I was asked once again to contribute to the website for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (taking place October 23 to November 1), and this year wrote four articles discussing five films.
Margaret Brown, one of my favourite filmmakers (and my buddy since her beautiful debut Be Here to Love Me screened at TIFF a million years ago) has her utterly brilliant documentary The Great Invisible at ADFF. The film also opens in NYC and LA this Friday -- you should see it if you can. My ADFF review here may give you some arguments why. (Like how I did that?!) Or, if I can't persuade you, here's the trailer.
I also contributed articles on:
- Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes, a film that joins Margaret's in being, in essence, about the American soul and which was my top pick at TIFF this year;
- Theeb, the first ever "Bedouin Western" and another film that also really dazzled me at TIFF;
- and the aesthetic choices fueling two disparate documentaries, The Wanted 18 and Iraqi Odyssey. The former uses stop-motion animation (of cows, no less) and the latter 3D.
It's always a pleasure to write for ADFF as their programming team tends to select many of my top picks that I've seen at Hot Docs or TIFF and they really let me write whatever I want in my reviews of the films; to whit, my review of The Great Invisible has pretty pointed things to say about the oil industry and did I mention that the festival is in Abu Dhabi...? Anyhow, if you are interested in my latest published musings on films, the links above will take you there.
