Cinemafile

Award winning documentary filmmaker Erik Nelson’s Bullets And Blueberries explores the evolution of the Holocaust beginning with the mass shootings by the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe and Ukraine in 1941, crimes that culminated at Babi Yar where over 30,000 men, women and children were murdered in just two days. This “holocaust by bullets” was so horrific that it led directly to the mechanized and impersonal killings that reached their peak beginning in the spring of 1944. Bullets And Blueberries is structured around shocking, recently unearthed photos and footage compiled by the Nazis that documented their collective crimes. These images, some intended as grotesque souvenirs, now serve as forensic evidence, providing a stark window into the banality, horror, and ultimate consequences of evil. Featuring interviews with Holocaust scholars, survivors of both the Einsatzgruppen and Auschwitz, and a poignant appearance by Ben Ferencz—the 27 year old American prosecutor who led the Nuremberg trial against the Einsatzgruppen. Director Erik Nelson (Grizzly Man) joins us for a conversation on the casual and callous evil that led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

About the filmmaker - Multiple Emmy and IDA award winning filmmaker Erik Nelson has produced and directed a wide range of feature documentaries for his company "Creative Differences". These range from producing four films with Werner Herzog ("Grizzly Man", "Cave Of Forgotten Dreams", "Into The Abyss" and their Oscar nominated "Encounters At The End Of The World"), to directing “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” (2008) a biographical look at iconoclastic writer Harlan Ellison. Nelson’s more recent films, “A Gray State” (2017), a harrowing true crime look at the madness inducing culture of conspiracy, and the immersive World War II documentaries “The Cold Blue” (2019) “Apocalypse '45” (2021) along with the critically acclaimed “Daytime Revolution” (2024) demonstrate the director’s range and ability to weave a provocative story out of exquisitely restored archive footage.

In director Colleen Thurston’s exceptional feature documentary, DROWNED LAND, history, water rights and family collide into a scathing expose on public / private sector corruption that threatens to destroy the lives of thousands of powerless people. The narrative arc of Drowned Land follows the river as its main character—witnessing the ebb and flow of its life-giving ability through the seasons, and the detrimental impact caused by damming and development projects. The director, Colleen, explores the effects of her grandfather's work designing dams for the Army Corps of Engineers, her tribe’s ongoing struggles with resource exploitation, and how it shapes her reconciliation of the past with the present. Interwoven are the stories of the river’s advocates—residents, Choctaw culture-keepers, and scientists—who have come together to save the river and initiate a paradigm shift grounded in ideals of re-matriation and the Rights of Nature, reinforcing a commitment to end the cycle of disconnection from our land. Director Colleen Thurston stops to talk about the importance of water, local control of vital resources, and our primal connection to land and our shared history.

About the filmmaker - Colleen Thurston is a documentary storyteller, producer and film curator from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has created non-fiction film and videos for the Smithsonian Channel, Vox, and museums, public television, and federal and tribal organizations. Her work has screened at international film festivals and broadcast nationwide.

In 2019, filmmakers visit an Alabama prison to film a revival meeting. Off camera, incarcerated men whisper a message: terrible things are going on here that are being kept secret from the public. This sparks an immersive 6-year investigation to discover the reality behind the walls of the nation's deadliest prison system. With unprecedented direct access, our guests, co-directors Andrew Jarecki (The Jinx (Parts One and Two), Capturing the Friedmans) and Charlotte Kaufman (The Jinx (Part Two) Hidden Alibi) learn from incarcerated men about a suspicious and violent death. The story unfolds in real time, revealing it isn't an isolated incident, and that the official version appears far from the truth. What follows is a shocking story of brutality, corruption, and a system in collapse. As the men fight for their own survival, they embark on a campaign of resistance, against all odds. The Alabama Solution opens in select New York and LA Theaters on 10/3 and streaming on HBO Max on 10/10.

Our interview was recorded for a tribute show at NYC's Metrograph Theatre in June of 2025...

Awarded by the Academy and the Festival de Cannes, a staple of Spike & Mike’s Festival of Animation programs, guest couch gag contributor on The Simpsons, and a fiercely independent artist, one-man industry Bill Plympton is the American underground animator par excellence, his meticulously hand-drawn style, with its fluid, distending line and voluptuous figures, one of the most immediately recognizable in the business. The legend himself will be joining us in the theater for two programs of his features and shorts—and will be whipping up sketches on the spot for any audience members who want to take home a little piece of cartooning history.

About the filmmaker - Bill Plympton, the "King of Indie Animation," is a celebrated American animator, cartoonist, and filmmaker known for his surreal, low-budget, hand-drawn style, earning Oscar nominations for shorts like Your Face (1987) and Guard Dog (2004) and directing features like I Married a Strange Person. Born in Portland, Oregon, he began as a cartoonist for The Village Voice and The New York Times, later pioneering online animation and becoming famous for his distinctive, often adult-themed shorts and Simpsons couch gags.

