Camp Victory, Afghanistan

Showing at SXSW: Camp Victory, Afghanistan, directed by Carol Dysinger

Synopsis from the film's website:

Camp Victory, Afghanistan is a verité documentary that tells the story of several U.S. National Guardsmen stationed in Herat, Afghanistan and the Afghan officers assigned as their mentees. These Americans along with a band of Afghans have been given the enormous task of building the 207th Corps of the nascent Afghan National Army into an institution capable of providing security, stability, peace and justice to a tattered, volatile nation. Although the United States has poured military aid into Afghanistan, money alone does not produce an army; people do. And these Afghans and Americans have more in common than anyone would expect. With lives on the line and the military budget ballooning, can a modern Afghan army be created when 80% of the enlistees are illiterate; all are impoverished; the weaponry is second rate; and the enemy is elusive, dangerous, and lawless? 

Using nearly 300 hours of verité footage shot between 2005 and 2008, Camp Victory, Afghanistan, directed by Carol Dysinger, is the first film to examine the reality of building a functioning Afghan military—the initial critical step toward bringing stability and peace to Afghanistan.

Beijing Taxi

Showing at SXSW: Beijing Taxi, directed by Miao Wang

Synopsis from the film's website:

Set in the two years of the 2008 Olympics games build-up, Beijing Taxi is a multilayered feature documentary that vividly portrays the ancient capital of China going through a profoundly transformational arch. Through a humanistic lens, the stories of three taxi drivers connect a morphing cityscape and tales of ordinary citizens searching for their place amidst this dizzying pace of change. Candid and perceptive in its filming approach and highly cinematic and verité in style, Beijing Taxi takes us on a lyrical journey into fragments of a society riding the bumpy roads to modernization.

There are certain characteristics associated with “old Beijingers.” They are laid back, forthcoming, warm and hospitable. They don’t have the insatiable need for material wealth, strive for success or compete among their peers. They enjoy simple pleasures in activities like fishing or taking a stroll in the park. This “old Beijing” way of life has been challenged by strong economical advances and developments in the last decades. Their values and traditions are put under scrutiny by capitalist rules. The profound changes of Beijing are not only seen in the city itself but also in the heart and minds of its people. The juxtapositions between the “old” and the “new” city are omnipresent.

With diverse and poetic imagery of the old and new Beijing, we establish the idea of the ancient capital undergoing deep structural change, and in the midst of the Olympics build-up. Audiences are introduced to the world of Beijing taxi drivers in their natural setting. Each driver exposes his/her perception of life in a changing Beijing. Bai Jiwen, a driver in his mid 50’s, represents the older lost generation who came to age during the Cultural Revolution; Wei Caixia, a mother in her mid-thirties, with aspirations of a free-spirited life and entrepreneurial success; and Zhou Yi, an optimist and content man in his late thirties, who holds onto the more traditional Beijinger’s lifestyle of the past.

Tiny Furniture

Playing next month at SXSW: Tiny Furniture, written and directed by Lena Dunham

Synopsis from the movie's website:

22-year-old Aura returns home to her artist mother's TriBeCa loft with the following: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her Youtube page, a boyfriend who's left her to find himself at Burning Man, a dying hamster, and her tail between her legs. Luckily, her trainwreck childhood best friend never left home, the restaurant down the block is hiring, and ill-advised romantic possibilities lurk around every corner. Aura quickly throws away her liberal-arts clogs and careens into her old/new life: a dead-end hostess job, parties on chilly East Village fire escapes, stealing twenties out of her mother's Prada purse, pathetic Brooklyn "art shows," prison-style tattoos done out of sheer boredom, drinking all the wine in her mother's neatly organized cabinets, competing with her prodigious teenage sister, and desperate sex in a giant metal pipe. Surrounded on all sides by what she could become, Aura just wants someone to tell her who she is.

