this week in film and television

PICTURE OF HIS LIFE (WITH LIVE Q&A)

Amos Nachoum searches for the elusive polar bear in Picture of His Life

Who: Dani Menkin, Amos Nachoum
What: Live Q&A about Picture of His Life (Yonatan Nir & Dani Menkin, 2019)
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
When: Tuesday, June 23, free with advance RSVP, 8:30
Why: Captain Ahab had his great white whale in Moby-Dick, Captain Quint had his great white shark in Jaws, and Timothy Treadwell had his grizzly bear in Grizzly Man. People have been obsessed with animals in the wild since the dawn of humanity, as prey, for food, for sport, and for companionship. In Picture of His Life, directors Yonatan Nir and Dani Menkin track legendary Israeli-American underwater photographer Amos Nachoum as he attempts to cap his remarkable career by capturing, on film, a polar bear — “the world’s largest land carnivore,” opening text points out — while swimming with it in its native habitat. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for a long time. After all these years of photographing in the wild, there is one subject that eludes me: that is photographing the polar bear in the water,” Nachoum admits.

So the filmmakers join Nachoum, his Emmy-winning cinematographer, Adam Ravetch, local Inuit guide Joe Kaludjak, and a few others on a five-day journey in the gorgeous Canadian Arctic. Nachoum, who turned seventy this year, is a Hemingway-esque figure, ruggedly handsome, introspective, a man of few words, devoted to his mission. “Amos, to me, is one of the best ambassadors of the ocean. There’s a message in every one of his pictures. Sometimes he takes huge amounts of risks to bring those images which nobody else has been able to capture,” says oceanographic explorer Jean Michel Cousteau, son of Jacques Cousteau. “Amos is like a scientist, observing carefully, and then reporting honestly,” National Geographic explorer in residence Dr. Sylvia Earle notes. “He doesn’t have a normal life,” explains underwater photographer Javier Mendoza, adding, “He’s married to the ocean.”

Nir (My Hero Brother, The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel) and Menkin (39 Pounds of Love, On the Map), who previously collaborated on Dolphin Boy, about an Arab teenager who finds help from dolphins after being horrifically beaten, also speak with Scuba Diving Hall of Famer Howard Rosenstein, photographer J. Michael, Whitaker, The Blue Planet director Andy Byatt, shark expert Avi Klepfer, and Nachoum’s two sisters, Ilana Nachoum and Michal Gilboa, who discuss Amos’s difficult relationship with their father; some of his fellow soldiers talk about how serving in an elite commando unit in the 1973 Yom Kippur War affected them all. A self-described “soldier of the sea,” Nachoum is shown sitting alone in a dark room, projecting his wildlife photos from a carousel the way families look at vacation pictures together. “The polar bear for Amos is personal; it symbolizes something that makes it more than a picture of the polar bear. It’s a picture of his life,” Mendoza says.

The film is spectacularly photographed by Nir aboveground and Ravetch underwater; the small expedition seems to have the entire world all to itself. Editors Taly Goldenberg, Martin Singer, and Shlomi Shalom cut from the Canadian Arctic to Nachoum’s remarkable wildlife photos, from archival war footage to old snapshots and video of Nachoum as a boy and a young man. Nir manages to catch Nachoum, the 2019 SeaKeeper of the Year, several times by himself, lying on a rock, looking up at the sky or out at the ocean, a strong but quiet man still searching for purpose, still seeking approval as he risks his life yet again for what for him is more than just a photograph, a different kind of old man and the sea. Picture of His Life can be streamed via the Angelika or the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan; Menkin and Nachoum will participate in a live Q&A through the JCC on June 23 at 8:30 that is free with advance RSVP here.

UNSETTLED: SEEKING REFUGE IN AMERICA FREE SCREENING AND LIVE Q&A

Unsettled follows four LGBTQ immigrants seeking refuge in America

Who: Samantha Power, Ari Shapiro, Tom Shepard, Subhi Nahas
What: Free screening and live Q&A of Unsettled (Tom Shepard, 2019)
Where: WORLD Channel and ITVS
When: Monday, June 22, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: “I just want to live a normal life,” Junior Mayema says in Tom Shepard’s heart-wrenching documentary Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America. In honor of the UN’s World Refugee Day, which took place on June 20, the film is being streamed on June 22 at 7:00, followed by a Q&A with producer-director Shepard, former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro, and one of the film’s subjects, Subhi Nahas, a Syrian refugee who has unexpectedly become a spokesman for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers.

In the film, Shepard (Scout’s Honor, The Grove) follows the agonizing plight of several LGBTQ people who have escaped dangerous situations in their homeland to try to make a new, safer life in the United States, but obstacles abound. “I was always the black sheep, I was always the outcast. I think most gay people in Syria felt the same: isolation, people mocking them. And it’s been a lonely place for twenty-five years,” Subhi says. He left Syria shortly after an al-Qaeda branch began terrorizing gay people in his hometown in 2012; as he becomes a leader in the gay refugee movement, he is determined to get his sister out as well.

