The Lost Sons
Credit: Giulio Biccari
Someday, we might grow tired of true-crime documentaries. But since that day is not today, fire up the hype machine for The Lost Sons, Ursula Macfarlane’s film about Paul Fronczak and his decade-long investigation into his possible kidnapping as a child. Much like Tim Wardle’s acclaimed documentary Three Identical Strangers — which turns a quirky adoption story into something considerably sadder and more sinister —The Lost Sons seems destined to take the internet by fire once it finds its way to a bigger streaming platform. Until then, be one of the cool kids at the film festival and carve out some time for documentaries on your watchlist. This is your one chance to remain a step ahead of the New York Times’s “Watching” newsletter. (Matthew Monagle)
The Spine of Night
Photo by Charles Lavoie
With The Spine of Night, directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King stomp into Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta’s legendary footsteps. Like the cult relic Fire and Ice, their film is an ultra-violent animated fantasy crafted through the forgotten art of rotoscoping, where animators trace over live-action footage frame by frame. The cartoon effect often exhibits an uncanny quality, where absurdity and anatomy clash and mesmerize. Think Conan the Barbarian spun with the odd fluidity of early Walt Disney endeavors. The voice cast is as eclectic as it is tantalizing: Larry Fessenden, Betty Gabriel, Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Rob McClure, Joe Manganiello, Patton Oswalt, and Abby Savage. (Brad Gullickson)
Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free
Tom Petty in the recording studio with Rick Rubin, from the documentary “Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free.” | Credit: Tom Petty Legacy, LLC / Warner Music Group
Where better to premiere the Tom Petty documentary than in the city built at the intersection of country music and rock and roll? Like many of the artists who helped establish Austin as the Live Music Capital of the World, Petty’s career was defined in equal parts by his appreciation for 1960s radio hits and a circle of musical collaborators and contemporaries. And while music documentaries tend to favor behind-the-scenes footage to deeper insights, Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free will still be a welcome addition to the collection of any Heartbreakers fan. Stick around for a moderated conversation with the filmmaking team afterward to learn how they brought together so many different elements in a year unlike any other. (Matthew Monagle)
Violation
Madeleine Sims-Fewer | Credit: DM FILMS
While the focus of most film festivals naturally skews towards new releases and world premieres, don’t sleep on curated festival favorites. This year’s SXSW festival includes a few standout films that deserved better than the truncated 2020/2021 festival season had to offer. One such title is Violation, the buzzy revenge thriller from writers/directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeline Sims-Fewer. Back in February, our own Rob Hunter called Violation “a dark gem worth devouring,” and this is the rare opportunity for genre fans to get a second crack at a controversial title that promises to dominate the conversation for months to come. (Matthew Monagle)
Violet
Olivia Munn as “Violet” in Justine Bateman’s directorial feature film debut | Credit: Mark Williams
Do you hear that little voice inside you? They’re wrong. Ignore them. Better yet, shut them up. The voice is a liar and does not have your best interests at heart. It’s a fear-monger. We need less of that noise. Embrace instinct instead. That’s the message director Justine Bateman wants you to take away from her feature debut. Violet follows a film executive (Olivia Munn) who lets the little voice inside rule every decision. Now, she looks in the mirror, at the life she’s built, and everything feels false. This is not who she wants to be. It’s time to take action and silence the festering doubt that’s been ragging on her since creation. (Brad Gullickson)
When Claude Got Shot
Credit: 371 Productions
Our country has lived with gun violence for so long that many of us have grown accustomed to the broken faces we see on the evening news. But gun violence remains an epidemic in America, one that transcends the political narratives that some attempt to attach to it. Brad Lichtenstein’s When Claude Got Shot promises to do what only the best documentaries can: take something repeated so often in society that it has lost all meaning and breathe it back to life with hyper-localized and deeply empathetic storytelling. This is not just a movie about gun violence; it’s a movie about Claude Motley, Victoria Davison, and Nathan King, and how survivors try to fix that which is broken. (Matthew Monagle)
Witch Hunt
If the zombie was the prized political horror creature of the 2010s, then the 2020s will belong to the witches. The last few years have seen filmmakers turn their attention to purveyors of the dark arts, who — in the words of Xander Harris — are the perfect vehicle for themes of “love the earth and woman power.” Many films about witches are not-so-subtle allegories for ecological horrors or sexual violence in the world around us, and Elle Callahan’s Witch Hunt promises to add an element of immigration to an already fascinating premise. Plus, Witch Hunt was supposed to premiere at the 2020 South by Southwest festival, so here’s to getting a second chance to make a great first impression. (Matthew Monagle)
Related Topics: SXSW
