Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” will open the eighth edition of Chicago’s Doc10 documentary film festival on May 4.
About Fox’s life, career and work as a public advocate for Parkinson’s research, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” debuted at Sundance in January. Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “An Inconvenient Truth” will be at Doc10 to participate in a post-screening conversation.
Doc10, a four-day fest running May 4-7, features a selection of 10 of this year’s most acclaimed documentaries and a package of prestigious doc shorts. Dedicated to supporting social-impact documentary films, the fest is hosted by Chicago Media Project, a company that raises funds for and produces docus including “Crip Camp” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
In addition to “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” Doc10 will screen: Penny Lane’s “Confessions of a Good Samaritan,” Nicole Newnham’s “The Disappearance of the Shere Hite,...
About Fox’s life, career and work as a public advocate for Parkinson’s research, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” debuted at Sundance in January. Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “An Inconvenient Truth” will be at Doc10 to participate in a post-screening conversation.
Doc10, a four-day fest running May 4-7, features a selection of 10 of this year’s most acclaimed documentaries and a package of prestigious doc shorts. Dedicated to supporting social-impact documentary films, the fest is hosted by Chicago Media Project, a company that raises funds for and produces docus including “Crip Camp” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
In addition to “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” Doc10 will screen: Penny Lane’s “Confessions of a Good Samaritan,” Nicole Newnham’s “The Disappearance of the Shere Hite,...
- 3/27/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
In the end, I will end up becoming annoying, but I have to say once more that documentaries prove that “Truth is stranger than fiction” repeatedly in the most pointed way. “Under the Sky of Damascus” a movie focusing on a group of young Syrian women who decide to produce a play using anonymous statements of women that have suffered in the hands of men, while also making the particular documentary about their efforts, is definitely one of those films, as the result is as meta as it is shocking.
While the consequences of war in Syria are known throughout the world, the misogyny and overall violence against women, both domestically and in the workplaces, is not something that is exactly discussed. Five young women, Farah, Eliana, Inana, Souhir, and Grace come together to highlight the issue through a stage play, despite the fact that they realize the problems this...
While the consequences of war in Syria are known throughout the world, the misogyny and overall violence against women, both domestically and in the workplaces, is not something that is exactly discussed. Five young women, Farah, Eliana, Inana, Souhir, and Grace come together to highlight the issue through a stage play, despite the fact that they realize the problems this...
- 3/16/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Doc previously had world premiere at Berlinale.
Under The Sky Of Damascus by Talal Derki, Heba Khaled and Ali Wajeeh won the Golden Alexander prize in the international competition of the 25th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, which closed on March 12.
The Denmark-Germany-us-Syrian co-production centres on a group of young Syrian women producing a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted their lives. The documentary had its world premiere in the Panorama section of this year Berlinale.
The Golden Alexander comes with a €12,000 and secures the place in the pre-selection shortlist for the Best Documentary Academy Award.
Under The Sky Of Damascus by Talal Derki, Heba Khaled and Ali Wajeeh won the Golden Alexander prize in the international competition of the 25th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, which closed on March 12.
The Denmark-Germany-us-Syrian co-production centres on a group of young Syrian women producing a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted their lives. The documentary had its world premiere in the Panorama section of this year Berlinale.
The Golden Alexander comes with a €12,000 and secures the place in the pre-selection shortlist for the Best Documentary Academy Award.
- 3/13/2023
- by Alexis Grivas
- ScreenDaily
The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival wrapped its 25th edition with a muted closing night on Sunday, with festival organizers scrapping an official award ceremony as Greece continues to mourn the loss of 57 lives in a deadly rail accident on Feb. 28.
The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day.
Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”
Many of the awarded filmmakers were nevertheless on hand at Thessaloniki’s Olympion cinema on Sunday night, for the world premiere of “My Pet and Me,” by Dutch documentary filmmaker Johan Kramer.
The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day.
Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”
Many of the awarded filmmakers were nevertheless on hand at Thessaloniki’s Olympion cinema on Sunday night, for the world premiere of “My Pet and Me,” by Dutch documentary filmmaker Johan Kramer.
- 3/13/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Purchasing and shooting on celluloid film, especially in this age of closing processing labs, is expensive for large and smaller productions alike: the documentary movement got its first legs in the ‘60s as its practitioners worked with the more economical 16mm film gauge, and a second burst of momentum in the early ‘00s with the advent of digital video. And their byword is quantity: the camera needs to roll and roll, so nary anything vital in the “actuality” shooting process is missed.
Under the Sky of Damascus is yet another testimony to what the camera can pick up, and the bevy of uncontrollable variables put into motion by any documentary project, especially if the filmmakers seem to be on the lookout for quite something else. This Berlinale-premiering work, by Syrian co-directors Talal Derki, Heba Khaled (the main deviser and narrator of the project), and film critic Ali Wajeeh, has a fractal dimension,...
Under the Sky of Damascus is yet another testimony to what the camera can pick up, and the bevy of uncontrollable variables put into motion by any documentary project, especially if the filmmakers seem to be on the lookout for quite something else. This Berlinale-premiering work, by Syrian co-directors Talal Derki, Heba Khaled (the main deviser and narrator of the project), and film critic Ali Wajeeh, has a fractal dimension,...
- 3/2/2023
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival kicks off its 25th edition Thursday at a time when the nonfiction genre has arguably reached unprecedented heights.
