By C.J. Hirschfield
It’s not only the key to our own personal happiness, but it is also what will save our democracy.
So get off your butt and join a club, damn it!
Oscar Time 2023
By Gary Meyer and C.J. Hirschfield
(March 10,2023)
It is Oscar weekend. I am hoping for a satisfying show.
All The Beauty and Bloodshed
By C.J. Hirschfield
(March 10, 2023)
The documentary feature All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is actually three movies in one. Directed by 2015 Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), the film explores the art, life, and political activism of internationally renowned artist Nan Goldin, whose story could not be more compelling. Through her photos, slideshows, interviews and video footage, we get a real sense of what inspired both her art and her activism.
A House Made of Splinters
By C.J. Hirschfield
(March 8, 2023)
Some feature length documentaries transport you across the world, into space, or under the ocean, exploring fantastic and fascinating environments that you never could have imagined.
The Academy-Award nominee A House Made of Splinters takes place under just one roof, and the drama is no less compelling for it. Inside the walls of an Eastern Ukraine temporary shelter for children, there is compassion, friendship, love, and joy, mixed with fear, pain, and lost childhood.
All That Breathes
By C.J. Hirschfield
(January 17, 2023)
The Oscar folks recently announced their shortlist of 15 films that will advance in the Documentary Feature Film Category for the upcoming Academy Awards, out of 144 that were eligible. It’s an impressive list that includes excellent features on Russian activist Alexei Navalny, iconic poet/singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, and two fearless volcanologists who made an exciting life together.
And while I think it’s a long shot that a film about two brothers in New Delhi who have devoted their lives to rescuing injured birds will ultimately win, HBO’s All That Breathes deserves a place on the distinguished and competitive lineup for its sensitive portrayal of family, its reverence and respect for the natural world, and its warning about the dangers of religious hatred that divides us. Continue reading
Navalny: An Ongoing Thriller
By C.J. Hirschfield
(January 17, 2023)
Two years ago, an extraordinary documentary on Russian opposition party leader Alexei Navalny was recorded. The film has just been released; he has not. Having been charged with everything from fraud to having created an extremist group “with the purpose of inciting hatred toward officials and oligarchs,” he currently is imprisoned in solitary confinement, facing up to 20 years in a Russian penal colony. Navalny is on the Oscar shortlist for best documentary feature, and I attended a screening followed by a panel that included the film’s director, Daniel Roher, producer Shane Boris and Christo Grozev , the lead Russia investigative journalist for Bellingcat, whose remarkable work utilizing open source digital tools tracked down the Kremlin’s team that poisoned and nearly killed Navalny. (Watch the conversation below) Continue reading
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