In his introduction to Alan Berliner's film, "First Cousin Once Removed," which screened as part of the "Documentary Short List" program recently at Doc NYC, the festival's Artistic Director Thom Powers mentioned that most filmmakers he knows stop watching their films with audiences after the first few screenings, but Berliner is the exception. Berliner, whose experimental documentary films "Wide Awake," "The Sweetest Sound," "Nobody's Business," "Intimate Stranger" and "The Family Album" have been broadcast and screened at festivals all around the world, makes a point of watching his films along with an audience almost every chance he gets. "First Cousin Once Removed," which Eric Kohn called "equal parts psychological mystery and lyrical treatise on the passage of time," chronicles the late Edwin Honig, a poet and professor (as well as a cousin of Berliner's) and his life with Alzheimers. Below, Berliner explains why he relishes the opportunity to watch his films with an audience.
- 12/20/2013
- by Alan Berliner
- Indiewire
Documentarian Alan Berliner is frequently the focus of his movies, but his intentions extend beyond his neuroses. Rather than the star of the show, he's a vessel for bigger ideas and evades the perils of self-indulgence that could result from putting himself in front of the camera. That tricky balance is on display better than ever in the stirring "First Cousin Once Removed," which deepens an oeuvre that has already dealt with the tender issues of father-son relationships ("Nobody's Business") and insomnia ("Wide Awake") by exploring his fears of senility to devastating effect. Using a powerful focal point to manifest the movie's central concerns, Berliner makes his interest in the topic relevant to everyone. His case study is Edwin Honig, the first cousin of Berliner's mother, a bond that gives the movie its title. But there's more about Honig -- once a world-class poet and founder of Brown University's creative...
- 9/23/2013
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Sure, Sunday tends to be overcrowded with high-end TV, including "Breaking Bad," "Boardwalk Empire," the returning "Homeland" and "Eastbound and Down" and more, but what to watch the rest of the time? Every Monday, we bring you five noteworthy highlights from the other six days of the week. "First Cousin Once Removed" Monday, September 23rd at 9pm on HBO Documentarian Alan Berliner ("Wide Awake," "The Sweetest Sound") turns his camera to his cousin Edwin Honig, an acclaimed poet and professor, in his latest film, which premiered at the New York Film Festival last year. Honig had begun experiencing signs of Alzheimer's when Berliner started shooting the film, and "First Cousin Once Removed" chronicles his decline due to the disease, becoming a tribute to a writer and intellectual as well as a film about memory and loss. In his review of the film from Nyff, Eric Kohn called it Berliner's "crowning achievement.
- 9/23/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
Documentarian Alan Berliner is frequently the star of his movies, but his focus extends beyond his neuroses. Rather than the star of the show, he's a vessel for bigger ideas and evades the perils of self-indulgence that could result from putting himself in front of the camera. That tricky balance is on display better than ever in the stirring "First Cousin Once Removed," which deepens an oeuvre that has already dealt with the tender issues of father-son relationships ("Nobody's Business") and insomnia ("Wide Awake") by exploring his fears of senility to devastating effect. Using a powerful focal point to manifest the movie's central concerns, Berliner makes his interest in the topic relevant to everyone. His case study is Edwin Honig, the first cousin of Berliner's mother, a bond that gives the movie its title. But there's more about Honig -- once a world-class poet and founder of Brown University's creative writing.
- 10/2/2012
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
- This year Ioncinema.com is covering the 2006 edition of the Sundance Film Festival Live from Park City, Utah. We’ll be on hand to cover the festival, and while we won’t be able to cover everything from A to Z: here is a comprehensive beforehand look at the selections in each of the festival’s sections. (Note: To access individual preview pages, simply click on the links below) January 19th to the 28th, 2006Counting Down: updateCountdownClock('January 19, 2006'); Docu Competition"American Blackout," Ian Inaba's assessment of the career of U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and the purported suppression of the black vote historically and in the 2004 election in Florida and Ohio. "Crossing Arizona," Joseph Mathew's mosaic of human stories enmeshed in Arizona's illegal immigration crisis. "God Grew Tired of Us," Christopher Quinn and Tom Walker's account of the culture shock that hits four Sudanese
- 1/17/2006
- IONCINEMA.com
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