laura poitras Tagged Articles at Cinematical
A Bunch of Directors Get Into 'Freakonomics'
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Deals »
Economy is everywhere. It's in the classrooms, through the world, and even on the bookshelves. If you haven't read Steven D. Levitt and and Stephen J. Dubner's bestselling pop culture economy book, Freakonomics, you've probably at least heard of it, or have spotted the apple-orange cover to the right. After making the waves in the reader world, using economics to discuss mundane and controversial topics, Variety reports that an excellent collection of popular documentary directors are coming together to film a doc based on the book.Under producers Chad Troutwine (Paris je t'aime) and Seth Gordon (The King of Kong), Freakonomics will bring together Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing from Jesus Camp, Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), My Country My Country's Laura Poitras, Eugene Jarecki of Why We Fight, and finally Jehane Noujaim (Control Room) -- each of whom will film a section of the book. Most of the directors are still finalizing topics, but Gibney is said to be filming a segment on cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, while Jarecki will tackle one of the most controversial segments -- that a drop in crime can be attributed to Roe v. Wade. But it's not just politics under the microscope -- other issues covered in the book include Adam Vinatieri's football career as a field goal kicker.
Each segment will be 15 minutes long, and will then come together into a feature-length documentary that includes an intro and interstitials from Gordon. Producer Troutwine says: "I stalked the authors for a year because I saw cinematic appeal to the book as soon as I read it. It showed that conventional wisdom should always be tested and never trusted, and that is what documentaries are all about." Are you ready to get freaky with economics?
Review: My Country, My Country
Filed under: Documentary », Foreign Language », Independent », Theatrical Reviews », New in Theaters », Politics », Cinematical Indie »
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A few minutes into the new documentary, My Country, My Country, there's an astonishing scene in which an Iraqi clinician, Dr. Riyadh, talks his way into a heavily fortified Army barracks and is granted a meeting with some Army functionaries in order to vent his anger over the violence in Fallujah. This is 2004, shortly after the siege there, and immediately before the commencement of Iraq's first post-Baathist election, which will be conducted amidst raging confessional and ethnic violence. As we see in the film, some militia members even pledge to mow down voters en masse if they dare to stand out in the sun, waiting to dip their fingers into purple ink. Why Dr. Riyadh is granted a meeting with the Americans at such a high-tension moment is not clear; it may be because he happens to be a candidate for elective office or because he's being tailed by an American camera crew. What is clear is that in the short sit-down that follows, he shames his counterparts with terse, cut-and-dry language and inarguable statements. "This is not Vietnam," he pleads. "These people have no food, no blankets, and no roof...this is a process of mass killing." The marine sitting across from him, in bulging combat gear, immediately answers back with rehearsed, insulting religio-babble: "I've heard everything you've said and it touched me in my heart." In other words, meeting adjourned.
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