Reviews of feature-length documentaries
Category: Feature Docs
Review: ‘Spirit of the Ancestors’
“Spirit of the Ancestors” is the eye-opening personal journey of one family’s attempt to restore ‘Mana’ (welfare) to their Easter Island village by finding and bringing home the spirit of the Moai Hoa Haka Nanaʻia, …
Review: ‘Sustainable’
Let’s be real, documentaries on farming can sometimes be polarizing. You know the types of films I mean. The ones that are heavy on shock value and show horrific scenes of animals at mass production …
Review: ‘The Coffee Man’
Billed as an “intensely personal observational documentary,” director Jeff Hann’s “The Coffee Man” follows Canberra resident and ONA Coffee founder Sasa Sestic on his quest to become the 2015 World Barista Champion. The first feature …
Review: ‘The Dream of Britannia’
Passion projects often become encompassing. They can spin, become big, and carry us on rides down paths both distant and similar to the hopeful spark from which they began. Norwegian filmmaker Ann Coates’ latest documentary …
Review: ‘SelectED’
Each year 10,000 students apply for a few hundred available seats at Whitney M. Young Magnet School, one of currently eleven selective enrollment public high schools in Chicago. For an entire year, filmmaker Kayla McCormick …
Review: ‘A Small Good Thing’
William James Dawson, a discontent Londoner with an incurable “earth-hunger,” as he describes it, published a small book in 1907 entitled The Quest of the Simple Life. In it, he writes, “. . .my first …
Review: ‘He Named Me Malala’
“He Named Me Malala” will have its U.S. television premiere Feb. 29th on the National Geographic Channel, followed by a global debut on the network in 171 countries and 45 languages within a week after that. …
Review: ‘Meru’
Is “Meru” thrilling? Yes. Breathtaking? Incredibly so. Are there scenes that will make you nervous? Many. Some reviewers have called “Meru” terrifying. “Terrifying” seems like such an ill-fitted word to ascribe to a film these …
Review: ‘How to Dance in Ohio’
Currently available on HBO NOW and HBO GO, “How to Dance in Ohio” is an endearing feature length documentary chronicling the experiences of a group of teenagers and young adults with autism spectrum disorder in …
Review: ‘Out in the Cold’
In “Out in the Cold,” director J.D. O’Brien and John Koepke step out of their comfort zones to not only see what life is like for those without stable housing in their community, but to …