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was at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and the January 6th insurrection.
A Getty and NowThis News contributor, her footage has been featured in documentaries by Oscar winning directors and on HBO, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS.
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Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Shockumentary meets Roshamon
`There's your version, there's my version and there's the truth,' is at the murky heart of Andrew Jarecki's brilliant and disturbing, `Roshamon-like' Shockumentary, `Capturing the Friedmans.'
I can't stop thinking about this movie, I've seen it 3 times and each time I believe something different. Like some cubistic courtroom nightmare, each character adamantly tells their version of the truth. The masterful way the filmmakers enlist the viewer as juror, carefully revealing the 'evidence', is at once courageous and exasperating, never manipulative. This is what documentary filmmaking is all about.
What phenomenal luck or fate, while making a movie about Magician Clowns who entertain at privileged New Yorkers children's parties (David Friedman did my sons 4th Birthday), Jarecki and his crew wound up capturing the Friedmans in a way they never could have imagined.
The rich film (not video) and lush score, juxtapose the harsh reality and hysterical blindness of justice, making it even more painful to watch. One particularly haunting scene, a tearful David, alone in his underwear, raging at some future viewer, is so visceral and intimate, you almost have to look away.
Perhaps David and Jesse are in some sense relieved that their truth is finally told. How fortunate they are to have stumbled upon such a noble facilitator as Andrew Jarecki. I met Jesse at a screening recently and was moved by his gentle kindness and David's choice to exonerate his brother over a successful career, is the essence of devotion. The courage of these brothers and of the filmmakers, should garner an Oscar and more importantly, set the record straight. This is truly filmmaking as healing art.
The Art of Amália (2000)
What a beautiful gift this film is
The lament and almost unbearable melancholy of Amalia Rodriques' music goes to a place in the soul that only music can stir. In her voice and magical presence, lies the exquisite agony of the Fado, an art form of which I was unaware until seeing this film.
For me, the success of this beautifully and lovingly crafted documentary lies in the fact that the filmmaker resists the temptation to editorialize and simply allows us to share in the magnetism and elegant passion of this icon. There seems to be an inevitable corrolation between the Portuguese Fado and American Blues.
Documentary filmmaking at its best, transports us to a previously unknown reality. and having been allowed this glimpse, we are transformed.
Abrigado, Sr.de Almeida