Puig’s Picks at SBIFF

SBIFF Program Director Claudia Puig shared a few of her favorite films that will be unspooling over the next 10 days at the festival:

Madu – I adore this movie with all my heart. It’s a documentary about a 12-year-old Nigerian kid who wants to be a ballet dancer, but there is no ballet in Nigeria. So he teaches himself, makes a video which goes viral, and is seen by a very prestigious school in England, who offers him a scholarship. There are so many highs and lows in the story it almost feels like a fiction film. It spans the spectrum of human experience – your heart is warmed, but there’s also some very difficult moments. (Played opening night but will likely have an additional screening.) 

That They May Face the Rising Sun – It’s an Irish film set in a rural lakeside community in the 1980s and it’s just beautiful. The acting is masterful, and the cinematography is striking. 

Suze – Every festival struggles with finding great comedies, because most submissions have darker and more substantial subjects. It’s also incredibly hard to make a movie that’s consistently funny for 90 minutes, but the good ones definitely resonate with an audience. Suze is really funny and very relatable. It’s about a single mom whose only daughter leaves for college, and somehow she gets stuck taking care of her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, whom she can’t stand.

Fresh Kills – Actress Jennifer Esposito’s (NCIS, Blue Bloods) first time behind the camera. It’s a mafioso family – like The Sopranos – but focusing on the females, the experiences of the mother and the daughters. 

Viselka – Three generations of Ukrainian Americans who have run a Ukrainian restaurant in New York for 70 years, but aren’t sure if the youngest is going to take over – and meanwhile there’s the war. It’s narrated by David Duchovny, who grew up in the neighborhood. 

Diving Into the Darkness – It’s about the world’s premier underwater cave diver, Jill Heinerth, and it’s amazing. You feel like you’re going into these caves and on her journey with her. 

Another Happy Day – It’s in the unique genre of a postpartum depression comedy. Carrie Coon stars as a woman who is not taking well to motherhood. It’s not just for women, because everybody is dealing with all kinds of things, and it’s very, very funny.

All You Hear is Noise – A profile of four Special Olympics World Games athletes with intellectual disabilities that made me think of Spelling Bee, because the film makers manage to pick the winners, and it’s just fascinating to watch their journeys and what happens afterward, when they have to readjust to life back home. 

On Earth as in Heaven –My favorite drama this year. It’s about a young girl who escapes a religious cult in Canada and ends up having to adjust to life in a regular civilization after living a very cloistered life. It’s really, really well acted. Think Handmaid’s Tale meets Women Talking. 

Short Cuts: Notes on Some SBIFF Films

Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea is filmmaker Joe Wein’s world premiere documentary based on Steven Callahan’s bestselling 1986 novel of the same name – chronicling how he survived more than two months in a raft on the Atlantic. Found 8mm footage, original stills from the time of the voyage, original artifacts, and Callahan’s first-person re-creation illustrate a step-by-step, day-by-day approach, a surprisingly easy-going take of his harrowing and life-altering adventure. The film features an original score by Patrick Stump, lead vocalist of Fall Out Boy… Giants Rising is a gorgeously shot doc about America’s tallest trees, with the perspective that the redwoods have a lot to teach us… Taking Back the Groove is a 30-minute short featuring disco legend Richie Weeks (“Rock Your World”), a Bronx-born star of the NYC scene who underwent trials, tribulations and successes; executive produced by Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan…

Strangely, this year doesn’t have any feature-length documentaries about musicians, but two different comedians are subjects at SBIFF, including the late, great Andy Kaufman (Thank You Very Much) and Shari Lewis, the ahead-of-her-time ventriloquist and children’s entertainer (Shari and Lamb Chop). Both are well worth seeing. 

Chelsea Peretti (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Sing 2) makes her directorial debut with, wait for it, First Time Female Director; a feature she also wrote, produced and starred in, with cameos by Megan Mullally, Amy Poehler, Andy Richter and many others. See it on the big screen before it debuts on The Roku Channel.