in the documentary were African American and Latin. And in a movie fllled with larger-than-life personalities, Venus Xtravanganza (a petite and sassy blonde) was one of the standouts in “Paris Is Burning.” Venus was featured on an alternative version of the movie’s official poster that showed her strutting in a ball gown during a ballroom competition.

Tragically, Venus never got to see “Paris Is Burning” because she was strangled to death at the now-defunct Fulton Hotel in New York City in December 1988. She was 23. An autopsy report revealed that Venus had been found a few days after her death. No suspects have been named, but the New York Police Department has the killer’s DNA, which does not match anyone in the DNA databases used by law enforcement. A person of interest confessed to her murder in 1990, but then he committed suicide. “I’m Your Venus” shows what was done by the family members and law enforcement to follow up on this information.

Venus was born in Jersey City, New Jersey on May 22, 1965, and was given the name Thomas Pellagatti. Her father was Italian American and her mother was Puerto Rican. Both of her parents are now deceased. Her three surviving siblings are oldest brother John Pellagatti, middle bother Joe Pellagatti and youngest brother Louie Pellagatti. Venus was younger than John and Joe and was older than Louie.

John is the bossiest and most outspoken of the three bothers and considers himself to be the leader of the siblings. Joe is sensitive and thoughtful and more likely to express his vulnerability. Louie is the least talkative brother and is the one who (by all accounts) was the brother was the most accepting of Venus’ gender identity when she was alive.

Venus is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum in North Arlington, New Jersey. Part of “I’m You Venus” is about showing her three brothers’ process of legally getting her name changed to Venus Xtravaganza in her death records and on her gravestone. These are among the most emotional scenes in the documentary because it was the first time that New Jersey had allowed this name change for a transgender person. The documentary calls attention to the fact that several states in the U.S. still do not have laws allowing these types of changes for deceased transgender people.

Venus grew up during a time when there wasn’t a word to describe transgender people who didn’t have gender affirmation surgery. Transgender people are often misidentified as cisgender people. She began calling herself Venus in her teens. By 1983, when she was about 18 years old, she joined House of Xtravaganza. In the LGBTQ ballroom scene, a house is a group of ballroom competitors.

In “I’m Your Venus,” her brothers describe having a broken family after their parents got divorced. The siblings had an abusive stepfather named Hoppy. Their mother left to move to California in the early 1980s when John and Joe were young adults. With no mother figure in her life, Venus became closer to her paternal grandmother. Venus was often a babysitter for younger brother Louie, who remembers how Venus was protective of him when their parents argued. Louie also says he knew from an early age that Venus was female and wanted to live that way.

By contrast, her older brothers John and Joe admit they had a hard time understanding why Venus was the way she was. John says he used to bully Venus for being a “sissy.” John describes an incident when he got so angry at Venus for not acting like a boy, he picked her up, turned her upside down, and began shaking her.

Things did not change for the better with her family when Venus became a young adult and lived as a woman. John says in the documentary: “I did a lot of shit that fucked her up.” One of the hurtful things that John confesses to doing to Venus was ordering her not to dress like a woman if Venus was out in public with John’s son Mike, who is now an adult and is shown in the documentary. In the documentary, John expresses regret over this harmful bigotry.

John was the brother who had to identify Venus’ decomposed body. He also expresses remorse that during a long period of time leading up and after to Venus’ death, he was ashamed and confused over having a transgender sibling. “Losing my sister weakened me,” John says. “I was more worried about my image than hers.” John has harsh words for the 2013 off-Broadway play “The Murder of Venus Xtravaganza,” which he says was created by an “asshole” who did not have the permission of Venus’ family to do the play.

In “I’m Your Venus,” a woman only identified as Helen, who describes herself as a friend of Venus, says she gave Venus to stay when Venus became homeless. “Venus loved her brothers and loved her family,” Helen says. According to Helen, Venus did not want to ask her Pellagatti family for help because she felt they would shame her and blame her transgender identity for why she was having problems.

Gia Love, a transgender activist who knew Venus, describes Venus as a “beautiful free spirit, comfortable with who she was.” However, Love says that most people join ballroom houses to get a new family because their biological relatives have rejected them or emotionally damaged them. At the time Venus died, she had been estranged from her family.

“I’m Your Venus” includes some previously unreleased and re-edited “Paris Is Burning” outtakes. In “Paris Is Burning,” Venus talked about her dreams of getting married someday and said in an much-quoted line that she wanted to have a life where she was “a spoiled, rich, white girl living in the suburbs.” At the time she filmed “Paris Is Burning,” Venus had been saving her money to able to afford gender affirmation surgery. Sadly, those dreams never came true for Venus.

Like many transgender women forced to live outside the margins of society because of being discriminated against to find employment, Venus turned to sex work to make money. She was open about it in “Paris Is Burning” and talked about how she knew the risks of sex work, including the possibility of being murdered by a customer who had a problem with her being transgender. It’s mentioned in the documentary that Venus, who also struggled with a crack cocaine problem, was most likely killed directly or indirectly because her sex work because she was found murdered in a hotel room.

One of the more inspirational aspects of “I’m Your Venus” is how it shows Venus’ two families meeting each other and getting to know each other for the first time. Gisele Xtravaganza—a stunning and statuesque woman who looks like a model and also uses the name Gisele Alicea—shares stories with Venus’ brothers about the Venus she knew. Not everything that Gisele tells the brothers is heartwarming. Gisele is candid about how much Venus felt alienated by her family because of all the rejection she got from certain family members because of her transgender identity.

House of Xtravaganza members who are also featured in the documentary are Jose Disla Xtravaganza, Gabriel Xtravaganza and Amara Xtravaganza. Also in the documentary are attorneys John Walden and Deanna Paul of the New York City-based law firm Walden Macht & Haran. Celeste Fiore, founder of the Gender Affirming Alliance, has educational meetings with Venus’ brothers.

Aside from the legal procedures for the murder case and for Venus’ transgender identity corrections, “I’m Your Venus” shows an impactful journey of what people from different gender identity communities can learn from each other. “I’m Your Venus” is a powerful testament to how these two families share the common pain of Venus’ death but are also sharing in a positive healing process. If Venus were alive, she would be very proud to see what her loved ones and other people have done to celebrate her life and the lives of other transgender people.

Review: ‘Eno’ (2024), starring Brian Eno

July 27, 2024

by Carla Hay

Brian Eno in “Eno” (Photo courtesy of Film First)

“Eno” (2024)

Directed by Gary Hustwit

Culture Representation: The documentary “Eno” features award-winning British music producer/artist Brian Eno talking about his career and outlook on life.

Culture Clash: After getting critical acclaim and big hits for his work with rock artists such as David Bowie and U2, Eno got a lot of criticism for his solo ambient music, which many critics described as self-indulgent and wimpy. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of Eno fans, “Eno” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about underrated musicians.

Brian Eno in “Eno” (Photo courtesy of Film First)

The highly unique documentary “Eno” is a fascinating look into the creative mind of music producer/artist Brian Eno. Showing different versions of the movie at various screenings doesn’t seem gimmicky and is actually as bold and visionary as Eno himself. This particular review of “Eno” is for the version of the documentary that was shown at Film Forum in New York City on July 26, 2024. The theatrical release of “Eno” in select cities around the world has a different version of the documentary for every day that the movie is shown at the screening venue. Each version of the documentary will never be shown again.

“Eno” is directed by Gary Hustwit, who is also one of the film’s producers. Releasing different and changing versions of “Eno” not only involves commendable imagination but also a deep commitment to long hours of altering the film editing, in order to keep the movie dynamic and fresh. Most filmmakers would not do this extensive work or take this risk for any of their movies.