Cheyenne Adriano and Mari N’Timansieme are partners in love, music, and business, attempting to gain asylum through legal channels after their lives were jeopardized first in their native Angola, then in Capetown, South Africa. “Being kicked out by the people you most love and trust, I have this anger in my heart,” Cheyenne says. “At least here, we’re not going to have people stalking us, or following us, or throwing rocks, or calling us names on the street. I think this doesn’t happen here in America, right?”

Junior, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has the most difficulty making the transition, having trouble finding a job, friends, and a place to sleep. While Subhi, Cheyenne, and Mari are driven by very specific goals, Junior is lost, his life further disrupted by his alcoholism. Among those offering support to the four of them are various professionals, officials, and volunteers, including Powers, refugee and asylum advocate Melanie Nathan, refugee sponsor Fred Hertz, director of refugee services Amy Weiss, LGBT refugee advocate Neil Grungras, and attorney Kathlyn Querubin, but the road is not an easy one, for any of them.

The film is especially relevant given several recent developments in the USA, with the Supreme Court declaring that gay, lesbian, and transgender workers are covered by antibias laws and ruling on cases involving legal and illegal immigration. LGBTQ refugees come to America, fleeing countries where their sexual orientation might not only be against the law but is punishable by death, yet they still have to go through a complex system in order to gain asylum here. It’s a harrowing journey that does not always have a happy ending, even in San Francisco, and now under the current administration. After the free screening and live discussion on June 22, the documentary will be available for streaming on the WORLD channel and PBS from June 28 to July 12.

INSIDER INSIGHTS: GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING

Gerhard Richter reveals his creative process in fascinating documentary (photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

Who: Brinda Kumar, Corinna Belz
What: Livestreamed prerecorded discussion
Where: MetMuseum Facebook and YouTube
When: Tuesday, June 23, free, 6:00
Why: In conjunction with the expansive Met Breuer exhibition “Gerhard Richter: Painting After All,” which opened March 4 for a brief run before the pandemic lockdown and hopefully will continue once the crisis is over, the Met’s “Insider Insights” series will examine Corinna Belz’s 2011 documentary, Gerhard Richter Painting. [Ed. note: It was announced on June 22 that the Met Breuer will be closing for good, so the exhibition will not be coming back.] On June 23 at 6:00, writer-director Belz will be joined by Met Modern and Contemporary Art assistant curator Brinda Kumar for a prerecorded interview discussing the making of the film, which can be streamed for free through July 31 here.

There’s nothing abstract about the title of Belz’s documentary on the German artist, no missing words or punctuation marks. Gerhard Richter Painting is primarily just that: Ninety-seven minutes of Gerhard Richter painting as he prepares for several exhibitions, including a 2009 show at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York City. In 2007, Belz got a rare chance to capture Richter on camera, making a short film focusing on the stained-glass window he designed for the Cologne Cathedral. Two years later, the shy, reserved Richter, who prefers to have his art speak for itself, invited Belz into his studio, giving her remarkable access inside his creative process, which revealingly relies so much on chance and accident. Belz films Richter as he works on two large-scale canvases on which he first slathers yellow paint, adds other colors, then takes a large squeegee and drags it across the surface, changing everything. It’s fascinating to watch Richter study the pieces, never quite knowing when they are done, unsure of whether they are any good. It’s also painful to see him take what looks like an extraordinary painting and then run the squeegee over it yet again, destroying what he had in order to see if he can make it still better. “They do what they want,” he says of the paintings. “I planned something totally different.”

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About halfway through the film, a deeply concerned Richter starts regretting his decision to allow the camera into his studio. “It won’t work,” he says. “At the moment it seems hopeless. I don’t think I can do this, painting under observation. That’s the worst thing there is.” But continue he does, for Belz’s and our benefit. Belz (Life After Microsoft, Peter Handke: In the Woods, Might Be Late) even gets Richter to talk a little about his family while looking at some old photos, offering intriguing tidbits about his early life and his escape to Düsseldorf just before the Berlin Wall went up. Belz also includes clips from 1966 and 1976 interviews with Richter, and she attends a meeting he has with Goodman about his upcoming show, lending yet more insight into the rather eclectic artist. “To talk about painting is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too,” Richter, who turned eighty-eight in February, says in the 1966 clip. However, watching Gerhard Richter Painting is far from pointless; Belz has made a compelling documentary about one of the great, most elusive artists of our time. “Man, this is fun,” Richter says at one point, and indeed it is; watching the masterful artist at work is, well, a whole lot more fun than watching paint dry.