This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews).
Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the...
This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews).
Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the...
- 2/28/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
A sense of foreboding haunts Under the Sky of Damascus, a sobering documentary directed by Syrian filmmakers Talal Derki, Heba Khaled and Ali Wajeeh.
The film opens with a vindicating interview: The Syrian actress Sabah Al-Salem takes a long drag of her cigarette before recounting how her refusal to sleep with a high-ranking military officer landed her in prison. She looks down at the dining room table as she answers the gentle prodding of her interviewers. “You must have heard of the problems I encountered,” she says in response to their inquiries.
The interviewers — Farah and Souhir — respond with nods. Yes, they have heard of the abuse Al-Salem faced. They know that she was abandoned by friends in the film industry and all but disappeared from public life. They also understand, on a personal level, how their deeply misogynistic country offers no recourse or salvation for women. When Al-Salem says...
The film opens with a vindicating interview: The Syrian actress Sabah Al-Salem takes a long drag of her cigarette before recounting how her refusal to sleep with a high-ranking military officer landed her in prison. She looks down at the dining room table as she answers the gentle prodding of her interviewers. “You must have heard of the problems I encountered,” she says in response to their inquiries.
The interviewers — Farah and Souhir — respond with nods. Yes, they have heard of the abuse Al-Salem faced. They know that she was abandoned by friends in the film industry and all but disappeared from public life. They also understand, on a personal level, how their deeply misogynistic country offers no recourse or salvation for women. When Al-Salem says...
- 2/24/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Millions of women in the Muslim world live under the dominion of men, subject to their rules, confined by their power. The documentary Under the Sky of Damascus, making its world premiere tonight at the Berlin Film Festival, examines the alarming gender politics in one ancient locality — the capital of Syria.
“Women are more enslaved than ever in these times,” actress Sabah Al Salem declares in the film directed by Heba Khaled, Oscar nominee Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh. “The biggest exploitations we face are of a sexual nature.”
The film documents an attempt by a female-led theater company to create a bold play about the power imbalance in Syrian society, based on interviews conducted with women from a variety of backgrounds. Many of those testimonies are seen in the documentary, offering stark insight into the reality faced by Syrian women.
“When my dad gets mad, he tends to be aggressive,...
“Women are more enslaved than ever in these times,” actress Sabah Al Salem declares in the film directed by Heba Khaled, Oscar nominee Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh. “The biggest exploitations we face are of a sexual nature.”
The film documents an attempt by a female-led theater company to create a bold play about the power imbalance in Syrian society, based on interviews conducted with women from a variety of backgrounds. Many of those testimonies are seen in the documentary, offering stark insight into the reality faced by Syrian women.
“When my dad gets mad, he tends to be aggressive,...
- 2/20/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Though the world watched — often in silence — as a decade-long civil war tore Syria apart, exiled filmmakers Talal Derki (“Of Fathers and Sons”) and Heba Khaled say an equally brutal but less visible war is still raging.
In “Under the Sky of Damascus,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival, the duo shifts the lens to the silenced majority of Syrian women who routinely face sexual harassment, violence and abuse in their patriarchal society.
The film follows a tight-knit group of young Syrian women who embark upon on a radical project to produce a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted the lives of females in their country for generations.
Fanning out across the war-weary Syrian capital, they record testimonies from actresses to factory workers to stay-at-home mothers, revealing how women from across Syrian society share the same harrowing tales of abuse,...
In “Under the Sky of Damascus,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival, the duo shifts the lens to the silenced majority of Syrian women who routinely face sexual harassment, violence and abuse in their patriarchal society.
The film follows a tight-knit group of young Syrian women who embark upon on a radical project to produce a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted the lives of females in their country for generations.
Fanning out across the war-weary Syrian capital, they record testimonies from actresses to factory workers to stay-at-home mothers, revealing how women from across Syrian society share the same harrowing tales of abuse,...
- 2/20/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
The powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake that recently struck the Turkish-Syrian border, becoming the deadliest disaster in the region’s modern history, is not reverberating much at the Berlin Film Festival.
At least not according to the co-chiefs of Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.
“The festival’s opening ceremony started with Ukraine, ended with Ukraine and touched on Iran. But I don’t think they ever mentioned Turkey,” said Ahmet Boyacıoğlu, president of the fest that has historically always been the country’s prime local cinema catalyst.
The Berlinale points out that its invitation to the opening ceremony had a written appeal to make donations for the Turkish earthquake relief effort to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.
“While I’m here, if a meeting doesn’t start with mention of the earthquake, I feel particularly depressed. And unfortunately that is happening,” noted Antalya’s artistic director, Başak Emre. “And...
At least not according to the co-chiefs of Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.
“The festival’s opening ceremony started with Ukraine, ended with Ukraine and touched on Iran. But I don’t think they ever mentioned Turkey,” said Ahmet Boyacıoğlu, president of the fest that has historically always been the country’s prime local cinema catalyst.
The Berlinale points out that its invitation to the opening ceremony had a written appeal to make donations for the Turkish earthquake relief effort to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.
“While I’m here, if a meeting doesn’t start with mention of the earthquake, I feel particularly depressed. And unfortunately that is happening,” noted Antalya’s artistic director, Başak Emre. “And...
- 2/20/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli and Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
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