“Eno” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and screened at the 2024 editions of Sheffield DocFest and the Nantucket Film Festival. One of the ways that you know you’re watching a unique version of the documentary is that some of the transition editing between scenes shows flashes of captions with the name of the venue where you are seeing the film. The film editing throughout “Eno” is somewhat artsy but not pretentious.

Another unique aspect of “Eno” is that a different famous person does a few quick interludes (about 10 seconds each) in each version of the movie. For the version watched for this review, former Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne is seen taking a small card (the size of a game card) out of a box and reading it to the viewing audience. In one of these interludes, which sounds like a call for intermission, Byrne says (as if talking to whoever’s watching the documentary) that it’s time to take a break. At the very end of the film, Byrne does this card demonstration agan and says, “Go outside. Close the door.” Avant-garde singer Laurie Anderson is another celebrity who does similar interludes in another version of this documentary.

Eno is the only person interviewed for this documentary, which consists of a wealth of archival footage, interspersed with the interviews that Eno did exclusively for this film at and near his home in England. In the documentary, he comes across as a somewhat introverted deep thinker, who is comfortable with technology and with nature. He freely admits that he has workaholic ways when it comes to being in the studio. And when it comes to creating or discussing music or other art, he thinks a lot of about philosophical and sociological issues.

Eno was born on May 15, 1948, in Melton, England. The documentary does not dwell too long on his childhood and teenage years or discuss what his life was like at home or at school. His parents and younger brother Roger Eno (who is also a musician) are not mentioned at all.

Instead, the version of the documentary that was seen for this review has Eno talking about the songs and artists who were his biggest musical influences as a child, starting with two hits from 1957: Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and the Silhouettes’ “Get a Job.” Eno says in the documentary that he was immediately enraptured by the singers’ voices and melodies. Eno comments, “It took a long time to realize that this was American black music.”

Eno says his sexual awakening as a teenager could be traced back to hearing Ketty Lester’s 1961 hit single “Love Letters.” In the documentary, Eno says he became immediately fascinated by Lester’s sultry voice and had the type of instant crush where he felt like he wanted to get to know her and similar women. Eno doesn’t talk about his two marriages (to ex-wife Sarah Grenville and to his second and current wife Anthea Norman-Taylor, whom he married in 1988), but the documentary has an archival 1990s interview where Eno talks about how having children (he has three) made him change his work priorities to not take jobs that would keep him away for home for too long.

As for Eno’s impressive body of work, the version of the “Eno” documentary that was watched for this review focused mostly on his producing work for David Bowie and U2, as well as Eno’s solo projects. Eno’s work with Roxy Music and the Talking Heads are also featured, but don’t get as much screen time. There’s an archival clip from the late 1970s where Eno calls the Talking Heads “music of the future.” Eno produced three of the Talking Heads’ classic albums: 1978’s “More Songs About Buildings and Food,” 1979’s “Fear of Music” and 1980’s “Remain in Light.”

In the documentary, Eno discusses how starting his music career in the 1960s had a tremendous impact on him because it was during an era when many British rock artists were former art school students, which gelled with Eno’s idea that the best music and visual art are creatively intertwined. He mentions British bands such as the Beatles, the Who and Pink Floyd as among those whose art-school influences were manifested in the band’s visual presentations.

Eno and Tony Visconti produced Bowie’s 1977 albums “Low” and “Heroes” and 1979’s “Lodger”—all recorded in Berlin, during a transitional time in Bowie’s life when he was trying to clean up his drug-fueled lifestyle. In the documentary, Eno still sounds in awe of Bowie’s vocals for the song “Heroes” and how Bowie perfectly expressed the vulnerable yet strong tone that Eno wanted for the song. In an archival interview from the 1990s, Bowie says it’s hard to define Eno’s style as a producer, but that Eno is highly collaborative and open to musical experimenting.

Eno’s biggest album hits have been with rock band U2, the most commercially successful music artist from Ireland. Eno-produced U2 albums are arguably U2’s best albums: 1984’s “The Unforgettable Fire,” 1987’s “The Joshua Tree,” 1991’s “Achtung Baby,” 1993’s “Zooropa” and 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” Daniel Lanois produced all of these albums with Eno, except for “Zooropa,” which was produced by Eno and Mark “Flood” Ellis.

The “Eno” documentary has rare footage of Eno in the studio with U2 for “The Unforgettable Fire” and “The Joshua Tree.” “The Unforgettable Fire” footage is more extensive, as it shows part of the recording of “Pride (In the Name of Love),” which would end up being the album’s first single. It’s a song about civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

In “The Unforgettable Fire” footage, Eno politely interrupts U2 lead singer Bono during the recording of the intense vocals because Eno thinks something seems off-kilter with the song. Eno suggests they slow down the song’s tempo. They try it again with a slower tempo, and it works to everyone’s liking. The footage shows Bono sitting on a couch and listening to the playback with an expression on his face indicating that he knows how special this song is, and he’s happy with this recorded version, which is what ended up on the album.

Eno also talks candidly about the mixed reactions that he’s gotten for his solo albums of ambient music. He says he was hurt by negative reviews from critics and how the term “Eno-esque” became a description for music that was considered to be “wimpy.” Eno confesses that he was so affected by this criticism, he wanted to distance himself from ambient music.

It led to what Eno calls “the biggest mistake of music career.” Eno doesn’t name the year that this happened, but he said that around the time that he grew sick of being seen as an ambient artist, Joni Mitchell called him and asked him to do an all-ambient album with her. He politely declined the offer, which is a rejection that he says he now regrets, and he would now love to do an ambient album with her. Eno says with a chuckle: “Joni, I’m still here. I’m ready.”

“Eno” has several scenes of Eno in his home recording studio, where he has several computer monitors hooked up to his keyboard. If the songs he talks about have music videos or live performances on YouTube, he’d rather play what’s on YouTube instead of audio versions of the songs. Eno comments on making music, which he compares to evolution in nature: “I always think about that happens in nature,” he says. He later comments, “I’ve always drawn on my experience of rural life and watching how nature works.”

When Eno isn’t making music in the studio (which he says he prefers infinitely more than doing live performances), he likes to read books or putter around in his garden. There’s a scene where Eno takes photos of insects on the leaves of one of his plants. At first, he thinks they’re tiny spiders, but on further examination, he sees that the insects are beetles. Eno makes an analogy of creating a song to being like planting a flower seed: “I created things that will carry on and have [their] own life.”

One of the best aspects of “Eno” is that it’s not a typical celebrity documentary that follows the usual formula of showing the celebrity’s rise to fame and any pitfalls the celebrity experienced along the way. Viewers of “Eno” are invited to look at the bigger picture of what music can mean to the artists who make this art form in ways that have more meaning beyond fame, fortune and awards. Eno has a lot to say about it.

Eno comments in the documentary: “Why do we like music? I never lost interest in answering that question.” He likens a music scene to being an ecosystem: “If you take one person out of it, it has far-reaching effects.” Eno also talks about the importance of live concert experiences being nourishing for human souls because humans have a natural instinct to want to be part of something social.

As for why he likes creating music, Eno comments: “It’s my way of creating a space for myself. It’s a way of entering another world.” Although Eno says that he often wakes up each day feeling pressure or worry about what he will be creating that day, those feelings are eclipsed by what he feels when he’s actually creating music and other art. “Eno” is not the type of documentary that is interested in tabloid gossip or scandalous stories, like many other celebrity documentaries. It’s a thoughtful and well-edited portrait that—just like music artists who never perform the same concert twice—is meant to be ephemeral and special to the people who experienced it.