SANFORD BIGGERS IN CONVERSATION WITH ROSELEE GOLDBERG: THE SOMETHIN’ SUITE

Sanford Biggers will talk to Performa head RoseLee Goldberg about The Somethin’ Suite and more on Juneteenth

Who: Sanford Biggers, RoseLee Goldberg
What: Talk and screening surrounding The Somethin’ Suite
Where: Performa Instagram Live and Performa website
When: Talk: Friday, June 19, free, noon; screening: June 18 & 19, free, 7:00
Why: In honor of Juneteenth, the anniversary of the end of the Civil War and slavery, Performa chief curator RoseLee Goldberg will discuss art, politics, systemic racism, and more with New York City-based multidisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers. The talk will take place on Instagram Live at noon, in conjunction with screenings on June 18 and 19 of Biggers’s 2007 Performa commission, The Somethin’ Suite, what he called “a post minstrel cycle” and “a darke xperiment.” The twenty-five-minute performance, held at the Box, featured Martin Luther, Saul Williams, Esthero, Shae Fiol, Imani Uzuri, DJ Dahi Sundance, CX KidTRONiK, and Freedome Bradley as a wide range of characters staging a minstrel show, using spoken word, song, music, dance, and film to bring to stark light historical aspects of racism.

In a 2007 interview, Biggers, who was raised in Los Angeles, told Goldberg, “The whole institution of our popular cultural media, which started with minstrel shows and has now become the hip hop music industry — one of the most lucrative entertainment industries worldwide — originated with making a mockery of blacks. So I’m interested in how much and how little has changed in these last 150 years. We’re at a crucial moment in race relations in America right now, with a lot of old wounds being reopened and reexamined. With the ‘PC’ ethos of the ’90s having passed, and a black man being seriously considered for the US presidency, we cannot afford to not develop a more sophisticated understanding of ‘race’ and ‘otherness.’ So I thought it was a perfect time to really look at the history of how we’ve been imagining ourselves, as African Americans, how white people have projected their stereotypes onto us, and how we’ve reflected their obsession by projecting some of those stereotypes back, because neither party is solely guilty — there’s a complicity.” Given what is happening right now in America, from George Floyd to Aunt Jemima, this program could not be any more timely.

YES! REFLECTIONS OF MOLLY BLOOM

molly bloom

Who: Aedín Moloney of the Irish Repertory Theatre
What: Livestreamed performances adapted for onscreen viewing
Where: Irish Rep onine (link sent after RSVP)
When: Tuesday, June 16, 7:00; Wednesday, June 17, 3:00 & 8:00; Thursday, June 18, 7:00; Friday, June 19, 8:00; Saturday, June 20, 3:00, advance RSVP required (suggested donation $25)
Why: The Irish Rep has become one of the busiest theater companies in New York City during the pandemic, presenting a brand-new coronavirus-related work and hosting the Meet the Makers and The Show Must Go Online series. On May 27 it premiered The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, Darren Murphy’s short, heartbreaking work about a man (Marty Rea) in Belfast with Covid-19 unable to visit his dying mother (Marie Mullen) in Dublin, who is being cared for by her brother (Seán McGinley). Directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, the play gets right to the heart of the crisis as only Irish tales can; it will be available online through October 31.

The Irish Rep now turns its attention to adapting several recent stage productions for the internet, beginning with Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom. The award-winning seventy-five-minute one-woman show, based on James Joyce’s epic Ulysses, was adapted by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann, directed by Kira Simring, and features music by Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains (and Aedín’s father); it originally ran at the company’s home on West Twenty-Second St. in June and July of last year, with Moloney as Molly Bloom in the early morning hours of June 17, 1904, as she considers love, loneliness, and isolation. The full team has now reimagined the play for onscreen viewing, with Aedín Moloney reprising her role; it will be performed live from June 16 — Bloomsday, when Joyce’s iconic tome takes place — through June 20. Admission is free with advance RSVP, with a suggested donation of $25.

The Irish Rep continues its online foray with “Meet the Maker: Frank McCourt . . . And How He Got That Way: A Conversation with Ellen McCourt and Malachy McCourt” on June 18; “Meet the Maker: Conor McPherson” on July 2; a special gala screening with new video of Frank McCourt’s The Irish . . . and How They Got That Way on July 13; “Meet the Makers: John Douglas Thompson and Obi Abili on Breaking Barriers in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones” on July 16; Dan Butler, Sean Gormley, John Keating, Tim Ruddy, and Amanda Quaid in an online version of Conor McPherson’s The Weir from July 21 to 25; and a virtual version of Barry Day’s Love, Noël, a musical about Noël Coward starring Steve Ross and KT Sullivan, from August 11 to 15. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, but I can’t wait to be at my computer to experience the joy of live theater, even if it’s through a screen.

