Courtesy Of Briarcliff Entertainment
FALL FROM GRACE Fogel s documentary explores how Khashoggi (shown with Cengiz) went from being a Saudi insider to an alleged assassination victim. Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming and not always easy to sort through. This week, the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and Vermont International Film Foundation present a new installment of their Split/Screen virtual cinema program, this one curated by MNFF. (Find more info and tickets at middfilmfest.org.) I watched
The Dissident, a ripped-from-the-headlines documentary about the murder of
Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Director Bryan Fogel also made the Oscar-winning sports-doping exposé
BUSY INSIDE Documentary Premieres March 16
America ReFramed broadcasts on WORLD Channel every Tuesday at 8/7c.by TV News Desk
Through personal stories, Olga Lvoff s award-winning documentary BUSY INSIDE delves deeply into Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)-formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, a condition that fascinates and puzzles modern psychiatry. On March 16, BUSY INSIDE will have its broadcast premiere as part of America ReFramed on public television s WORLD Channel. AMERICA REFRAMED broadcasts on WORLD Channel every Tuesday at 8/7c (check local listings at worldchannel.org/schedule). Episodes of AMERICA REFRAMED can also be found on satellite TV during the week via Link TV (Direct TV channel 375 & Dish Network channel 9410). BUSY INSIDE will also stream online upon premiere at worldchannel.org, amdoc.org, and on all station-branded PBS platforms.
Chad Hollister
1. Live Aid Vermont musician Chad Hollister is known for his feel-good pop-rock tunes. The singer-songwriter brings his signature sense of positivity to a livestream concert supporting working musicians facing financial difficulties. Acoustic folk artist Ryan Montbleau, indie-pop musician Francesca Blanchard, members of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and others join Hollister for VT Sounds A Bash to Bring Back Vermont Music, broadcast from ZenBarn in Waterbury at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 22. All proceeds go to the New England Musicians Relief Fund.
2. A Man Apart Courtesy of Jack Fairweather Author Jack Fairweather (left) with 89-year-old Bohdan Walasek, who fought with Witold Pilecki during the Warsaw uprising Do you have what this man had, to be not just a survivor but a helper,
Courtesy Of Anna Patakina/music Box Films
COLD COMFORT Gammel plays a woman who must beat the clock to save her sister, trapped underwater, in Hedén s Scandinavian survival thriller. Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming and not always easy to sort through. This week, I watched the 2020 Swedish/Norwegian survival thriller
Breaking Surface, which streams from January 22 through 31 as part of the Split/Screen series, a virtual cinema collaboration of the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and Vermont International Film Foundation. Find more info at vtiff.org or middfilmfest.org.
The deal Ida (Moa Gammel) and Tuva (Madeleine Martin) are half sisters who have been diving with their mother (Trine Wiggen) since childhood. Now the freewheeling Tuva makes her living doing underwater maintenance on gigantic freighters a high-risk occupation, as we see
Jenny Shi’s (Medill M.S. ’17) film on the disappearance of Yingying Zhang, a Chinese international student at the University of Illinois, gained critical acclaim after a year-long festival run.
While the documentary’s filming wrapped before the pandemic, COVID-19 shutdowns affected its release and reception. Diane Quon, a producer of the film, said the year’s most exciting moment came when she heard the film would show at the highly esteemed South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW). Although the March-scheduled festival was canceled, SXSW honored Shi with the special jury recognition for breakthrough voice.
Before the film would show to any festival audiences, though, Shi wanted Zhang’s family to watch it first. Shi eventually asked some of her friends in China to travel to Zhang’s parents hometown and show them the film on a laptop. Shi and Shilin Sun, the film’s co-producer and cinematographer, were present through a video call. Shi said she was initially nervous tha