Doc Corner: 'Summer of Soul' opens Sheffield DocFest

Sheffield DocFest runs from June 3-14. There are virtual selections available at their website. This is their opening night film.

by Glenn Dunks

“The Black Woodstock” goes the elevator pitch for Summer of Soul (…Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a high-spirited documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. “The Black Woodstock” was also the last-ditch effort of a title given by Hal Tulchin to a film he had made about the festival as he attempted to sell it to distributors and networks that had repeatedly turned it down even in the wake of the Oscar-winning success of Woodstock. Nobody wanted Tulchin’s film, which is a ridiculous idea in hindsight. Of course, it is hardly a surprising one for all the reasons you would expect.

Tulchin passed away in 2017 at age 90 and so never got to see Summer of Soul, the final product that has been directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (aka Questlove). That is a shame. I suspect he would have loved it...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: The best of this year's virtual documentary festivals

By Glenn Dunks

Despite what may be happening across the rest of film distribution, the documentary realm has barely had a chance to breathe. Just as there ever was, there are so many titles coming out each and every week that it is impossible to keep up with in a weekly column. This includes not just new releases to streaming, VOD and virtual cinemas (and now, as lockdowns cease around the globe, theatrical), but also festivals.

In fact, I’ve been able to attend more than any before. Whereas I wouldn’t have had the time nor the access to ‘attend’ England’s Sheffield Doc/Fest or the United States’ AFI Docs or Canada’s Hot Docs, I was able to finish my day job in the afternoon and take a quick world tour of some of the finest documentary and non-fiction festivals around. And there’s still more of them to come (like DocNYC) because, folks? There’s just so.many.movies. 

I wanted to highlight the best that I saw across each of the three festivals and give a spotlight to movies that took me to a poisoned Martinique, the frontlines of the women’s liberation movement, and the underground dance scene of Baltimore...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: Women in music

By Glenn Dunks

At least once a year, we do a round-up of some of the music documentaries that are making the rounds. This year there is a particular focus on women in music with a range of titles covering pop (Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl), punk and new wave (The Go-Go’s), rock (Suzy Q) and whatever it is that sits in between all of them (Sisters with Transistors)—and they of course sit alongside names like Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn in Ken Burns' Country Music, which we looked at recently.

I have actually already written about Liam Firmager and Tait Brady’s Aussie-made Suzi Q upon its local Australian release last year. I was impressed by its high energy retelling of the career of the “Devil Gate Drive” and "Can the Can" singer and guitarist Suzi Quatro. A rollicking is simply structured documentary that is appropriate daggy for the musician at its centre. You can read my full review at ScreenHub so let’s move on to the rest, which make for an entertaining dive through diverse musical stories.

Click to read more ...