Two documentaries paint a brutal reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime with the Russian press under siege in My Undesirable Friends, and of hundreds of terrified animals at risk in Checkpoint Zoo, an unusual Ukraine rescue story with Leonardo DiCaprio as EP.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022 and the docs hit theaters in limited release as the war drags on and Donald Trump is set to meet with Putin in Alaska today seeking a ceasefire, although Volodymyr Zelenskyy is excluded from the talks. Trump has said he hopes the summit will lead to a second meeting that would include the Ukrainian president and possibly other European leaders.
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air In Moscow premieres at Film Forum. The first chapters of Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev’s documentary, which world premiered at New York Film Festival last year and screened in Berlin, follows a group of young journalists at popular Russian news network TV Rain before and in the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the increasingly repressive regime of President Vladimir Putin tightened the screws on the press. Journalists and outlets reporting actual news were officially labeled foreign agents or undesirables, which designation was required to scroll under their television and online content. As it became illegal to describe the aggression against Ukraine as anything but a “special operation,” Rain was eventually declared a criminal organization. The Netherlands granted it a broadcast license and it moved what was left of its operations to Amsterdam.
Checkpoint Zoo from Abramorama opens at Quad Cinema. Directed by Joshua Zeman (The Killing Season, The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52, The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness). The documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Festival 2024, follows a daring rescue by a heroic team of zookeepers and volunteers who risked their lives to save thousands of animals trapped in a zoo behind enemy lines during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zeman and his film crew had unrestricted access to Feldman Ecopark in Kharkiv as well as hundreds of hours of video and sound recordings that were captured by the park keepers and volunteers as they documented the evacuation. Lions, bears, wolves, orangutans, kangaroos and many other species faced Russian shells exploding around them and animals possibly in the hundreds were reportedly killed, as well as three zoo workers who stayed behind to feed their charges.
Sony Pictures Classics opens Sundance Audience Award-winning docu-fiction East Of Wall by Kate Beecroft nationwide with 626 runs. After the death of her husband, Tabatha — a young, tattooed, rebellious horse trainer – wrestles with financial insecurity and unresolved grief while providing refuge for a group of wayward teenagers on her broken-down ranch in the Badlands. At 91% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes (31 reviews). Tabatha Zimiga and her daughter Porshia star as themselves in the feature-length film based on their life story, with Scoot McNairy and Jennifer Ehle. See director and cast at Deadline’s Sundance Studio.
Greenwich Entertainment debuts Samuel Van Grinsven’s ghost story Went Up The Hill on 132 screens including IFC center in NYC. Premiered at TIFF 2024. Abandoned as a child, Jack (Dacre Montgomery) travels to remote New Zealand for the funeral of his estranged mother, Elizabeth. There, he meets her widow, Jill (Vicky Krieps) and, over the nights that follow, Elizabeth’s spirit begins to possess them in turn. What starts as a search for closure soon unearths deeper wounds. Bound by grief and haunted by what remains, Jack and Jill must break free from Elizabeth’s grasp before she pushes them to the edge.
Music Box Films is out with Olivier Assayas Covid-era comedy Suspended Time (Hors du Temps) in New York at Film at Lincoln Center, adding LA’s Laemmle Royal next weekend and Siskel Film Center in Chicago the following. Premiered in Berlin 2024, see Deadline review. As society recedes in the spring of 2020, film director Paul Berger (Vincent Macaigne) returns to his childhood home in the provincial Chevreuse Valley. Still processing the legacy of his parents and feeling out the uncertain shape of the world to come, Paul hunkers down with his documentary filmmaker girlfriend Carole (Nora Hamzawi), his music journalist brother Etienne (Micha Lescot), and Etienne’s new girlfriend Morgan (Nine d’Urso). “Squabbling over the minutiae of health protocols and the morality of a hermetic lifestyle mediated by ubiquitous online shopping, the makeshift household finds new ways to lacerate familiar wounds. Yet Paul also finds a surprising refuge in the compulsory quietude of pandemic life, an opportunity to reconnect with the books and art and enchanted forests of his youth,” reads the synopsis.
MPI’s Watermelon Pictures is releasing Usman Riaz’ hand-drawn animated romance The Glassworker — Pakistan’s submission to the last Oscars — at the Angelika in NYC and TIFF Lightbox in Canada. In a town divided by duty and class, Vincent, a glassmaker’s son, and Alliz, a violinist who is the colonel’s daughter, fall in love. As their bond grows, rising tensions between their families threaten to pull them apart. Featuring the voices of Art Malik, Sacha Dhawan, Anjli Mohindra and Tony Jayawardena. See Deadline’s interview with Riaz on what was a first for Pakistan.
Coming Monday: MPI and Fathom are rereleasing the 4k restoration of the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre on August 18, the day the film takes place, at 1,000+ theaters nationally for one night only. MPI has the rights to the first film. The iconic Tobe Hooper feature will be followed by a ten-minute clip of documentary Chain Reactions by Alexandre O. Philippe that charts the film’s profound impact and lasting influence on five artists – Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King and Karyn Kusama – through early memories, sensory experiences, and childhood trauma “crafting a dynamic dialogue between contemporary footageand never-before-seen outtakes and delving into personal impressions triggered by distinct audiovisual formats (16mm,35mm, VHS, digital).” The doc from MPI’s Dark Sky Films is set for theatrical release in October.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2024 on its 50th anniversary.
MORE