Film First released “Eno” in New York City and in London on July 12, 2024. The movie’s theatrical release has limited engagements on varying dates in select cities around the world.

Review: ‘Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande,’ starring Cymande

July 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 1970s archival photo of Cymande in “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande.” Pictured from left to right: Pablo Gonsales, Patrick Patterson, Mike “Bammi” Rose (half-kneeling, in front), Derrick Gibbs, Steve Scipio and Sam Kelly. (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande”

Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith

Culture Representation: The documentary “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” features a predominantly black group of people (with a few white people) discussing the career of the British R&B/funk band Cymande, which is best known for the band’s music that was released from 1972 to 1974.

Culture Clash: Cymande received critical acclaim for their music in the 1970s but was prevented from achieving major star status because the band was mostly ignored by radio stations and other media. 

Culture Audience: “Cymande” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about underrated musicians.

A 1970s archival photo of Cymande in “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande.” Pictured from left to right: Patrick Patterson, Michael “Bammi” Rose, Steve Scipio, Sam Kelly, Derrick Gibbs and Pablo Gonsales. (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” takes viewers on a ride of highs, lows and everything in between when telling the story of the R&B/funk band Cymande, which is pronounced “sih-mahn-day.” If you want to know why the 1970s British band Cymande didn’t become as well-known as American counterparts such as Parliament-Funkadelic, this illuminating documentary tells a fascinating, heart-wrenching and informative story. The movie gives viewers who are unfamiliar with Cymande an exploration of the band’s music from different perspectives, including how Cymande’s music influenced later generations. The documentary has previously unreleased archival material, exclusive interviews filmed for the movie, and performance footage of Cymande’s reunited lineup.

Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith, “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film & TV Festival, followed by a U.K. premiere at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. One of the reasons why many music fans have never heard of Cymande is because the band’s first incarnation lasted for only three years—from 1971 to 1974—which was the period of time when the Cymande made its most influential music. The band’s name comes from a calypso word for “dove.”

Cymande received critical acclaim for the band’s music but struggled to have a major breakthrough. Cymande disbanded in 1974, because the band members were broke and needed to get day jobs to financially survive and support their families. The band briefly reunited in 2006, before calling it quits again. Cymande reunited again in 2012 and was still together when this documentary was released.

In the 1970s, Cymande had a changing lineup, but there were six core members who remained consistent to the group: lead singer/guitarist Patrick Patterson, saxophonist/flautist Michael “Bammi” Rose, bassist Steve Scipio, drummer Sam Kelly, saxophonist Derrick Gibbs and percussionist Pablo Gonsales. All six of these members are interviewed in the documentary, which began filming in 2017. Gonsales died in 2020, at the age of 77. An epilogue title card mentions his death and says the documentary is dedicated to him. In the documentary, Gonsales is the band’s extroverted jokester, who also talks a lot of being in tune with nature.

Told in mostly chronological order, “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” gives cultural context to the band’s origins in South London, by discussing how all of the band’s core members came from families who immigrated from the Caribbean. Patterson (the unofficial leader of Cymande) comments on why their parents immigrated to England: “England was not simply the mother country; it was the place to go to maximize our potential.”

But what happens when that potential is blocked by racism? Patterson describes how his father was a trained baker in Jamaica, but in England, he was rejected for bakery jobs by racist employers who didn’t want black employees in baker positions. Unfortunately for Cymande, racism and xenophobia played a damaging role in preventing the band from getting the same type of exposure on radio stations and television that other music artists selling out the same sizes of venues usually got.

According to several the members of Cymande, the British media’s prejudice against Cymande was based on the band’s race and (ironically) the band’s nationality. Cymande couldn’t get radio airplay or bookings on British TV shows that showed preferential treatment to white artists. The few R&B bands that played their own instruments that did get those slots were almost always American. To this day, it’s still very difficult for a British R&B/funk band to achieve worldwide success.

Cymande was discovered by British music producer John Schroeder, who died in 2017, at the age of 82. Cymande signed to Schroeder’s record company Alaska Records in the United Kingdom, and Janus Records in the United States. Cymande released three albums in the 1970s: 1972’s “Cymande,” 1973’s “Second Time Round” and 1974’s “Promised Heights,” all produced by Schroeder.

The song “The Message,” from the band’s first album, was a minor hit, but could not get further momentum because it wasn’t getting a lot of radio airplay. This was during an era when radio airplay was essential for artists to have mainstream hits, and the Internet did not exist for artists to market themselves. Years later, when Cymande’s music became popular for sampling on other artists’ music, “The Message” was rediscovered when it was featured in Masta Ace’s 1990 hit “Me and the Biz.”

Even though the media in the United Kingdom mostly ignored Cymande, the band seemed to be on the verge of a major breakthrough in the United States when Cymande was selected to be the opening act for Al Green’s 1972 U.S. tour, which played at arenas. It was the first time that Cymande had ever toured in America. And performing in front of thousands of people a night was a heady experience.

In the documentary, several of the band members look back on this tour with great fondness and say they appreciate how fans in America were so welcoming to Cymande. But those are bittersweet memories, because after the tour with Green ended, Cymande went back to the United Kingdom, where they were still treated like “nobodies” by the media and the music industry.

After two more albums and still no breakthrough, Cymande called it quits in 1974. (Cymande’s 1981 studio album “Arrival” was a collection of throwaway tracks that were recorded in 1974.) By 1974, most of the band members had become husbands and fathers and needed more stable incomes than being musicians in debt.

Patterson, who became a lawyer, says that going from the cusp of music stardom to working in “normal” jobs was not necessarily an easy transition for the former Cymande members, but it had to be done. He explains, “We didn’t go off the road to go on the dole [British slang for government welfare]. We just found a different way of contributing to our community.”

Not all of the members of Cymande completely quit being professional musicians in the 1980s to 2000s. In the 1980s, saxophonist Rose was a backup musician for the reggae band Aswad and later for Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour. He then formed a band called Jazz Warrior. And since 1999, Rose has been part of the studio band for the BBC music show “Later… with Jools Holland.”

The second half of the “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” focuses mostly on how Cymande music influenced various music artists who had their big breakthrough hits in the 1990s or 2000s. Cymande became one of those obscure bands that most people never heard of but was discovered and appreciated by true music aficionados. Those who are interviewed in the documentary include music producer Mark Ronson, Masta Ace, DJ/producer Louie Vega, Prince Paul, DJ/producer Cut Chemist, Ozomatli bassist Wil-Dog Abers; Jazzie B (of Soul II Soul fame) and former De La Soul member DJ Maseo.

Expect to hear a lot of gushing fan commentary from artists who admire Cymande’s music. Norman Jay, a nightclub/radio DJ, has this to say about Cymande: “They’re the first band that had come along that tapped all of my cultural buttons. Their music isn’t frivolous. It’s not throwaway. It’s thought-about, provokes reaction. It’s challenging. It confronts you and makes you dance.”

My Morning Jacket lead singer Jim James is seen in the beginning of the documentary giving his personal Cymande testimonial about how he discovered the band. James says that he loved the Fugees’ 1996 album “The Score,” especially the title track. Sometime in 2006, James says he found out that “The Score” song sampled Cymande’s song “Dove.”

After hearing “Dove,” James remembers: “I was forever changed. That song, to me, is so profoundly important, it almost eclipses everything. It’s like a magic spell.” Ronson adds his thoughts on “Dove” in a separate interview: “It really feels otherworldly, like it came down on a spaceship or something.”

