It's All True and Hot Docs Review Roundup

Hey, everyone! It’s Pedro. Last April, I had the opportunity to cover two of my favorite film festivals: It’s All True and Hot Docs. As a film critic, I covered a festival in person for the first time. I traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, and I could watch a short film block in the IMS cinema, the Moreira Salles Institute, a museum, arts center, and cinema created by the father of the Brazilian filmmakers João Moreira Salles and Walter Salles, Walther Moreira Salles. It was an outstanding experience to visit Brazil’s best cultural centers, connect with Brazilian filmmakers, and meet legends like the documentary theorist Bill Nichols. A couple of weeks later, I covered the Hot Docs festival virtually. I could watch plenty of features and short documentaries from around the globe. I will cover some of the shorts I watched in both festivals. Thank you so much for reading ShortStick!

Dois Nilos - Directed by Samuel Lobo & Rodrigo de Janeiro

Brazilian cinema lives from its memories. It sounds cliché, but most of our production doesn't have proper preservation, and gets lost in time. They are blurring remembrances of celluloid dreams. In Dois Nilos (Two Niles), a Brazilian filmmaker reminds us of his glory days. Afranio Vital walks through the Cinelândia, a neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro where the old cinemas would have massive lobbies and thousands of seats. Afranio narrates about the films he watched in each of those places. Of course, they do not exist anymore. Now, they are protestant churches or drugstores. Cinelândia, which translates to Cinemaland, barely has any cinemas nowadays. 

The directors, Samuel Lobo and Rodrigo de Janeiro, walk us through a bittersweet journey. An unknown legend talks about his work, but most of it is gone. Fire accidents, poor preservation states, and the lack of funds for digitalization are responsible for Brazilian productions disappearing from the reels. Vital is only an example of many local directors losing their work due to the inappropriate conditions. However, Lobo and de Janeiro do not discuss the lack of public policies to protect Brazilian cinema. They are interested in eternalizing the films of their subject, even though they are a vague memory from their idealizer.

Therefore, the director presents a hybrid disposal to emulate some of his creations. Dois Nilos is about how films materialize in their creators' minds and do not leave. Vital stages in neon lights, what his movies looked like. Somehow, it is a way to write them into history. When we watch it, the bitterness comes. How could we let a creation of a filmmaker disappear forever? In a maddening, but simplistic answer, there are many factors involved. Discussing them is necessary, but Dois Nilos does something even better: it expands and documents the love of a cinephile.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Vital was passionate about films. He loves them. His passion connected him with many directors and made him one. Watching films led him to become one. It even provokes us to question most current filmmakers: Do they love films? Many do, others make movies for the money of studios and streamers;  it depends. Instead of providing a deeper discussion on the relationship between cinephilia and filmmaking, the film celebrates both. The cinephile directors must tell their histories and how cinema impacts them. Luckily, we listen to their thoughts about their favourite movies and learn how to enjoy cinema in our own way.

Returning to the bitter element, Dois Nilos exposes how Brazil does not preserve cinema. In this sense, the film tells us about one of many cases of directors without films in decent conditions. However, Samuel Lobo and Rodrigo de Janeiro celebrate the memories we create by making and watching movies.

Review by Pedro Lima

Alice - Directed by Gabriel Novis

We are always searching for meaning as individuals: who we are, what we will do with our lives, a couple of questions with no simplistic answer. In Gabriel Novis' film Alice, we meet a girl called Alice. She lives in Recife, Pernambuco, a city in the northeast of Brazil. Immediately, we do not know much about her. However, we watch how active she is. Alice skates throughout the city and narrates over a voice-over about her life. Suddenly, we learn plenty of crucial and heartbreaking information about her: she is a trans woman and has lost her father. It shifts the film's tone, and we dive deeper into her reality. 

The director fills the screen with a bright and textured cinematography shot on film. The work by Bernardo Negri is impressive in exploring the possibilities of using the colors, the lighting, and the consistency of celluloid to broaden the history. The collaborative work by Negri and Novis contextualizes colours in the complexity of the subject. When the topic is heavier, especially when she talks about the death of her father and discrimination, it gets to a tone of blue. Otherwise, whenever she talks about her true self, the film has more solar shots, alluding to clarity and happiness. It is a fascinating choice to portray her drama. 

The film also explores the central drama of the short respectfully and delicately. Alice felt safe surfing in the sea. However, when her father passed and she came out as trans, she did not feel safe anymore in that particular space. It is a comprehensive choice, Brazil is the country with the highest number of homicides of trans individuals. It is a country that does not respect the community, and violence towards the group does not have serious consequences. In this sense, it is understandable how recently transitioned persons may not feel secure in society. Therefore, the director constructs the dramatic arc efficiently. 

Gabriel Novis finds in Alice a powerful subject and a beautiful story of finding oneself. The director portrays a young woman through meticulously well-executed cinematography by Bernardo Negri, which visually empowers the dramatic elements of this story. 

Alice recently played at the Hot Docs Festival and won the International Documentary Short Award. It qualifies for the 98th Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Short Film Category.

Review by: Pedro Lima

Heartbeat - Directed by Jay Rosenblatt & Stephanie Rapp

The American documentary filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt became a notable name in the community after his short film When We Were Bullies was nominated for an Academy Award in 2021. The year after, in 2022, he got another nomination with How Do You Measure a Year? Both films feature a personal nature to the directing approach and explore events in his life. When We Were Bullies explores the toxicity of his childhood, and How Do You Measure a Year documents the growth of his daughter. 

This year, Rosenblatt and his wife, Stephanie Rapp, expose their relationship in short film Heartbeat. The film uses footage from different stages of her pregnancy; the tests, a spontaneous abortion, and a second pregnancy. Throughout the whole duration, we watch their relationship face conflicts, as they are not sure if they should have a child when their marriage is so rocky. 

If the audience is unfamiliar with his filmography, the film may feel uncomfortable. It is an utterly personal representation of a couple's life. They argue about whether they should have a kid in their current state, and there is no filtering in what we watch. There is nudity, discussion, and even medical procedures. Sure, they had more than twenty years to analyze the material and edit it in a manner that creates transparency in their relationship. Yet, similarly to his other efforts, most of the short film primarily uses jump cuts to tell its story. Jay shifts from conversations to another without clear context; we ourselves must figure out what is happening on the screen. Therefore, it creates confusion, more background information would complement the storytelling. How can we understand what is happening with them if they do not tell us? 

In this sense, the film contradicts itself. It is a raw portrayal of the lives of Jay and Stephanie. The vulnerability is present there. We see the nude body of Stephanie, her crying, and the discussions about their future. Yet, the editing manipulates us to fill the gap. Sure, every editing process is the manipulation of the frames per se; however, the work here lacks information to comprehend what we cannot see. It is so personal, but at times, so distant. It also does not help the way her personality is represented in the film. The footage selection emphasizes two aspects of her personality: anger and doubt. She is mad at Jay and unsure if she wants to become a mother. It shifts from those emotional states and does not broaden the emotionality that pregnancy brings. 

Heartbeat cannot find an ideal balance between the pains of parenthood and relationship conflicts. Hence, the editing work jumps cuts to inconclusive footage that only represents Stephanie as a doubtful woman.  It does not explore the drama of nurturing a fetus with no heartbeat; instead, it becomes a flawed interaction of two adults who cannot reach an agreement. Conclusively, it is another addition to Jay Rosenblatt's familiar documentary canon that may not resonate with its audience. 

Review by Pedro Lima