KUCI: Film School

Independent Film News and Interviews

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Sunday Nov 28, 2021

Jim Finn’s inspired real-life story of the South Korean director kidnapped in the 70's to invigorate the North Korean film industry, THE JUCHE IDEA follows Yoon Jung Lee, a young video artist invited to work at a Juche art residency on a North Korean collective farm. The story is told through the films she made at the residency as well as interviews with a Bulgarian filmmaker and even a brief sci-fi movie. Jim Finn's THE JUCHE IDEA is an uproarious and provocative deconstruction of North Korean propaganda and philosophy. Mixing together eye-popping archival footage with deadpan re-enactments, Finn has created a complex docu-fiction that is equally thought-provoking and entertaining. Translated as self-reliance, Juche (CHOO-chay) is a hybrid of Confucian and Stalinist thought that Kim Jong-il adapted from his father and applied to the entire culture. In The Juche Idea, a sympathetic South Korean filmmaker visits a North Korean artists' colony to bring Juche ideas into the 21st century. She ends up producing hilariously stilted shorts, including a nonsensical sci-fi story and the enigmatic "Dentures of Imperialism.” THE JUCHE IDEA is both sardonic satire and historical excavation, an exuberant collage that reveals the absurdity at the heart of Kim-Jong-il's regime. Director Jim Finn joins us for a free-wheeling conversation on the wildly imaginative nature of his filmmaking, Ulysses S, Grant as the most prolific killer of fascist… ever, and the importance of Juche for all comrades.
Available to watch at: OVID.TV
Available for purchase at: kinolorber.com/film/thejucheidea

Friday Nov 19, 2021

The latest documentary film from director Jesse Moss, MAYOR PETE, brings viewers inside Pete Buttigieg’s campaign to be the youngest President of the United States.providing an unprecedented intimacy with the candidate, his husband Chasten, and their ambitious team. From the earliest days of the campaign, to his unlikely, triumphant victory in Iowa and beyond, this lm reveals what really goes on inside a campaign for the highest office in the land—and the myriad ways it changes the lives of those at its center. Recently appointed U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg serves as the first openly LGBTQ Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in U.S. history. Director Jess Moss (The Overnighters, The Family, Boys State) joins us to talk about the challenges of documenting a white hot presidential campaign and the possible next leader of the free world while chronicling the relationship of the first openly gay presidential candidate and his husband.
Watch now: www.amazon.com/Mayor-Pete-Buttigieg

Friday Nov 19, 2021

Co-directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh award-winning documentary WRITING WITH FIRE focuses on India’s social environment built to divide based on caste and gender and a fearless group of journalists maintain India’s only women-led news outlet. Amidst rising Hindu nationalism, the Dalit women of Khabar Lahariya—all from the Dalit (“untouchables” caste)—prepare to transition the newspaper from print to digital even though many of their reporters don’t have access to electricity at home. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her team of journalists confront some of India’s biggest issues—investigating cases of caste and gender violence, police corruption, environmental injustices, and more. WRITING WITH FIRE chronicles the astonishing determination of these local reporters as they empower each other and hold those responsible for injustice to account. Reaching new audiences through their growing platform, the women of Khabar Lahariya redefine what it means to be powerful. Co-directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh join us for a conversation on the daily lives of these incredibly brave women, at home and on the road as journalist, gaining access and the trust of their community and how their work has served to demonstrate the power of a free press to improve lives and support a democratic society.
For news, updates and screenings go to: writingwithfire.in
Watch virtually until 11/28 at docnyc.net/film/writing-with-fire

Friday Nov 19, 2021

Against the backdrop of a culture in crisis, THE ART OF MAKING IT follows a diverse cast of young artists at defining moments in their careers to explore whether the art world ecosystem meant to nurture them is actually failing them. Are we at risk of losing the creative voices of a new generation as universities, galleries, and museums are facing cataclysmic changes? Or are we on the verge of rewriting history, expanding access, and making art more accessible for all as outdated models are being rethought? Embracing the conundrum of how artists must be in the market, but not of it, THE ART OF MAKING IT is both a cautionary tale about what America stands to lose if we don't rethink how we value artists, and a love letter to those who persevere in their artistic practice in spite of the extraordinary odds against ever achieving a sustainable career. Director Kelcey Edwards (Ghost in the Material, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines) stops by to talk about the reasons why artists of all stripes from all corners of the world are driven to swim upstream in the most precarious and treacherous shark infest waters to bring their vision to all who are willing to engage.
For news and updates go to: theartofmakingitfilm.com
Virtually screening at: docnyc.net/film/the-art-of-making-it

Friday Nov 19, 2021

Brittney, Aaloni, and Autumn, three spirited teenage girls living in a Texas military town, meet and befriend photographers and debut filmmakers Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt in a chance encounter one evening. During a road trip across America, documenting snapshots of carefree adolescent summers, Hill and Bethencourt are inspired to film the trio, following them to bonfire parties, fast-food outings, and bedroom hangouts where discussions around agency, opportunity, sex, and consent unfold with candor. Shot in vérité style, CUSP captures authentic moments of female friendship while examining what it means to confront the dark realities of female adolescence. Though the girls’ experiences are completely unique to their upbringing, CUSP is also a strikingly universal coming-of-age tale — and true-to-life, at turns funny, tragic, complicated, and stirring. Co-directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt join us for a conversation on the happenstance that brought them into these young women’s life, the sparse economic and educational opportunities available to Brittney, Aaloni, and Autumn, and the specter of violence that shadows too many of their relationships.
For news, updates and screenings go to: cuspthefilm.com