In the documentary, Kool DJ Red Alert and DJ Hollywood say in separate interviews that the Cymande song “Bra” was very influential to them. Also giving Cymande praise in the documentary are DJ/club promoter Nicky Siano; skateboarder/musician Tommy Guerrero; DJ/producer Peanut Butter Wolf; radio DJ Deb Grant; Collen “Cosmo” Murphy, curator of Classic Album Sundays; rapper Loyle Carner; Khruangbin members Mark Speer, Laura Lee and Donald “DJ” Johnson Jr.; Ruthless Rap Assassins members Anderson Hinds, Carson Hinds and Kermit Leveridge; and Ruthless Rap Assassins producer Greg Wilson.

Perhaps the most inspirational part of the documentary is seeing that even though Cymande didn’t get the mainstream success that the band had hoped for in the 1970s, it didn’t kill the band members’ desire to still make and perform music at ages when most people have retired. Cymande released the reunion album “A Simple Act of Faith” in 2015, and has been performing concerts on a regular basis since the reunion. The documentary includes footage of Cymande performing at music festivals in 2019, including WOMAD.

“Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” is partly a tribute to the band and partly an interesting music history lesson, especially for people who have never heard of Cymande, a band that is underrated but not forgotten. It’s a story of a band that reunited after decades of the band members being apart—but this time around, the band doesn’t feel the pressure to have big hits on the charts and is playing music for the pure joy of it. And that might be the biggest lesson of all that this documentary has to offer: Music is an art form that doesn’t have to be segregated by age, race or nationality and can change people lives in impactful ways.

Abramorama released “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” in New York City on July 26, 2024, will release the movie in the Los Angeles area on August 7, 2024.

Review: ‘Sorry/Not Sorry’ (2024) starring Jen Kirkman, Abby Schachner, Megan Koester, Noam Dworman, Cara Buckley, Jodi Kantor and Melena Ryzik

July 22, 2024

by Carla Hay

Megan Koester in “Sorry/Not Sorry” (Photo courtesy of The New York Times/Greenwich Entertainment)

“Sorry/Not Sorry” (2024)

Directed by Cara Mones and Caroline Suh

Culture Representation: The documentary “Sorry/Not Sorry” features a predominantly white group of people (with one African American and one Latina) discussing the #MeToo scandal of comedian/actor Louis C.K. and how it speaks to larger issues of what “cancel culture” really means.

Culture Clash: Louis C.K. had his career temporarily derailed, after he admitted in 2017 that a New York Times report was true about him sexually harassing women for decades; his comeback attempts after his #MeToo scandal have gotten mixed responses. 

Culture Audience: “Sorry/Not Sorry” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a documentary about what “cancel culture” really means when a famous entertainer had a #MeToo scandal was able to make a semi-comeback.

Noam Dworman in “Sorry/Not Sorry” (Photo courtesy of The New York Times/Greenwich Entertainment)

“Sorry/Not Sorry” needed more information about people who helped Louis C.K. make a comeback after his #MeToo scandal. The documentary still capably explores difficult questions about the difference between forgiving and enabling admitted sexual harassers. The situation with comedian/actor Louis C.K. is complicated by people’s varying definitions of what type of scandal they think should ruin someone’s career and for how long.

Directed by Cara Mones and Caroline Suh, “Sorry/Not Sorry” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The documentary is produced in part by The New York Times and is based on the 2017 reporting on Louis C.K. by New York Times investigative journalists Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley and Jodi Kantor, who are all interviewed in the documentary. In November 2017, the trio broke the story about Louis C.K. being a serial sexual harasser, with his known harassment going back to the 1990s. An epilogue caption in “Sorry/Not Sorry” says that Louis C.K. did not respond to requests for comment or to participate in this documentary.

Lous C.K.’s targets were women (usually other comedians with less power and less fame), whom he would masturbate in front of and/or tell graphic details about his sex life or sexual thoughts, often without their consent. In cases where he did get consent to masturbate in front of a victim, she later reported that she was either in shock or thought he was joking when she said yes. These stories about Louis C.K. had been circulating for years and had been an “open secret” in the entertainment industry, but he had publicly denied or refused to address these allegations in interviews. It wasn’t until the day after The New York Times published its November 2017 exposé on Louis C.K. (with several of his victims going on the record) that Louis C.K. publicly admitted that the reported sexual harassment stories about him were true.

Louis C.K. (whose birth name is Louis Alfred Székely) was born in 1967, in Washington, D.C., although for the first seven years of his life, he was raised in Mexico. His father Luis Szekely
was of Mexican Jewish heritage, while his mother Mary Louise Davis was Irish American. Louis C.K. rarely talks about his Latin/Hispanic ethnicity and the fact that he spoke only Spanish until he was 7 years old, when his family moved back to the United States (in the Boston area), and he learned English. Louis C.K. identifies as a white American and lets people assume that he is fully white.

The racial issue is important because several people in “Sorry/Not Sorry” say directly or indirectly that Louis C.K.’s white male privilege has allowed him to get away with more and make a career comeback faster than someone in the same circumstance who isn’t a white male. The business of stand-up comedy—where Louis C.K. first rose to fame and which was the first part of the entertainment industry where he made his comeback—is also dominated by white men, the demographic that makes the most money from stand-up comedy.

Sex and masturbation have been frequent topics in Louis C.K.’s stand-up comedy routines, where he usually has smirking commentary about how terrible men are to women. Louis C.K. would become even more famous as an actor—most notably, starring in and executive producing his own FX comedy series “Louie,” which was on the air from 2010 to 2015. He has also won several major industry awards, including Primetime Emmys for his screenwriting and Grammys for his comedy albums. In his personal life (which he often talks about his in stand-up comedy act), Louis C.K. was married to artist Alix Bailey from 1995 to 2008, the year that they were officially divorced. He and Bailey have two daughters together.

The fallout of Louis C.K.’s #MeToo scandal was swift and severe. He was fired from the FX comedy/drama series “Better Things,” which he co-created with “Better Things” star Pamela Adlon. The show was later cancelled in 2022. He had a lucrative deal with Netflix that was also cancelled in 2017.

Also resulting from the scandal, Louis C.K.’s comedy/drama movie “I Love You, Daddy,” which he wrote and directed, had its 2017 release cancelled. In “I Love You, Daddy,” Louis C.K. starred as the father of a teenager (played by Chloë Grace Moretz), who is the target of a sexual predator in his 60s (played by John Malkovich), but it’s all played for laughs. There are also scenes in the movie where men pretend to masturbate in front of women.

“Sorry/Not Sorry” features interviews with two women who say that they were the targets of Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment: TV writer/producer Jen Kirkman and artist/comedian Abby Schachner. Both women talk about how they were initially reluctant to go public with their stories because Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment was known and accepted by numerous people in the entertainment industry.

Kirkman describes sexual harassment encounters with Louis C.K., who worked with her in 2002 as a voice actor on the animated comedy series “Home Movies.” She remembers sharing a car ride with him during a “Home Movies” business trip to Massachusetts in 2002, and he began telling her about his sex life without her consent.

Kirkman says she later turned down his offer to be his opening act in Florida (even though she says she really needed the money for that job) because she instinctively felt it would lead to more sexual harassment from him. On a separate occasion, when she saw Louis C.K. again, he grabbed her by the neck in a private moment and whispered to her, “We’re going to fuck one day.” Kirkman says she was disturbed by this incident but knew she would have a hard time proving it happened because it would be her word against his.

