[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]
Hamilton — this is one of those unique films done in the narrative style where there simply isn;t much dialogue on screen; you just set up the shots and situations and let it play out over long, quiet scenes. You are left to wonder what’s happening exactly, try to fill in details yourself, a lot is left to imagination or conjecture, with an occasional morsel of information to narrow down the possibilities of what’s going on, your imagination at work. Beautiful and meditative, shot by Jeremy Saulnier who also directed the completely different Murder Party, also well done. Watch that name.
Kamp Katrina — a couple opens their N.O. backyard as a tent city; poor white trash, surrounded by drugs and alcohol, all trying to hold onto the creaky but stable life that they’d managed to eke out for themselves pre-Katrina, but many find themselved descending into despair and homelessness. Government support utterly nonexistent. It was nearly over before I realized it was just white people they were showing, no blacks. Yet another facet to the Katrina story.
Documentary Shorts I — six shorts, I’ll only write about three:
My 9/11: at this point I guess it’s pretty hard to NOT do a 9/11 documentary that has sweeping emotional power. This one, by established Dutch filmmaker Tjebbo Penning, is a simple personal video letter to his family and friends (ostensibly to his future grown son), where he takes the simple footage of that day at home in Lower Manhattan and adds voiceover. While the reality of the situation was right outside his window, he still was drawn to watch and get confirmation of that reality from the TV set in the other direction. And how watching the hole in the building with his naked eyes didn’t really evoke emotion, but the later litanies of victims did. But that was after it all had been confirmed as real by outside agents.
Someone Else’s War — excellent documentary about “Third Country Nationals” (TCNs) that are hired as laborers by military contractors to do the dirty work (literally) that U.S. troops used to do. Sure, American contractors are making $75K and up, but these imported labors are making a tiny fraction of that, and often are defrauded of even that. Coming primarily from India, Nepal and the Philippines, these are basically poor people who are tricked by local agents into going to Iraq to make money, but find themselves trapped in situations that at best get them back home with no more money than they left with, and at worst get them killed and buried in a foreign land, far from the families that need them.
The Fighting Cholitas — hilarious! I find it hard to believe that it’s true, but it certainly looked real. Poor Bolivian women take on careers as professional wrestlers, skirts and all.