Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. Everyone wants to sell them out and nobody wants you to see them up close and personal: they are the Israeli settlers living in both official and unofficial settlements within the West Bank. A great number of them also happen to be Ukrainian and Russian immigrants. Filmmaker Dmitriy Khavin continues to document the Ukrainian Diaspora, giving viewers a rare unfiltered look at the Israeli settlement experience in The Territory, which premieres this coming Tuesday at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Generation R film program.

The settlements are not what you might expect. Where once there were dormitories and trailers there are now pleasant looking middle class homes. Granted, they are often found in gated communities, not uncommonly with armed guards out front. The land around them looks rather harsh and arid—hardly terrain worth fighting for. However, the fortifications are clearly there for a reason.

These first and second generation Soviet immigrants are products of the Refusenik movement. Their families’ experiences under Communism directly shaped their Zionist convictions. Still, they might not exactly be what viewers expect, either. Some are simply taking advantage of the inexpensive housing. Yes, Khavin also talks to some who express less than edifying opinions on their hostile Arab neighbors. Yet, many are clearly inclined to live in peace and harmony with all residents of the territory. Nonetheless, they consciously chose the risks involved in forming a buffer to protect the rest of Israel.

Throughout The Territory, Khavin challenges preconceptions across the political spectrum, beginning with film’s calm, peaceful tone. There are no bombs exploding here. His interview subjects go about their daily business like people anywhere, adopting a God-is-my-copilot attitude. Occasionally there are ugly reminders of the terrorism for which the territory is infamous for. One of Khavin’s guides takes viewers to the shrine dedicated to a tiny infant murdered by a sniper. Residents assume the young innocent was deliberately targeted by the Palestinian murderer and it is hard to argue with them, given the results.

The West Bank settlements will always be a thorny issue to untangle. However, the media would like people to blindly assume they are all lunatic Kahane clones, which simply is not the case. Indeed, many are part of the epic Russian and Ukrainian stories starting tragically in the early Twentieth Century. A real example of documentary filmmaking journalism, the forty-one minute The Territory ought to be broadcast on PBS, perhaps as part of a series with Khavin’s other films (like Artists of Odessa), but do not hold your breath. A balanced and intriguing look at one of the world’s most misunderstood tracts of land, The Territory is recommended for all inquisitive viewers when it screens Tuesday (1/15) at the JCC in Manhattan.

Posted on January 11th, 2012 at 10:24am.

By Joe Bendel. Ten graduate students from Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s Documentary Filmmaking and Theater School did what the Russian media establishment was largely incapable of: they covered the 2012 Russian presidential election and the surrounding protests fairly and accurately. Inseparable from their cameras over the dramatic two month span, the ten budding documentarians captured some chilling moments of “democracy at work” in Winter, Go Away, which screens this Saturday in Astoria, Queens, as part the Museum of the Moving Image’s second annual First Look film series.

For the record, the ten filmmakers are: Elena Khoreva, Denis Klebleev, Dmitry Kubasov, Askold Kurov, Nadezhda Leonteva, Anna Moiseenko, Madina Mustafina, Sofia Rodkevich, Anton Seregin, and Alexey Zhiryakov. Remember those names (that’s a dare). Although none of Winter’s scenes are specifically credited to a contributing filmmaker, the sheer volume of newsworthy footage speaks highly of them as a group.

Two painful realities quickly emerge in Winter: the Putin campaign is highly organized, while the divided opposition is not. With the not-so-quasi state media firmly in his pocket, Putin probably need not have fixed the election. Yet, it is pretty darn clear he did exactly that, based on the video recorded in poll sites on election.

Obviously cooking the voter rolls, local election officials refuse to turn over documentation to poll watchers. Mysterious buses show up with ostensive voters, who are a bit touchy about being filmed. When opposition groups stage protests, the police respond with violence. In one jaw-dropper of an incident, they literally grab an opposition spokesman in mid-sentence while he is giving an on-camera interview to a reporter.

Winter should instill shock and outrage in viewers, but let us not forget that there were similar instances of election shenanigans and intimidation reported here in the U.S. in 2012. Indeed, the suspicious busloads of “voters” in Winter demonstrate why stricter voter ID laws might actually serve the interests of democracy.

Watching Winter, Go Away is a wildly frustrating experience, but the truly independent filmmakers deserve enormous credit for their journalistic integrity. They documented actual crimes the Russian and international media has cravenly ignored. Highly recommended for all Russophiles, Russophobes, journalism students, and media critics, Winter, Go Away screens this Saturday (1/12) during the 2013 First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 10th, 2012 at 11:58am.

By Joe Bendel. It is like the Rapture for geeks. The Singularity is the not so theoretical point at which artificial intelligence eclipses the old school human variety. For some, it summons dystopian images of The Matrix. Others anticipate a golden age of brain implants and downloaded consciousnesses. It may well be the world filmmaker Avi Zev Weider’s newborn triplets inherit. Weider explores the evolving relationship between man and technology on their behalf in Welcome to the Machine, which opens this Friday in Brooklyn.

Delivered ten weeks premature, Weider’s daughter and two sons spend the first months of their lives connected to machines. The products of in vitro fertilization, their lives are truly defined by technology. Most of Welcome’s experts argue that this is a good thing. First and foremost is Ray Kurzweil, the developer of the famous synthesizer and the reading machine for the blind, who now serves as the leading evangelist for the Singularity. Kurzweil argues that this scary sounding turning point might even offer a means to pseudo-immortality.