After a Gawker article in 2015 began dropping hints that Louis C.K. was a serial harasser, Kirkman decided to semi-out him on her podcast by describing her own sexual harassment experience with Louis C.K. but without naming him. People figured out anyway that she was talking about Louis C.K., and Kirkman says she wasn’t prepared for the backlash. She was also disheartened by how many people knew about Louis C.K. being problematic but did not publicly support her.

“It was like being thrown into war with no battle training,” Kirkman comments. In the documentary, Kirkland says that Louis C.K. personally contacted her during this time to make amends, but he refused her request to make a joint statement where he would publicly admit to his wrongdoing. Kirkland remembers that Louis C.K. would not say that what happened to her was an isolated incident or that he would stop sexually harassing other women.

Kirkland admits her ambivalence about publicly naming Louis C.K. as her sexual harasser caused her to publicly deny at one point that he was her harasser because she was tired of the bullying and hate that she was getting from his supporters. She also says that she wanted the negative media attention on her to stop. Kirkland mentions that she chose not to be interviewed for The New York Times’ 2017 coverage of Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment because he did not masturbate in front of her, and she feels her experiences with Louis C.K. weren’t as heinous in comparison to the victims who were subjected to watching him masturbate.

In the documentary, Kirkland reflects on her negative experiences with Louis C.K.: “I don’t know if I was traumatized by what he did. I was disturbed. As the years went on, and I had more of a sense of self, I was like, ‘Oh my God. That is so fucked up.’ And this culture of people who think it’s normal—they’re fucked up.”

Schachner (who got masturbation sexual harassment from Louis C.K. in 2003, during a phone conversation) hasn’t given up on wanting to be a full-time entertainer, but she says she was traumatized enough by her Louis C.K. experiences, she took a few breaks from the entertainment industry and did some “hiding.” Schachner says at the time, she was afraid of retaliation if she went public about Louis C.K. being a sexual harasser.

Schachner says that in the private phone conversation that she had with Louis C.K., she thought that they were going to discuss business, but he ended up sexually harassing her. “I felt duped,” Schachner says. She also mentions in her documentary interview that she never consented to Louis C.K. masturbating while he was talking to her. Schachner also says that Louis C.K. tried to reconcile with her in 2009, when he reached out to her for an in-person meeting at Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles. She agreed to the meeting but didn’t get complete closure because he wouldn’t say that he had stopped his sexual harassment.

Comedian/writer Megan Koester said she heard stories about Louis C.K. masturbating in front of women as sexual harassment, but she was still surprised by how far people were willing to go to cover it up. In 2015, after Bill Cosby’s career was torpedoed when numerous women came forward accusing him of drugging and raping them, Koester says she was at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival as a reporter for Gawker. Koester asked people at a Just for Laughs event what they thought of the allegations against Cosby and the sexual harassment stories about Louis C.K.

According to Koester, Just for Laughs executive Bruce Hills (who was the chief operating officer of Just for Laughs in 2015 and has since been promoted to president of Just for Laughs) yelled at her to stop asking those questions about Louis C.K. because Hills said that Koester was on the turf of Just for Laughs, and Louis C.K. is a friend of the festival. Koester says that this intimidation rattled her. In the documentary, Koester comments that she was so disgusted by seeing how Louis C.K. was coddled and celebrated in the entertainment industry by people who knew he was sexual harasser, she ended up quitting her pursuit to be a full-time entertainer. Koester says she now sells items on eBay for her income.

One of the main criticisms that Louis C.K. accusers get is that they are jealous of him and his career. It’s victim blaming that unfairly ignores that Louis C.K. has admitted to the harassment that has been reported about him. Victims who didn’t report the harassment right away are also blamed, as if what happened to them couldn’t possibly be true because they kept it private for a long time—even though the perpetrator admitted it happened.

The documentary mentions Dave Chappelle (who has also gotten much criticism for being misogynistic and transphobic in his work) as one of the celebrities who’ve publicly supported and excused Louis C.K. for the sexual harassment. Louis C.K.’s supporters usually argue some version of this comment: “What Louis C.K. did is not that bad compared to someone like convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.” However, it’s a flawed argument because sexual harassment is sexual harassment, whether someone gets into legal trouble for it or not.

Also interviewed in “Sorry/Not Sorry” are two people who employed Louis C.K. at different times and have very different perspectives. Michael Schur, co-creator of the comedy series “Parks and Recreation,” hired Louis C.K. as a guest star for six “Parks and Recreation” episodes in 2009. Schur said he heard the sexual harassment stories about Louis C.K. at the time but he ignored them because he thought, “It’s not my problem.” Schur says he now regrets this dismissive attitude and should’ve been thinking more of the people being hurt by this sexual harassment.

Noam Dworman, owner of the Comedy Cellar nightclub in New York City, was the first person to hire Louis C.K. for a stand-up comedy show after Louis C.K.’s #MeToo scandal derailed the comedian’s career in November 2017. Louis C.K. returned to the spotlight by doing an unannounced appearance at the Comedy Cellar in August 2018, which led to Louis C.K. doing subsequent Comedy Cellar appearances that were announced. Dworman and the Comedy Cellar got a lot of public criticism and backlash for the decision to give Louis C.K. these comeback opportunities. However, Dworman and the Comedy Cellar received a lot of praise from people who say they dislike “cancel culture” and think Louis C.K. deserves a chance to resume his career.

Dworman is defensive of this decision and thinks, as the owner of a private business, he has a right to decide to book performers whom audiences want to see. Dworman comments in the documentary: “You can feel however you want to feel about these things, but to feel you have the right to impose on a private business who’s employing a free person, who’s performing in front of people who want to see him in a free country, [and] that you feel that this is your business, I think that’s very, very dangerous. And that is where I’m drawing my line.”

Also interviewed in the documentary are comedians Michael Ian Black, Aida Rodriguez and Andy Kindler. Several journalists/critics are also interviewed, including Alison Herman of Variety, Wesley Morris of The New York Times, Jesse David Fox of Vulture, and freelancer Sean L. McCarthy, whose specialty is comedy journalism. Most of the journalists say that Louis C.K. cleverly hid his predatory ways in plain sight by making his crude sex talk and “men are pigs” jokes as part of his comedy persona.

Rodriguez performed at the Comedy Cellar during the period of time the club was in the midst of the the Louis C.K. comeback controversy. She says she didn’t give in to pressure by certain people to cancel her Comedy Cellar shows and boycott the club until further notice. Rodriguez says she felt she shouldn’t have to lose any income over someone else’s misdeeds that had nothing to do with her. She further comments on why people excuse Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment and why “cancel culture” doesn’t really apply to Louis C.K.: “My reality is that usually, white men get away with the stuff that they do, because if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

In 2018, Black got backlash for posting a message on Twitter saying he was excited to see what Louis C.K. was going to do next and questioned how much longer the disgraced comedian deserved to be shunned because of the scandal. Black later made a public apology and says he learned that he should have been more sensitive to the people who’ve been hurt by Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment.

In the documentary, Black comments: “Louis had a whole bit [in his stand-up comedy act] about how the greatest threat to women is men. Louis can still do that bit and say, ‘I was one of those guys. And let me talk about it.’ And it feels like such a missed opportunity that he didn’t do it.” Instead, Louis C.K. has addressed the issue in his stand-up act by joking that if anyone asks permission to masturbate in front of an acquaintance, they shouldn’t do it, even if that person says yes.

