Brooke Guinan is the first transgendered woman firefighter in the FDNY, something that has come with challenges beyond her transitioning and her private struggles. Now seen as an example of a courage and tenacity, she tells her story through showing her life and interviews.
Author Archives: Emilie Black
Spirit Game: Pride of a Nation (2017)
For the first time since the sport has been played around the world, the World Box Lacrosse Championships were held on an Indian Reservation. Spirit Game: Pride of a Nation explores the road to these championships, the sport’s history, and what it means to the Indian nations.
Whisky Galore! (2017)
A small island village in Scotland runs out of whisky and the population is desperate, until a ship wrecks nearby. This leads a few locals to plan some less than legal activities to solve their issues.
A Selection of the Shorts from Stranger With My Face 2017 [Stranger With My Face International Film Festival 2017]
Stanger With My Face International Film Festival is a festival that concentrates on female-make film, with a definite penchant to horror and life explorations. Each edition brings current films and issues as well as older films and a bunch of shorts to their audience while also pushing them to think about some of the issues women face in life as well as in moviemaking.
Dearest Sister (2016) [Stranger With My Face International Film Festival 2017]
A young woman leaves home to go work for her cousin the city as this one is gradually going blind. As the cousin’s sight leaves her, she get a gift of being able to see and communicate with the dead. Her newly arrived cousin has difficulty adapting and may not be going about things the best way.
Violet (2017)
A teen witnesses a murder and must come to terms with what he saw. Through his interactions with friends and family, he attempts to but can’t seem to find the way.
Violet was written and directed by Bas Devos, for whom this is a first feature according to IMDB. This film is interesting in terms of how it develops around the lead that saw the murder. It’s a simple story with strong emotional impact in terms of a teen dealing with grief, survivor guilt, and other hard feelings to handle at such at any age, especially as a teen. The film explores this with mostly following the lead’s daily life and what he sees while trying to work through this. The story has good, interesting elements but what really shine are the lead, its actor, and the visuals.
Playing God (2017) [Hot Docs 2017]
In the US (and other countries), when mass casualties happen, people and organization plan the payouts and how much each person gets. This person often times, in the biggest cases, is US attorney Ken Feinberg. Playing God is a documentary about him and his life, working on some of the toughest cases in the country including 9/11, the BP oil spill, and a case of pension funds being taken away. Through the film, his persona is slowly shed to reveal the man behind the cases, making him more human and more relatable.