Reviews of feature-length documentaries
Category: Feature Docs
Review: ‘Five Days on Lesvos’
Documentaries on humanitarian crises have the ability to focus attention, influence hearts, and one hopes—help increase support and aid for the regions and lives of those personally affected by tragedy and conflict around the world. …
Review: ‘The Art of Recovery’
The rebuilding of a city begins first with the reviving of its spirit. Directed by Peter Young and produced by Tracy Roe, “The Art of Recovery” chronicles the period following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake when …
Review: ‘Mind Landscape’
Directed by Niu Zi, “Mind Landscape” takes viewers on a reflective journey through remote areas of Tibet following photographer Yang Yankang as he captures the heart and beauty of a people and region few will ever have …
Review: ‘Atlantic’
“There’s nothing as bad as seeing your community dying,” says Charlie Kane, a Newfoundland fisherman featured in the award-winning documentary “Atlantic” by Irish filmmaker Risteard Ó Domhnaill (Richie O’Donnell). The film, which makes its New …
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 …