The documentary also has some brief interview clips with a few unidentified Louis C.K. fans (all of them are men under the age of 40) who were interviewed at one of his post-scandal concerts. One of the men says of his support of Louis C.K., who has been called a hypocrite by many critics: “Everyone lives with a certain amount of hypocrisy. This is the amount I’ve allocated for myself.”

Has Louis C.K. learned from his misdeeds and stopped being a sexual harasser? Did he make apologies and amends to all of his victims? Did he ever get professional counseling for this sexual harassment addiction that he has publicly admitted to having? Did he spend time meeting with any victim rights groups to learn about the harm he caused and what he can do to help the victims of his harassment? Louis C.K. isn’t saying if he’s done any of those things, but at the time this documentary was released, there hadn’t been any complaints about him sexually harassing anyone since his #MeToo scandal in 2017.

Kirkman says, “I have never asked anyone to denounce him so he wouldn’t work.” However, she comments that a major problem is how predators who are famous are often excused and rewarded while their less-famous victims are often blamed and blackballed. “Everyone letting all of these predators back, while some people never had a chance, it really hurts,” Kirkman says, “especially in this culture where it seems like nobody cares.”

Although “Sorry/Not Sorry” does a very good job of giving background information (much of it already covered in The New York Times and other media outlets) and assembling archival footage, what’s missing from the documentary is a better examination of the culture and the people who allowed Louis C.K. to make a comeback. Louis C.K. hasn’t been able to star in a network series or major-studio movie since the scandal. But since 2018, he’s been doing sold-out live performances (including at New York City’s Madison Square Garden) and selling his content directly to fans. He also won one of his Grammy Awards (Best Comedy Album, for 2020’s “Sincerely Louis C.K.”) in 2022, five years after his #MeToo scandal.

In other words, Louis C.K. is still making millions and getting accolades—just not at the level that he was experiencing before the scandal. Critics of Louis C.K. say that he hasn’t shown enough remorse or willingness to make things right with his victims. Supporters of Louis C.K. say that he has suffered enough and deserves to make a comeback in his career. It speaks to a larger issue about what redemption or punishment should be in Louis C.K.’s situation. There are no easy answers when people can’t agree on what type of punishment should be given and for how long.

Greenwich Entertainment released “Sorry/Not Sorry” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on July 12, 2024.

Review: ‘Jim Henson Idea Man,’ starring Frank Oz, Lisa Henson, Heather Henson, Cheryl Henson and Brian Henson

July 21, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 1950s archival photo of Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog in “Jim Henson Idea Man” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Jim Henson Idea Man”

Directed by Ron Howard

Culture Representation: The documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Latina) discussing the life and career of puppeteer/filmmaker Jim Henson, who is best known for creating several Muppets characters.

Culture Clash: Henson, who was known as a generous, creative and fun-loving person, was also a workaholic who often preferred being at work instead of being with his family. 

Culture Audience: “Jim Henson Idea Man” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Henson, the Muppets and biographical documentaries about pioneering entertainers.

A 1970s archival photo of Jim Henson (front row, center) and members of “The Muppet Show” team, including Jane Henson (front row, far right) and Frank Oz (second row, far right) in “Jim Henson Idea Man” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Jim Henson Idea Man” could’ve easily been just a nostalgia trip of Jim Henson’s successes. However, this candid documentary gives an illuminating look at the ups and downs of his life without glossing over how his flaws affected his personal relationships. “Jim Henson Idea Man” also has an impressive collection of previously unreleased archival footage that gives further insight into his creativity. In 1990, Henson died of toxic shock syndrome caused by Group A streptococcal infection. He was 53.

Directed by Ron Howard, “Jim Henson Idea Man” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The documentary has since been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Although other documentaries (such as the 2021 “Sesame Street” documentary “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”) have shown how the Emmy-winning Henson has been the most influential and commercially successful puppeteer in history, those other documentaries only told part of his story. “Jim Henson Idea Man” is the first truly comprehensive documentary on Henson and has the added benefit of including many of his personal home videos and other memorabilia, provided by his family member.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” wisely does not overstuff the movie with too many people commenting on Henson. All of the people interviewed for the documentary are family members or those who worked with closely with Henson. The cultural impact of Henson’s work on “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show” is already common knowledge, so this documentary didn’t need to have plethora of celebrities and entertainment industry experts to talk about how Henson’s work was groundbreaking and profoundly influential to many people.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” gives a brief summary of Henson’s childhood and teenage years, which were relatively happy and stable, by all accounts. He was born as James Maury Henson in 1936, in Greenville, Mississippi. He was raised in Mississippi and Maryland. Jim didn’t play with puppets in his pre-teen childhood. Television was Jim’s biggest childhood influence on wanting to become an entertainer.

His parents Paul (an agronomist) and Betty were Christian Scientists, although Jim is described in the documentary as not belonging to any particular religion in his adulthood. It’s mentioned that Jim was more spiritual than religious. He believed in some Buddhist teachings, such as transcendental meditation and the concept that life and death are on the same continuum.

Jim’s only sibling was his older brother Paul Henson Jr. (born in 1932), who is described as Jim’s best friend until Paul’s tragic death in a car accident in 1956, at the age of 24. Paul Jr.’s death had a profound effect on Jim, says Jim’s son Brian: “It was a huge shock to my family. It absolutely shattered my dad’s world.”

One of the recurring themes in Jim Henson’s life was that he never felt like he had enough tme to do all the things he wanted to do in life. The documentary includes rare footage of Jim’s 1965 short film “Time Piece,” which features Jim in multiple roles (such as a hospital patient and as a doctor) that has several references to running out of time before dying. Brian says in the documentary about his father Jim’s preoccupation with work had a lot to do with Jim feeling that he needed to make a lot of his dreams come true to fulfill a larger purpose. “The idea that time could run out, I’m sure came with the death of his brother,” Bran comments.

From an early age, Jim wanted to become a filmmaker. He particularly loved making weird experimental films. But he first became famous as a puppeteer. Jim started doing puppet shows while he was in high school. By the time he was in college, Henson was doing puppet shows for local TV stations in the Washington, D.C., area, such as “Sam and Friends” on WRC-TV.

It was during this time in 1955 that Jim created his most famous Muppet character: Kermit the Frog, a green creature with a gentle, fun-loving personality. Kermit was considered an alter ego of Jim’s, although he described Kermit as much more extroverted and adventurous than Jim was in real life.

While he was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park, Henson began a puppeteer collaboration with classmate Jane Nebel. They got married in 1959 and had five children: Lisa, Cheryl, Heather, John and Brian. All of the children ended up working with their father as puppeteers and/or as producers. All of the children except John are interviewed in this documentary.

Jane Nebel Henson (who died in 2013) co-founded Muppets Inc. (later renamed the Jim Henson Company) with Jim. At first, she had 40% ownership of the company, while Jim had 60% ownership. Jane (who is described by her children as being very independent and free thinker) eventually scaled back her ownership and involvement in the company as she spent more time raising the couple’s children.

After Jane reduced her involvement in the company work, Henson’s main creative partners then became Frank Oz, who worked with Jim since Oz was 17; writer Jerry Juhl, who died at age 67 in 2005; and puppet designer Don Sahlin, who died of a heart atatck at age 49 in 1978. Also instrumental to Henson’s TV success was “Sesame Street” director Jon Stone, who died at age 65 in 1997. Jim did not create all of the Muppet characters, but created or co-created several of the most iconic, including Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, Ernie, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

Oz, who is interviewed in “Jim Henson Idea Man,” says he and Jim had opposite personalities (Jim was playful, Oz describes himself as “uptight”), which actually was a benefit to how they worked together when creatng personalities for their puppets. This “opposites attract” dynamic could be seen in the relationships between two of the most famous duos in Muppet history: roommates Ernie (voiced by Jim Henson) and Bert (voiced by Oz)—Ernie is optimist; Bert is pessimistic—and bickering couple Kermit the Frog (voiced by Jim Henson) and Miss Piggy (voiced by Oz), who is prissy and vain.