92Y CONFRONTS HATE: ANNA DEAVERE SMITH IN CONVERSATION WITH EW’s SARAH RODMAN

Anna Deavere Smith and Sarah Rodman will discuss in live 92Y talk

Anna Deavere Smith and Sarah Rodman will discuss hate and inequality in livestreamed 92Y talk

Who: Anna Deavere Smith, Sarah Rodman
What: Live discussion about hate and inequality
Where: 92Y YouTube
When: Monday, June 15, free (donations accepted), 7:00
Why: In March 1994, actress, playwright, teacher, and author Anna Deavere Smith wrote and starred in her Tony-nominated one-woman show Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, in which she portrayed dozens of characters to tell the story of the 1992 LA riots after the acquittal of police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. Late last year, the Signature Theatre revived Smith’s Fires in the Mirror, about the 1991 Crown Heights riots following the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato. (The Signature was scheduled to revive Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 this spring, but it was canceled because of the Covid-19 crisis.) So the Baltimore-born Smith should have a lot to say about what is happening in America when she sits down for a conversation on June 15 at 7:00 with EW’s Sarah Rodman as part of the 92nd St. Y’s Confronting Hate initiative. You can prep for the free event by watching the filmed version of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 on PBS, while Smith’s latest work, Notes from the Field, which explores racial injustice in the school-to-prison pipeline, is available on HBO. “92Y Confronts Hate” began on June 7 with the panel “The Politics of the Pandemic,” followed June 8 with Rabbi Peter Rubinstein and Reverend Jacques Andre DeGraff discussing “Building Bridges: Is it Possible?” and continues June 17 with “Directly from France” with Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur and Rabbi Rubinstein and June 18 with “Praying with Our Hearts, Hands, and Feet,” in which Rabbi Rubinstein will be joined by Imam Al-Hajj Talib ’Abdur-Rashid.

ISRAEL FILM CENTER FESTIVAL CLOSING NIGHT: AULCIE (with live Q&A)

The life and times of Aulcie Perry on and off the court are documented in Israel Film Center Festival closer

Who: Dani Menkin, Nancy Spielberg
What: Closing night of Israel Film Center Festival film screening and live Q&A
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
When: Sunday, June 14, $8, 6:00
Why: The eighth annual Israel Film Center Festival comes to a close June 14 with Dani Menkin’s Aulcie, followed by a live Zoom Q&A with Menkin and producer Nancy Spielberg. Israeli director Menkin followed up his 2016 documentary, On the Map, about Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv’s unlikely victory in the 1976-77 European Champions Cup, with this inside look into the life of one of its stars, Aulcie Perry. After being the last man cut from the New York Knicks in 1976, Newark native Perry was recruited to play for Maccabi in Israel, where the 6-10 black man — an unusual sight in the Land of Milk and Honey — quickly became a superstar, helping the team to championships, falling in love with top model Tami Ben Ami, and hanging out in hot clubs, living the high life. But it all came tumbling down in a haze of drugs, and Menkin traces Perry’s attempt to put it all back together, primarily by finding the daughter he has not seen since she was a baby.

The film is set up as Perry’s confession to that daughter, Cierra Musungay. “I always knew one thing: that I wanted to tell you my story, the way it is, with the good and the bad,” he says at the beginning. “So where do I start? People say you start at the beginning. But I wanted to start at the end, or when I thought the end was coming.” He was inspired to track her down after facing a serious health scare. “I think, that only when I almost died, I started to really live. And that’s when I wanted to find you and, maybe in some ways, find myself,” he adds.

Menkin goes back and forth between archival footage, animation by Assaf Zellner, and interviews with Aulcie’s sister Bernadine Lewis, his friends Wayne Tyre and Roy Young, his ex-girlfriend Juanita Jackson, his son Aulcie Perry Jr., and many men from his Maccabi family, including former teammates Earl Williams and Tal Brody, team president Shimon Mizrahi, co-owner Oudi Recanati, coach Zvi Sherf, and manager Shamluk Maharovsky, who was like a father to him. “In Israel, there wasn’t that much prejudice against black players, and he felt at home here,” NBA commentator Simmy Reguer says. “Aulcie came in like a blessing from the gods,” fellow Jersey native and team captain Brody recalls. And Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff explains, “At Maccabi Tel Aviv, Aulcie Perry was Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rolled into one.”

Now sixty-nine, Perry is honest and forthright throughout, admitting his failings and wanting to make up for lost time. He makes no excuses for his precipitous fall, and he’s not seeking sympathy. He’s a man who made mistakes and wants a chance to set things right. Aulcie is a cautionary tale of redemption with heart and soul, focusing on the need to be part of a family, no matter how different and unexpected it may be.