Friday Nov 19, 2021

With exclusive access inside one of New York’s hardest hit hospital systems during the terrifying first four months of the pandemic, Oscar®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning director Matthew Heineman’s THE FIRST WAVE spotlights the everyday heroes at the epicenter of COVID-19 as they come together to fight one of the greatest threats the world has ever encountered. Leaving a devastating trail of death and despair, this once-in-a-century pandemic changed the very fabric of our daily lives and exposed long-standing inequities in American society. Employing his signature approach of character-driven cinema vérité, Heineman embeds with a group of doctors, nurses and patients on the frontlines as they all desperately try to navigate the crisis. With each distinct storyline serving as a microcosm through which we can view the emotional and societal impacts of the pandemic, THE FIRST WAVE is a testament to the strength of the human spirit. Director Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land, City of Ghosts, Tiger) joins us to talk about the harrowing situation he and his crew found as they documented the once-in-a-century pandemic testing the men and women, staff and patients, and how they channeled their filmmaking instincts into telling an emotionally charged story that illuminates what is was like to be a part of THE FIRST WAVE.
For news and updates go to: nationalgeographic.com/the-first-wave
For updates go to: neonrated.com/films/the-first-wave
Watch now through 11/28 at docnyc.net/film/the-first-wave

Thursday Nov 18, 2021

KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME is a dazzling, worthy tribute to Kurt Vonnegut and the first of its kind on Vonnegut - is a deep, immersive dive into the author’s upbringing and his creative output. It spans his childhood in Indianapolis, his experience as a Prisoner of War in World War II, his marriage, family, and divorce, his early careers as a publicist for General Electric and a car salesman, and his long years as a struggling writer, leading to eventual superstardom in 1969 following the publication of his lightning-bolt anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five. KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME began 39 years ago when young, struggling filmmaker Robert Weide (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth) wrote a letter to his literary idol proposing a documentary on Vonnegut’s life and work. Shooting began in 1988 and the resulting film reflects the friendship and bond Weide and Vonnegut formed over the decades. KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME is first and foremost a biography of a beloved American author. But it also documents a filmmaker’s odyssey as he examines the impact of a writer’s legacy on his own life, extending far beyond the printed page. Director Robert Weide joins us for a conversation on Vonnegut’s literary legacy, his family’s fascinating history and the mutual respect and kindness of friendship.
For news and updates go to: ifcfilms.com/films/kurt-vonnegut
Available through 11/19 at: docnyc.net/film/kurt-vonnegut

Thursday Nov 18, 2021

In Robert Greene’s latest searingly honest documentary, PROCESSION, six midwestern men all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy come together to direct a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their trauma. As part of a radically collaborative filmmaking process, they create fictional scenes based on memories, dreams and experiences, meant to explore the church rituals, culture and hierarchies that enabled silence around their abuse. In the face of a failed legal system, we watch these men reclaim the spaces that allowed their assault, revealing the possibility for catharsis and redemption through a new-found fraternity. As one of the men says, “SPOTLIGHT was about trying to get in from the outside. In our film, we’re trying to get out.” Director Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine, Bisbee ’17) joins us to talk about his collaboration with an extraordinary group of men, Joe Eldred, Mike Foreman, Ed Gavagan, Dan Laurine, Michael Sandridge and Tom Viviano as they begin the process of taking control of a narrative that has brought them immeasurable pain and rage, by telling their story of abuse on their own terms.
Beginning on November 19: netflix.com/Procession
Opens in NY on November 12th and in LA and SF on November 19th

Saturday Nov 13, 2021

In A COP MOVIE director Alonso Ruizpalacios takes us deep into the Mexican police force with the story of Teresa and Montoya, together known as “the love patrol.” In this thoroughly original and unpredictable documentary, Ruizpalacios thoroughly blurs with the boundaries of nonfiction and immerses the audience into the human experience of police work within a dysfunctional system. What does it take to be a cop in Mexico City? Two professional actors undergo an immersive process of “training” to become police officer, playing the role of Teresa and Montoya, in order to explore this question, while gaining a visceral understanding of an officers responses as they guide us on their journey from the ‘inside’. Director Alonso Ruizpalacios (MUSEO, GUEROS) joins us for a conversation on his mind-bending approach to policing in a city and country where the struggle for police officers is a never-ending question of ethics versus economics, law enforcement versus corruption.
In Select Theaters October 20
To watch beginning November 5 go to: netflix.com/A Cop Movie

Friday Nov 12, 2021

Love, It Was Not is a tragic love story between a prisoner and a Nazi. Beautiful and full of life, Helena Citron, is taken to Auschwitz as a young woman, and soon finds unlikely solace under the protection of Franz Wunsch, a high-ranking SS officer who falls in love with her and her magnetic singing voice. Risking execution if caught, they went on with their forbidden relationship until the war ended and the camp was liberated. Thirty years later, a letter arrives from Wunsch's wife asking Helena to “return the favor”-- testify on Wunsch's behalf. Faced with an impossible decision, Helena must choose. Will she help the man who brutalized so many lives, but saved hers? Director Maya Sarfaty joins us for a conversation on one woman’s unbelievably conflicted dilemma happening in the most reviled place on earth during a monstrously evil war to exterminate her family and her people.
For news go to: greenwichentertainment.com/film/love-it-was-not

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