Greenlit

Showing next month at SXSW: Greenlit, directed by Miranda Bailey

Synopsis from the film's website:

The documentary Greenlit explores films that have wreaked havoc on our environment and poses the question: what can we do to soften our carbon footprint as filmmakers?

Miranda Bailey follows the cast and crew of the indie feature film The River Why, starring Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights) as they bring aboard a green consultant, Lauren Selman, and watch her struggle to “green” their film. The task proves to be extremely challenging, even in a town as eco-conscious as Portland, where one would think the film crew would be receptive to environmental issues… but instead we see how film crews and film unions maintain that there is no place in the line of filmmaking for someone whose job description is environmental consultant. Both entertaining and humorous, Greenlit is filled with compelling and important facts about filmmaking and sustainability.

Netflix It: Fat Girl

Available from Netflix: Fat Girl, directed by Catherine Breillat

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

Director Catherine Breillat, who courted international controversy with her film Romance, once again pushed the envelope with this disturbing (if somewhat less explicit) look at adolescent sexuality. Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) is a 12-year-old girl with a weight problem and a downbeat disposition growing up in a family that offers her little in the way of understanding and affection. Anaïs has a typically adolescent love/hate relationship with her slimmer and prettier 15-year-old sister, Elena (Roxane Mesquida); she's at once fascinated by her sister (and the boys who follow her around), and hates her for the love and attention she receives from others. While the family spends the summer at the beach, Elena attracts the attentions of Fernando (Libero de Rienzo), a college student from Italy who makes no secret of his attraction to Elena's budding sexuality. Anaïs, on the other hand, is forced to make do with a sad game in which she pretends that a ladder and a diving board at a neighborhood swimming pool are two suitors vying for her affections. Anaïs shares a room with Elena, and finds herself a fascinated, if troubled, witness as Fernando uses both charm and deceit to rob her sister of her virginity, while Elena is too naïve to see through the lies Fernando is spinning—and enjoys having Anaïs as an audience for her steadily advancing sex play with Fernando. Anaïs is more aware than her older sister of Fernando's insincerity, but she finds Elena isn't eager to believe her.

Netflix It: Cadillac Records

Available on Netflix: Cadillac Records, written and directed by Darnell Martin

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

Directed by TV veteran Darnell Martin, the musical drama Cadillac Records documents the compelling true-life story of the Chicago record label that helped the world discover such legendary artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Chuck Berry. Founded in 1950 by Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), Chess Records quickly gained a reputation as home to some of the most talented and influential blues artists ever to step into a recording studio. But giving these musicians an opportunity to bring their music to the world was no easy task, because along the way there was enough sex, drugs, and rock & roll to ensure that things around Chess Records never got boring. Featuring Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Gabrielle Union as Geneva Wade, Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, and Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf.



And the real Etta James:

Barefoot to Timbuktu

Showing at New York's Quad Cinema this weekend: Barefoot to Timbuktu, directed by Martina Egi

Synopsis from the film's website:

Araouane, a settlement in the middle of the Sahara, seven days by camel from Timbuktu…

In 1989, the once prosperous oasis was disappearing under encroaching dunes, when the noted Swiss/American artist Ernst Aebi passed through on a caravan. The population’s destitution leaves a deep impression on him. Trying to help them becomes an obsession for Aebi because attempting the impossible satisfies his quest for adventure.

Aebi, one of the pioneers in the transformation of New York’s SoHo factory spaces to lofts, stays for three years in the desert and becomes so engrossed in the project that he is willing to bury his capital there. Under his guidance, the village awakens to a new life: a productive vegetable garden, a school, and even a small hotel rise from the barren sands.

A civil war in Mali forces Aebi in the early nineties to escape “his” village. He leaves behind a blooming oasis and a family of friends who await his return.

Except for a few earlier unsuccessful attempts, almost twenty years pass until Aebi is finally able to get back. On a journey between hope and doubt.

Barefoot to Timbuktu cleverly weaves archival and new material into a fascinating portrait of an out-of-the-ordinary Swiss/American swashbuckler.