Others are not so sure. MIT technological ethicist Sherry Turkle is cautiously cautious about the implications of blurring the distinctions between humanity and technology. Philosophy lecturer David Skrbina goes further, often citing the work of his notorious correspondent, Ted Kaczynski. Skrbina suggests that the Unabomber is something of a prophet regarding the dehumanizing effects of technology. While undeniably learned in his field, the extent to which Skrbina adopts Kaczynski’s arguments is problematic. Aside from the Unabomber’s lethal methods (largely unremarked upon in Welcome), it seems highly dubious that the pre-industrial serfs eking out a subsistence existence lived richer, more examined lives than the majority of those in the contemporary industrialized West – including the working class.

By periodically tracking the development of his triplets, Weider provides a pointed, if perhaps inadvertent rejoinder to the borderline Luddite premises of Skrbina and his pen pal. Without the advancements of modern medicine, Weider’s three babies could never survive (and would not have been conceived in the first place). Oddly enough, Welcome could be a big hit with the pro-life community. According to the filmmaker, he and his wife were not so subtly encouraged to abort one of the triplets. Although their first year is an exhausting struggle, it was clearly worth the effort for their parents. Along the way, Weider also provides a behind the scenes look at the U.S. military’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program, which certainly ought to interest the same audience.

Anyone who watches Welcome will wish all the best to Weider and his lovely children. For the same reason, they will shake their heads in disbelief when he also attempts to correspond with Kaczynski. This is not someone who ought to have your contact info – just ask the three people killed by his mail bombs. Regardless, there is enough discussion of artificial intelligence, military drones, and robotics to keep the Wired magazine crowd consistently engaged. At least one cut above a Discovery Channel special, Welcome to the Machine is worth considering should you happen to be in Brooklyn over the coming week. It opens at the ReRun Gastropub this Friday (1/11).

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on January 9th, 2012 at 12:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. Who has a harder time adjusting to the capitalist system: a former Soviet republic or a documentary filmmaker? Needless to say, it is the latter, but he still has his mind set on importing Ukrainian vodka into the British marketplace. He feels a special connection to the distillery, because his family used to own it, up until the 1917 Revolution. Soviet, Ukrainian, and even Northern Irish history are explored from a decidedly personal perspective in Dan Edelstyn & Hilary Powell’s How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire, which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Edelstyn knew little of his father’s side of the family, because he died when the filmmaker was quite young. His first real introduction to his Ukrainian heritage came through the letters and journals of his grandmother, Maroussia Zorokovich, shunted away in his mother’s attic. He discovered his grandmother was the progressive daughter of a well-to-do land-owning family. Regrettably, all her efforts teaching the local peasantry to read and write meant little to the conquering Bolsheviks.

Zorokovich’s story is truly remarkable, including stints entertaining the White resistance forces as a dancer, which is how she met Edelstyn’s grandfather. From her diaries, Edelstyn gleaned a sense of the family’s house and sugar factory. Drawn to his roots, Edelstyn was disappointed to find them in a state of disrepair and off-limits. However, he discovered another family holding that was still up and running—a vodka distillery.

Zorokovich never mentioned the family vodka empire, but with good reason Edelstyn presumes. Communist propaganda often demonized Jewish Russians as predatory purveyors of alcohol, constantly tempting the stolid peasants into drunkenness. It would be a lot easier for the Jewish Zorokoviches to identify themselves with the sugar plant rather than with a booze pipeline.

Disurbed by the town’s economic stagnation in the wake of the sugar factory’s closure, Edelstyn takes it upon himself to become the vodka company’s British agent. Of course, he knows nothing about importing spirits, but how hard can it be?

Edelstyn might be ridiculously naïve throughout Empire, but his instincts on how to help his ancestral Ukrainian home are surprisingly on-target. It is too bad he and his wife Powell were the ones behind the camera, though, because there was probably considerably more comedy to be mined from his attempts to navigate British customs bureaucracy.

As a result, probably the strongest sequences involve Grandmother Zorokovich. Blending various styles of animation with family heirloom photos, Edelstyn & Powell craft some Guy Maddinesque dramatic recreations of Zorokovich’s life. To their credit, they bring home the fear and arbitrary violence of Lenin’s reign of terror (yes, Lenin’s – not that of the subsequent tyrant, Stalin) with full force, as well as chronicle the Zorokovich’s complicated years in Belfast. It is an epic story to which they do justice.

While Edelstyn undeniably went out on a limb on behalf of the former family vodka company, there is still an awful lot of him in Empire. He is not a bad chap at all, but he is not exactly a riveting cinematic presence.Regardless, How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire documents a fascinating intersection of commercial, political, religious, and family history that goes down rather smoothly.

It is preceded by Jack Feldstein’s brief but powerful Shards. An expressionistic, almost abstract representation of Peretz Markish’s similarly titled poem, Feldstein’s neon-animated short film serves as a stark elegy to the poet and to the other twelve Yiddish writers murdered by Stalin’s minions of terror in 1952. While only two minutes long, it powerfully conveys the essence of the Soviet experience. Both films are highly recommended when they screen this Thursday (1/10) and Saturday (1/12) as the 2013 NYJFF gets underway at the Walter Reade Theater.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 7th, 2012 at 1:56pm.