In “Jim Henson Idea Man,” Oz says: “I met Jim when I was about 17. It took about 10 years to where we could sense each other’s rhythms. He was a very rare creature. He was so internal and quiet, his inner life must have been sparkling. He had so many ideas and so many things he wanted to do. And so, the idea of time, I think, was very much on Jim’s mind, always.”

Oz says his relationship with Jim evolved from seeing Jim as a father figure/mentor to being more fraternal. “We really were like brothers,” Oz comments. And although Jim was technically Oz’s boss when they worked together, Oz says he felt he had an equal creative partnership with Jim. Oz made his feature-film directorial debut as a co-director with Jim on 1982’s “The Dark Crystal,” a fantasy film with life-sized puppets. Oz says he was surprised and flattered that Jim asked Oz to co-direct the movie with him.

According the Henson kids who are interviewed in the documentary, the marriage of Jim and Jane ran into major problems because the spouses often disagreed on Jim’s career priorities and goals. When Jim was offered a job on “Sesame Street” in 1969 (the year the TV series launched), he was reluctant to take it to because he didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a children’s entertainer. By contrast, Jane encouraged Jim to join “Sesame Street” and thought he should stay focused on children’s entertainment.

As Jim began to become rich and famous, he got more wrapped up in his work and wouldn’t be at home with his family for weeks or months at a time. His children say that even when Jim would go on family vacations, he would still be working.

Jim’s workaholic ways eventually caused Jim and Jane to lead separate lives. They officially separated in 1986 but never divorced because Jane didn’t believe in divorce. “Jim Henson Idea Man” includes clips of some archival interviews that Jane did where she talks about the her life with Jim. Brian says that during the separation, Jim dated women but never wanted these other relationships to get too serious.

Even though Jane stepped away from much of the couple’s day-to-day work at the family business, the business was very much on her mind. Brian says in the documentary that during family meals when the kids were underage, Jim would ask the kids about how they were doing in school, while Jane would mainly want to talk about business. The couple’s children say that Jane was a loving parent but didn’t want to be a traditional mother, whereas Jim expected her to conform to traditional gender roles when it came to parenting.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” also shows that even with the success of “Sesame Street,” Jim was rejected by all the U.S. TV networks at the time to launch “The Muppet Show,” which eventually found a home on the British TV network ATV. Jim created “The Muppet Show” so he could have more creative control than he had on “Sesame Street,” a show he didn’t create. It was the first major nationally televised variety series where the characters were all puppets, with human celebrities as guest stars.

Only after “The Muppet Show” was a smash hit in the United Kingdom that U.S. networks became interested, but the show was sold into U.S. syndication instead of being on one specific U.S. TV network. “The Muppet Show” inevitably spawned feature films that were hits. In 1980, Jim ended “The Muppet Show” after five years because he wanted to move on to other projects.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” also includes discussions of Jim’s post-“Muppet Show” work, most notably his directing of the fantasy feature films “The Dark Crystal” and 1986’s “Labyrinth,” which als featured life-sized puppets. “The Dark Crystal” ran into all sorts of problems with script rewrites demanded by the movie studio. “Labyrinth” was a flop with audiences and critics when it was released in theaters, although the movie has since become a cult classic. Jim took the so-called failure of “Labyrinth” very hard because he considered it one of his most creatively fulfilling projects. Labyrinth” co-star Jennifer Connelly, says of making the film: “It was like being in a dream world.”

One dream that Jim had that never came to fruition when he was alive was to do a Broadway puppet show. “Jim Henson Idea Man” has rare footage of a workshop for one of his Broadway show ideas. The documentary breezes through mentions of two of his last puppet TV series—”Fraggle Rock” (1983 to 1987) and “The StoryTeller” (1987 to 1989)—but doesn’t mention 1989’s “The Jim Henson Hour,” which was canceled before airing all of its first-season episodes. The documenaty goes into some details over his decision to buy the rights to “The Muppet Show” and related intellectual property, only to sell the Jim Henson Company to Disney in 1989.

Other people interviewed in the documentary include puppeteers Dave Goelz, Fran Brill and Bonnie Erickson; Alex Rockwell, who was Jim’s creative assistant from 1988 to 1990; Michael Frith, former executive vice-president and creative director of the Jim Henson Company; and former “Muppet Show” guest Rita Moreno, who tells a behind-the-scenes story about they had to do several takes when she was filming her performance of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” (wth the Muppet “wild drummer” character Animal) because she had a hard time trying not to laugh.

Muppets are of different races and species and came along at a time when racial integration was still very controversial in the United States. Moreno says of this Muppet diversity: “Jim never really thought of color. Jim never thought of nationality. Jim simply thought of characters.” Kermit’s signature song “It’s Not Easy Being Green” is mentioned as a song that resonated with many people who felt “invisible” because of looking different from everyone else, but the song’s real impact is because it has a message of self-acceptance, even when experiencing prejudice.

“Jim Henson Idea Man” has excellent editing when telling the story of this highly creative pioneer. Whether or not someone grew up watching “Sesame Street” or “The Muppet Show,” these shows broke cultural barriers while still being highly entertaining. “Jim Henson Idea Man” is undoubtedly a tribute to Jim Henson but it’s also an inspirational film for anyone who has ideas that people say won’t work when those ideas might actually change the world in some way.

Disney+ released “Jim Henson Idea Man” in select U.S. cinemas on May 24, 2024. The movie premiered on Disney+ on May 31, 2024.

Review: ‘The Grab’ (2024), starring Nate Halverson, Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman

July 20, 2024

by Carla Hay

Nate Halverson, Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman in “The Grab” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“The Grab” (2024)

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Some language in Nyanja and Bemba with subtitles

Culture Representation: The documentary “The Grab” features a predominantly white group of people (with some Africans and Asians) discussing the international competition to control the world’s food and water.

Culture Clash: Certain countries have been aggressively buying up farm land and food companies in other countries as a way to get world domination. 

Culture Audience: “The Grab” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries that are indications of where geopolitics will be headed.

Mallory Newman and Nate Halverson in “The Grab” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“The Grab” is a riveting documentary that chronicles a searing investigation of geopolitics. It’s a vital look at how international competition to control food and water should be taken as seriously as the competition to control weapons of mass destruction. In many ways, “The Grab” could make a case that this control of food and water is much more dangerous than control of weapons of mass destruction because of the implications of which nations would have the most power if the world experiences a shortage of food and water.

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, “The Grab” had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. “The Grab” is the last documentary released from Participant Media, the production company that was founded in 2004 and shuttered in 2024. Participant Media had several fiction and non-fiction movies that were Oscar nominees and Oscar winners. Participant Media’s Oscar-winning documentaries included 2006’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” 2009’s “The Cove” and 2016’s “Citizenfour.”

“The Grab” follows an investigation by three journalists from the Center for Investigative
Reporting (a non-profit media outlet based in the San Francisco Bay Area), as they expose the often-covert international competition to control food and water. This journalist trio is led by Nate Halverson, who began the investigation and later recruited Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman to help.

