Thanks to covid-19, both the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics were postponed to 2021. That means the competitors will have another whole year to train and prepare for their events in Tokyo. And however disappointing, it’s just one more bump on the road for the Paralympics athletes featured in the new documentary “Rising Phoenix,” which opens on Netflix this weekend. Directed by Ian Bonhôte and ... more >
INTERVIEWS
The pursuit of self-realization taken to another level: “Rising Phoenix” (PREMIERING ON NETFLIX THIS WEEKEND)
Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgu
“Even in this terrible time of pandemic, there’s something about art and music and beauty that we can all aspire to” (Lynn Montgomery)
Our interview with the director of "Amazing Grace"
Grace Fisher’s positivity has served the young lady well over her two decades of life, as she honed her musical abilities on guitar and piano, while dreaming of becoming a composer. “My mom always said that [even] as a young girl, I’ve been blessed with a happy outlook on anything,” Fisher told me recently of her optimistic attitude. Incredibly, Fisher has maintained that same poise and ... more >
Screen Comment interviews WENDY GUERRERO, Bentonville Film Festival president of programming
Five years' young this year, Bentonville Film Festival adapts to the pandemic while hewing close to its principle of inclusiveness and diversity
Like all current cinema events, the 2020 iteration of the Bentonville Film Festival is taking place almost exclusively online. Next week, the festival started by Oscar-winner Geena Davis will take place in Northwest Arkansas as pure usual, but with on-the-ground screenings taking place at a local drive-in—with nearly everything else going virtual. Panel discussions, celebrity guests and a great ... more >
“It’s a really big ask to say, hey, put your trust in me to tell this story” (filmmaker AJ Schnack on the making of “Long gone summer”)
Capturing a slice of MLB history
Major League Baseball’s 2020 season has been mothballed for months because of covid-19, and even when the truncated schedule begins in late July, it’s doubtful that, for health reasons, there will be any fans in attendance. There’s no way that filmmaker AJ Schnack could have foreseen this when he started work on his “30 for 30” documentary “Long Gone Summer” a few years ago, but it may have ... more >
“Miracle fishing,” a talk with Miles Hargrove, filmmaker
From AFI DOCS 2020
Miles Hargrove’s filmmaking career got off to the most unlikely of starts, and under rather heavy duress. In 1994, Hargrove and his American family were living in Cali, Colombia—in the backyard of the FARC guerrilla group. Hargrove’s father, Tom, wrote about environmental and other issues affecting the country then under civil war, and it wasn’t long before his reporting and activism began to ... more >
Marina Zenovich on “30 for 30” and how to come to terms with Lance Armstrong
[Documentary / ESPN]
Perhaps no modern sports figure has gone from the heights of praise to the depths of public revulsion as spectacularly as Lance Armstrong, the disgraced former cycling champion who beat cancer, won several consecutive Tours de France, but then watched his legend implode after admitting to doping over the course of many years. Armstrong’s unlikely rise and even more drastic fall is being retold ... more >
INTERVIEW : Barak Goodman on his PBS documentary about George W. Bush
Program is airing this week on PBS
George W. Bush left office over a decade ago, with his eight years as president long been consigned to the provenance of historians. However one might have felt about the 43rd president at the time of his administration, it was time to give those eight years of the first decade of the new millennium a second look. “‘American Experience’ is very clever because they time these things so that ... more >