Authors — Lauren Wissot
-
“So Many Sequins!”: Penny Lane on Her Tribeca-Debuting Docuseries Mrs. America
Kudos to Anonymous Content and Fremantle for putting together a project focused on the most wholesome of beauty pageants and thinking, “We need the director of Hail, Satan? for this!” Indeed, while the idea might seem absurd on its surface, it’s no more so than the notion of married women from 18 to 80 (and up) going toe to toe (or heel to heel) in evening gowns and swimsuits, sacrificing precious time and exorbitant amounts of money for the chance to wear the Mrs. America crown. And veteran filmmaker Penny Lane, whose 2023 doc Confessions of a Good Samaritan followed […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 8, 2025 -
“It Became More a Story About How the Artwork, and All the Commotion Around It, Affected His Mental Health”: Ole Juncker on His Tribeca-Debuting Take the Money and Run
Ole Juncker’s Tribeca-premiering Take the Money and Run follows Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist to whom the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg loaned $83,000 — money that was to be tangibly incorporated into a specific commission for their 2021 group exhibition centered on the future of working life. (Which was not so creatively titled “Work it out.”) Unfortunately for the museum, Haaning decided to incorporate the dollars into his own personal life instead, though he did deliver a piece called Take the Money and Run — a pair of empty frames — along with an email explaining the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 6, 2025 -
“At the Same Time that We’re Fighting for our Lives, We Are Also Agents of Exploitation, of Domination, of Violence”: Pedro Pinho on his Cannes-Premiering I Only Rest In The Storm
Pedro Pinho’s Cannes-premiering I Only Rest In The Storm follows Sergio, a naive do-gooder who, as the film’s title implies, finds inner peace in places of chaos. In this case it’s the hurly-burly of Guinea-Bissau, where the Portuguese environmental engineer has been hired to produce an impact report that will pave the way for a road-building project to commence. There he meets two charismatic characters, party-loving besties Diara and Guillermhe, the former a native, the latter a Black Brazilian expat. And thus begins a bizarre triangle of love-hate attraction – fueled by a colonialist past, a capitalist present, and an […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 17, 2025 -
“A Human-Ghost Relationship Perfectly Fits Within a Queer Framework”: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke on his Cannes-Premiering A Useful Ghost
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes-premiering A Useful Ghost is a multilayered cinematic extravaganza (and feat) that manages to seamlessly combine several deep themes: toxic pollution, soulless capitalism, the perils of prioritizing self-interest over the good of the community, and the beauty of unconventional romantic relationships. And that’s all while doing so in the guise of a love story equal parts poignant and bonkers involving a man named March and his recently deceased wife Nat, who has now taken the form of a very sleek vacuum cleaner. Just prior to the film’s Cannes’ Critics Week premiere, Filmmaker caught up with the Bangkok-based writer-director […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 17, 2025 -
“One of our Biggest Challenges Was Painting the Pool”: Isaac Gale on Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson’s Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted is a gonzo doc that perfectly reflects its trio of carpe diem stars — fun-loving musicians who reside in a bachelor pad in the hedonistic San Fernando Valley (aka the capital of porn). That Swamp Dogg, Guitar Shorty and Moogstar also happen to be in the AARP demographic (two of the three octogenarians) only adds to the unconventionality of it all. As does the filmmakers’s choice to forego the usual biopic route, which they clearly could have taken. The titular star, born with the far more staid name Jerry […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 2, 2025 -
“The Film Asserts a Clear Political Analysis of Zionism, and Simultaneously Does So While Asserting That No Human Beings are Villains”: Tatyana Tenenbaum on Everything You Have Is Yours
Tatyana Tenenbaum’s Everything You Have Is Yours centers on NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia, specifically her coming to terms, through her chosen art form, with the colonialism and cultural appropriation that birthed the Israeli folk dances she was raised on in Hawaii (by way of Israel/Palestine) and which she still deeply loves. It’s a maddening conundrum that likewise could be applied to the Jewish state itself. As Ahuvia reflects towards the end of the intriguing doc, “Palestinians’ lives are at risk. And Israelis’ lives are at risk because Palestinians’ lives are at risk.” And while much of the film is focused […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 2, 2025 -
“Radiation Became a Presence—Almost Like a Mythical Force”: Zhanana Kurmasheva on We Live Here
“Some places on Earth carry a weight that is almost impossible to put into words” is how Zhanana Kurmasheva puts it in her director’s statement for We Live Here, which world-premiered at CPH:DOX and next screens in the World Showcase section at Hot Docs. Fortunately, Kurmasheva has a way with images that allows her to artistically convey both the gravity and eerie specificity of the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Set in the breathtaking Kazakh steppe, it’s an otherworldly place where the Soviets spent over four decades — until 1991 when Kazakhstan gained its independence — conducting a whopping 456 nuclear tests; […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 1, 2025 -
“What’s Remarkable To Me About the Story of the American Public Library is How Much of It Cuts Across Political Lines”: Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon on Free for All: Inside the Public Library
Nearly 12 years in the making, Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon’s Free for All: Inside the Public Library is a heartfelt journey into the history of an institution that went from a radical idea (the “Free Library Movement”), to an entity taken for granted, to a present-day site of ginned up controversy. It’s also a contemporary cross-country celebration of the (overwhelmingly female) librarians then and now who fought, and continue to fight, for the right to knowledge for all. A few weeks before the doc’s April 29th debut on PBS’s Independent Lens, Filmmaker reached out to the co-directors, both lifelong […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 29, 2025 -
“An Invitation to Connect More Deeply with Our Environment, Ourselves, and Our Collective Power”: Sasha Wortzel on Her Hot Docs-Premiering River of Grass
“Nature will always win in the end,” notes Native American environmental activist Betty Osceola, one of several intriguing characters, human and not, that star in River of Grass, Sasha Wortzel’s highly personal love letter to a region both she and the Miccosukee tribal member call home. In fact, Osceola, a fiery grandmother, has dedicated her entire life to protecting her family — the Everglades itself. (Another thoughtful protagonist, a Miccosukee environmentalist and poet, likewise refers to his tropical surroundings as relatives, adding that “Chosen family is a survival strategy.”) As the strong-willed Osceola sees it, the question is really, “Do […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 28, 2025 -
“What is Remembered… Is a Political Act that Can Be Weaponized”: Vicky Du on Light of the Setting Sun
Vicky Du’s Light of the Setting Sun is both intimate and expansive, tragic and hopeful. It’s a globetrotting look at the filmmaker’s own family across three generations and a trio of countries: the U.S., where Du grew up; Taiwan, where her parents hail from and where many of her relatives still reside; and China, where 95 percent of the clan was massacred during the Cultural Revolution. It’s also a delicate unearthing, and a piecing together of personal history through archival footage and interviews with family members – some more reluctant than others to address the inherited trauma forever looming like […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 18, 2025