Halverson is shown doing the majority of the interviews (in person or by videoconferencing), while Schwartz and Newman do a great deal of the research. His journalist style is persistent without being too pushy. Newman is also assertive and has more experience than the quieter Schwartz. All three journalists show compassion and empathy for the average people who often are used as pawns in the various countries’ powerful political moves.

In the documentary, Halverson says the original question that he and other people wanted the answer to was: “Is another country making moves to control America’s food supply?” Halverson and his Center for Investigative Reporting colleagues went down a rabbit of information and soon found out that this issue was much more widespread and deeper than just controlling America’s food supply. In an early scene in “The Grab,” Halverson comments, “This project has kept me up at night more than any of my other investigation reporting projects combined.”

During the investigation, Halverson and his colleagues came into possession of several classified/confidential documents that were leaked to them by unnamed whistleblowers. Over 10,000 of these documents (which Halverson calls “The Trove”) are internal communications from Frontier Resources Group, founded by former mercenary Erik Prince. also founded Blackwater U.S.A., a mercenary group that he sold to go into the resource acquisition business.

The investigation named Frontier Resources Group as one of the biggest companies that profits from selling American farm land and U.S.-based food companies to foreign countries. Russia, China, and Saudia Arabia are named as the three of the countries that have been the most aggressive in taking ownership of land and companies that are rich in food and water over the past several years—not just in the United States but in many other parts of the world.

“The Grab” interviews several experts who have been studying or have firsthand knowledge of these geopolitical moves. “Food is a very obvious and central way to wield power,” says Molly Jahn, professor of agronomy and Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jahn is also program manager in the Defense Sciences Office at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Rod Schoonover, a former U.S. senior intelligence officer of the National Intelligence Council, comments on the possibility of World War III happening: “That doesn’t sound improbable to me.” Even if World War III doesn’t happen, the increasing number of natural disasters happening all over the world, in addition to the world’s population getting larger, have made it inevitable that there will be more competition for food and water. Access to affordable food and water can be used as ways to control populations of people.

“The Grab” shows several examples of these gradual takeovers and how an alarming number of people who work for these companies have no idea that these acquisitions are intended to for the foreign countries to amass power and control of the world. That’s because these takeovers are often purchased by mysterious companies (which are often shell companies listed as limited liability corporations, or LLCs) that have offshore accounts that are difficult to trace.

In 2013, the Chinese government (under the name WH Group Ltd.) acquired the American company Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer. This acquisition is named in “The Grab” as an example of the hide-and-seek deals where certain information is deliberately withheld from the public. In 2013, C. Larry Pope (Smithfield’s then-CEO) testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry that even though the Chinese government purchased Smithfield, the company would continue to do the same business as usual. Pope retired from Smithfield at the end of 2015.

However, Halverson came into possession of an internal WH Group Ltd. a document book manual detailing the financials of the Smithfield deal and how WH Group plans to make sweeping changes at Smithfield. The manual explicitly says that the information in the manual cannot be distributed in the United States. In “The Grab,” Halverson has a meeting with former Smithfield CEO Pope to show him these documents. Pope is astonished. Pope’s reaction is either sincere, or he’s a very good actor.

In “The Grab,” Halverson mentions that Saudi Arabia is running out of water to fuel its wheat export business. As a result of this water shortage, Saudi Arabia has been buying U.S. farm properties that have enough water to export to Saudi Arabia and can make enough hay to export to Saudi Arabia to feed the cows in Saudi Arabia. The costs of all this exporting to Saudi Arabia are outweighed by the profits in the areas that benefit from this exporting.

“The Grab” travels to La Paz County, Arizona, where an unnamed Saudia Arabian company has taken over one of the largest farm properties in La Paz County. “The Grab” has interviews with La Paz County residents John Weisser and Wayne Wade, who both report that their wells have run dry after this takeover. Weisser says, “There’s not enough rain to replenish it.” Wade comments on the water shortage in his well: “Pretty soon, there won’t be anything to take.”

Also interviewed is Holly Irwin, Arizona County Supervisor for La Paz County, who is shocked when she sees proof that her county’s residents are experiencing a water shortage in their wells that are apparently being depleted by the Saudi Arabian company. But there’s nothing she can do about it because it’s legal. That’s because Arizona is largely unregulated when it comes to foreign countries taking over Arizona-based businesses.

Africa is another place where the foreign takovers of farm land is thriving. It’s explained in “The Grab” that African farmers are especially vulnerable because they often don’t have deeds to the property that has been in their families for generations. Ethan Cousin, a former executive director of the World Food Programme, says about foreign countries’ takeover of land in Africa: “You can go around the continent and find different groups that prey on deprivation.”

One of the most compelling parts of the documentary is how it shows the civil rights work of attorney Brigadier Siachitema of the non-profit Southern Africa Litigation Centre. Siachitema represents several African farmers in land ownership cases where the farmers otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford attorneys. Felix Tomato and Febby Kalunga are among the farmers in Zambia who are interviewed by Halverson, who also interviews Siachitema.

They talk about white farmers who are funded by mysterious LLCs (many of which are traced back to China) that are displacing African farmers from their land. It’s another form of colonization. But compared to African farmers in previous centuries, today’s African farmers have more legal resources to fight back against these takeovers. It’s an uphill battle for many, but media coverage has made it possible for more people to find out about this problem.

That media coverage was apparently enough of a threat to get journalists Halverson, Schwartz, Newman and “The Grab” filmmaking crew detained at the airport in Serenje, Zambia, during a 2021 trip filmed for this documentary. In the detention room, the journalists see their names on a listed posted on the wall. Ultimately, this group was told to leave the airport because they were told that they were a “national security threat.”

Halverson says in the documentary that Russia is a country that is benefiting from climate change because of the way that Russia is hoarding resources in case of massive natural disasters. Victor Linnik, president of Miratorg (Russia’s leading meat-producer and supplier) says in the documentary that Miratorg recruits American cowboys to teach Russians how to be better farmers and ranchers. Todd Lewis, an American who used to be a manager for Miratorg, says in the documentary that he was hired in about 30 minutes during a phone interview.

Linnick says that food will become more powerful than weapons for world domination: “In the future, for Russia, the driver will be agriculture. We want to feed the world.” It’s mentioned in “The Grab” that Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine (which is rich in farm land) is part of this strategic plan. Halverson comments on Miratorg’s recruitment of American cowboys: “This was a decision that came from [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”

Other people interviewed in “The Grab” are former CIA officer Robert Mitchell; Maria Otero, former undersecretary of the U.S.; Lee Gunn, former naval inspector general of the U.S. Navy; Aaron Salzberg, director of the Water Institute; former mercenaries John Gartner (founder of OAM International) and Simon Mann (founder of Executive Outcomes); former private military contractor Sean McFate; Robert Young Pelton, author of “The World’s Most Dangerous Places”; Hongzhou Zhang, author of “Securing the Rice Bowl: China and Global Food Security”; Andriy Senchenko, former Ukraine deputy chef of staff; and Edward Hargroves, co-founder of Goldcrest Farm Trust Advisors, which sells water to United Arab Emirates.

“The Grab” tackles these complex issues and makes them easy to understand for the average person who might not be knowledgeable about international politics. The sheer scope of the information uncovered could easily be put into documentary series. But as a documentary feature film, “The Grab” doesn’t get too cluttered and skillfully focuses on certain compelling examples. By also showing the behind-the-scenes work of the investigative journalists who took many risks to bring this information to the world, “The Grab” doesn’t lose sight of the intensity of the work and the sacrifices that are made when journalists expose unsettling truths that people need to know and will affect us all.

Magnolia Pictures released “The Grab” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 14, 2024.

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX