[Trailer] I Am Eleven
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11 is a weird age in life. You've spent nearly half your life in school (with at least seven more years to go!), and you're starting to learn more things about the world, but you're not quite at the age where you truly know anything. As for personal growth, it's just on the cusp of puberty, which is its own beast in and of itself. 11, essentially, is the crossroads between child and teenager, past and future, and it's exciting and scary at the same time in the best way all manners of dichotomy are.
In I Am Eleven, director Genevieve Bailey spotlights a handful of 11-year-old children from 15 countries across the world, delving into what it's like to be 11 in this modern age. I Am Eleven will be playing in select New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco theaters this September with planned theatrical releases in Chicago, Boston, DC, and other cities to follow. You can read the documentary's official synopsis below:
Do you remember when you were 11? Australian filmmaker Genevieve Bailey travelled the world for six years talking with 11-year-olds to compose this insightful, funny and moving portrait of childhood. From an orphanage in India to a single-parent household in inner-city Melbourne, to bathing with elephants in Thailand, IAM ELEVEN explores the lives and thoughts of children from all around the world. It weaves together deeply personal and at times hilarious portraits of what it means to stand on the cusp between childhood and adolescence, that fleeting moment when childish naiveté has faded, yet teenaged self-consciousness has not yet taken hold. These young minds, still unguarded and remarkably honest, offer a powerful insight into the future of our world.
As straight up and personal as the ’7 Up’ series, and with the comedy and honesty of ‘Spellbound’, this documentary enables us to explore an age where these ‘not quite kids, not quite teenagers’ briefly linger, between the frank openness and sometimes naivety of childhood, and the sharp and surprisingly brave wisdom and knowing of adulthood. As much as it is a story about them, it is a story with them, of what it is like to be eleven today.
[Trailer] Breastmilk
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Breastfeeding in public has always been seen as a social taboo. On the one hand, many aren't comfortably with seeing a woman pulling a breast out to feed their baby. At the same time, it's a natural process that ensures the baby's health is good and well taken care of. Breastmilk, a documentary by Dana Ben-Ari, explores all sides of breastfeeding. She interviews various women of all different backgrounds to get their opinions on breast feeding in what's being described as a funny and entertaining look at the subject.
Breastmilk is now available on VOD today; you can rent/purchase the documentary from their official website. We'll have a full review of the documentary later this week, but for now, enjoy the trailer and read the official synopsis below.
BREASTMILK, the new documentary by first-time filmmaker Dana Ben-Ari, is an unflinchingly provocative, humorous, informative and inspirational exploration of just how, when and why the next generation gets fed. The film dives into the fray of what really happens among new parents – those who want to breastfeed, those who can’t breastfeed and a whole culture caught up in the heady mix of stress, bliss and judgment that have made breastfeeding choices a matter of polarizing social debate.
BREASTMILK uncovers all the most surprising and concealed aspects of what it means to have milk: from hooter hiders to work-place pumping, from career moms to gay parents, from wet nurses to sex practices, from freaked-out fathers and impassioned “lactivists” to the moms who halt breastfeeding before their infant is 6 months old. The result is an illuminating portrait of an everyday human subject rarely shown on film.
Aiming beyond simplistic debates over what is natural or normal, BREASTMILK scopes out new territory. For the film is not only a revealing inquiry into our modern approach to one of the body’s most remarkable functions – it’s also an examination of how the most personal things become political and a stirring sketch of the breathtakingly diverse experience of modern parenthood itself.
[Review] Particle Fever
Science is a subject matter that most people, including me, would rather not wade around in. The insane creations and laws of the world all seem to take their toll on the feeble minds of the average person. However, this fails to stop interest in major inventions or discoveries that have a positive economic impact for all. We may not all express interest in science, but its omnipresence is undeniable.
As far as the science field goes, there appears to have been one theory in particular that has left scientists, churchgoers, and educators scratching their heads for years: how did the earth begin? Well, I guess most churchgoers will yell at you how it ACTUALLY started without even hearing other arguments, but Particle Fever would offer more to argue against it.
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Particle Fever
Director: Mark Levinson
Rating: NR
Release Date: July 1st iTunes VOD, July 15 all other VOD platforms
Particle Fever follows the likes of six different physicists from 2007 all the way up to 2012 as they work together on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, or better known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research. For those who can remember, this is the large machine that would reproduce what happened at the “Big Bang” that frequented the news for years. This was the largest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet. It brought together over 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries, some even rivalries politically. By the end of the over ten year old experiment, these brilliant scientists hoped to be able to recreate the events of the Big Bang and find the Higgs boson particle, which would essentially explain how all matter was created.
It wasn’t all fun and games for these hard-working scientists though. While their involvement may have been the honor of their lives, the upkeep with this 17 mile wide creation wasn’t always easy. Working 16 hours a day for years on end, it is actually surprising how they managed to keep their spirits up for so long. However, so much energy was encapsulated by each in Levinson’s directing, and a viewer couldn’t help but feel just as excited for this experiment to run for its first time as the people who were in charge of it.
The subject matter of the film is a little dense, yes, but when watching the film, it doesn’t take precedence of all it has to offer. Testimonies and beautifully displayed graphics from all of the scientists selected for the film clear up most confusion that viewers may have. However, this isn’t to say that one will become a master physicist after watching the movie. What I really liked about this film was its ability to make me feel like I was with these scientists over the years experiencing the same trials and errors that they all did. It’s execution was done with such energy, and I think this is what kept me going throughout.
Now, if you personally asked me how I felt about the film, I would praise it with high regard. Unfortunately, though, the density of the subject matter and it’s continual discussion throughout the film may come across as a drag to those who are not usually fascinated by the world of science. I felt at some moments of the film that it was kind of redundant, but at the same time the redundancy was necessary to make sure viewers could keep up with each stage of their large experiment. As far as documentaries go, it was most definitely one of the best ones I have ever viewed, and I hope that most will put their scientific indifferences aside in order to enjoy this optimistic work.
Mark Levinson has a few great credits to his name, but after watching this documentary, I can’t help but hope that this is something he will continue to pursue. I feel as if the explanation of science and its theories is something that could bore most, but there were very few moments where I wasn’t anxious to find out what was going to happen next. Particle Fever is a piece of work that defines a scientific generation. If there is any interest in defying religious values, definitely check out Particle Fever as soon as possible.
[Trailer] Turtle Power
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If you're in your mid-to-late 20s like me, there's no denying how absolutely huge the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were during our childhood. What started as a small, independent comic book ended up becoming one of the most definitive pop culture phenomena of the late-'80s and early-'90s. This year marks the franchise's 30th anniversary, and while we'll be getting a brand new live-action/CGI film, some of us prefer more of the old school charm that the Turtles exploited to shape our formative years.
Enter Randall Lobb, writer and director of Turtle Power. The documentary, which is being described as "The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." From what I can garner, Turtle Power is a comprehensive look at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' rise in popularity over the past 30 years and its influence on pop culture. Considering that most people will think of the heroes in a half-shell whenever their names are brought up rather than the iconic Renaissance figures that carry their namesakes.
Turtle Power will be available on DVD and VOD on August 12th following Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' theatrical release on August 8th.
[Trailer] Life Itself
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Roger Ebert touched my life in a number of ways, not only as a film critic or a fan of movies, but as a Chicagoan. Somehow, Ebert became the de facto voice in film criticism during his long tenure at the Chicago Sun-Times. I'll never become half the critic he was, but I acknowledge his influence every time I sit down to watch a film and every time I sit down to gather my thoughts together for a review. Everybody knew who Ebert was, highlighting just how iconic he became in his lifetime while writing for a local newspaper (that was distributed nationally, to be fair). Ebert never lost his voice, even after he very literally lost his voice to cancer towards the end of his life. Finally, a fitting testimony to his legacy will be appearing in theaters across the country later this summer.
Entitled Life Itself, the documentary follows Ebert's life as an amateur writer to becoming the icon he eventually became, complete with the trials and tribulations he had to face. I wrote a bit about the documentary while its crowd funding campaign was going on last year. While I unfortunately missed the doc back at Sundance, I look forward to seeing what director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) was able to put together.
Life Itself will be released on July 4th.
[Documentary] Bob Marley: Giant
Photo by Dennis Morris
At the very young age of 16 years old, photographer, Dennis Morris, met Jamaican reggae king Bob Marley, in 1974 at a Speakeasy club in London. The two immediately formed a strong friendship, one that would later lead to shooting some of the most popular photos of Marley today. In a short documentary, titled “Bob Marley: Giant”, Morris recollects their relationship by sharing the life of Bob Marley through his own eyes and camera lens.
The short documentary also features interviews, voiceovers and photos (both personal and exhibited). He also humbly speaks on his opinion on the various bootlegged use of many of the shots he's taken of Marley, one being the infamous shot of him holding a "spliff" while blowing smoke. Not many people actually know that this was taken as he was teaching the photographer how to properly smoke a joint.
While watching the short documentary, it's immediately apparent that Morris understood Marley in a very unique way, while very few photographers understand their subjects like such. Here are some of the infamous photos of Bob Marley shot by Dennis Morris, and below is the 18-minute documentary. Marley fan or not, the experiences these two shared are extraordinary and it's definitely worth a watch.
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[Via PetaPixel]
Evocative Portraits of Holy Men in India by Joey L.
Photos by Joey L
Joey Lawrence (known as Joey L) is a Canadian commercial photographer, director and published author based in Brooklyn, New York. Although he is recently best known as the creator of the Twilight movie posters, he is also known to have a deep interest in endangered cultures, traditions and rare religious practices. As a personal project, Joey traveled to Varanasi, India to create images for a series called, “Holy Men". While focusing on featuring religious ascetics in one of the oldest cities in the world and the “epicenter of the Hindu faith”, he was able to capture evocative portraits of actual holy men for this series.
In addition to the portraits, he was accompanied by filmmaker Cale Glendening, and Ryan, a close friend/assistant, to also create their documentary titled, “Beyond". The short film features a behind-the-scenes view of their experience in this third world, along with an emphasis on the photographer’s subjects, and mesmerizing and sometimes bizarre lifestyle.
Most of the portraits focus on the Aghori, a sect known for engaging in postmortem rituals, such as covering themselves in human ashes, meditating on corpses or crafting jewelry from human bones. “The Aghori have a profound connection with the dead. Death is not a fearsome concept, but a passing from the world of illusion,” says the photographer. Check out the photos below and find more on his website. Also be sure the see the eye opening documentary here.
[Via Demilked]
[Trailer] She Makes Comics
[kickstarter id="sequart/she-makes-comics"]
The comic medium consists of so many different formats and genres, ranging from the aforementioned superhero books and Sunday funnies to webcomics and long-form graphic novels. Despite the various variations within the comic book industry at large, most would consider it to be overrun by men, both as creators and fans. However, there have been so many amazing, talented women involved in comics that, for some reason, haven't garnered the same type of recognition that most other male comic book icons have.
She Makes Comics is a documentary directed by Marisa Stotter that will hopefully turn the tide a bit and shed light on the importance of women in comics, dating back to the early days of the industry to the present. As somebody who has been reading comics for the majority of my life (from the typical superhero books to independent, alternative graphic novels), I can see the importance of a documentary like She Makes Comics, and I hope it will show a different side to the industry that isn't just superheroes, fanboys, or comic book conventions that have painted comic book fandom in this light that, honestly, is so much more than what mainstream media has portrayed, not only in regards to tone, but in also clearing up the perception that comics are just a guy thing.
If you're as passionate about comic books as I am, interested in educational documentaries, or simply want to show support, there is an ongoing Kickstarter campaign for She Makes Comics that ends in about a week's time from the point this post gets published. There are some amazing rewards being offered for supporters, including an exclusive illustration from the very talented and Chicago-based artist, Jill Thompson! The documentary isn't scheduled to be released until January 2015, so it'll be awhile until your pledges come to fruition, but I definitely think they'll be worth the wait.