A getaway at a secluded log cabin in the forest becomes the site of escalating, multi-generational tensions and anxieties in this disquieting, impeccably mounted coming-of-age drama from Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage. Ostensibly a merry reunion between well-known film director Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter) and his longtime friend and former collaborator Albert Gary (Paul Ahmarani), the vacation gradually becomes something far more complex and less stable, especially with the combustible admixture of Albert’s teen son’s best friend, Jeff (Noah Parker), and Albert’s self-asserting daughter Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré). Long-simmering middle-aged resentments surface, set against the anxieties of the young, all captured sensitively by Lesage. Featuring thrillingly choreographed dinner sequences of mounting tension, Who by Fire confirms Lesage as a major contemporary filmmaker, with its assured tonal negotiation of the naturalistic and the oneiric, the joyous (especially an epic dance interlude to The B-52s) and the ominous.

About the filmmaker - Philippe Lesage’s Who By Fire continues the French-Canadian filmmaker’s nuanced exploration of coming-of-age themes, but with a darker, more psychologically complex edge. Following his acclaimed films The Demons (2015) and Genesis (2018), Lesage’s latest work examines the perilous dynamic between youth and authority in the isolated setting of a wilderness lodge.

In this powerful, intimate and illuminating documentary film from co-directors Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Green and Rob Grobman, a epic battle is taking place. A battle that will have a tremendous impact of the sustainability of our planet. This struggle is taking place in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. WE ARE GUARDIANS follows the indigenous forest guardians that stand at the frontlines of the fight to protect their ancestral lands from relentless invasions and deforestation. As more and more people illegally invade their lands each year, devastating centuries-old forests for resources and fast profits, these small groups of guardians risk everything to protect their forest and way of life. Now, as the health of the entire Amazon teeters at the edge, will Brazil and the world take notice? WE ARE GUARDIANS is produced by Academy Award-winner Fisher Stevens’ Highly Flammable, along with executive produced by the critically acclaimed film and television production company, Appian Way (Leonardo DiCaprio's company). Co-directors Chelsea Green and Rob Grobman (Edivan Guajajara) join us for a conversation regarding the dedication of the indigenous people’s defending the forest, how they gained the trust and access to many of the people looking to strip the Amazon Rainforest of its timber, oil and other valuable natural resources as well as working with Academy Award winning Producer Fisher Stevens (The Cove).

About the filmmaker - Director, Producer, and Cinematographer Edivan Guajajara is from the Zutiwa village, located in Arariboia Indigenous Land (Maranhão, Brazil) and one of the creators of the communication network Mídia Índia. As an activist and filmmaker, he creates photography and documentaries centering indigenous peoples’ perspectives, showcasing their struggle of land protection and defense of Mother Earth.

About the filmmaker - Director, Producer, Cinematographer and Editor Chelsea Greene is a documentary filmmaker, impact producer, and multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores the intersection of environmental justice, Indigenous leadership, and wildlife conservation. Raised in the forests of Vermont, Chelsea has spent over 15 years traveling the globe working on documentaries, television series, and short-form content.

About the filmmaker - Director, Executive Producer, Cinematographer and Editor Rob Grobman grew up in New Hampshire, in the foothills of the White Mountains. His work as a filmmaker has mostly focused on the environment and the inspiring people who've dedicated their lives to its protection. In 2011 he graduated Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Film and Media Studies. While in Baltimore, he worked as an editor with filmmaker and auteur Michael H. Shamberg on his autobiographical documentary series, P.S. BEIRUT about the Lebanese Civil War.

UNION follows the efforts of Chris Smalls (founding President of the Amazon Labor Union or ALU), Connor Spence (current President of the ALU) and a dedicated group of warehouse workers as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island. Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York. Through intimate cinema vérité, UNION chronicles the extraordinary efforts of an unlikely group of warehouse workers as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York. Led by the charismatic but underestimated Chris Smalls, the diverse band of workers start the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and embark on a journey against one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world.

About the filmmaker - Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker based in New York. His feature documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT, which he directed, filmed and edited, won a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, which he directed, filmed and edited over five years, and THE SURRENDER, have screened internationally and were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively.

About the filmmaker - Brett Story is an award-winning director, producer and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theaters and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, CPH-DOX, and SXSW. She is the director of the feature films THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES (2016) and THE HOTTEST AUGUST (2019), and the author of Up against one of the most powerful companies on the the book PRISON LAND (2019). In 2020 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director. She holds a PhD in geography and is currently an assistant professor of Cinema at the University of Toronto.

In Oscar®-nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s life-affirming documentary, teenagers converge at a traditional folk high school in Arctic Norway where they must rely on only themselves, one another, and a loyal pack of sled dogs as they all grow in unexpected directions. Exhausted by loneliness, social anxiety, and all the crushing barrage of pressures felt by their generation, three teenagers leave the comforts of home to enroll in a traditional “folk high school” in the wilds of northernmost Norway. Dropped in the arctic wilderness for one year, Hege, Romain, and Bjørn Tore must rely only on themselves and a pack of loyal sled dogs as they take the daunting step from childhood to adulthood. Freed from technology, social media, and the noise of modern life, this brave trio learns to face themselves for the first time, and experience an unexpected transformation. We're joined by the co-directors Rachel Grady & Heidi Ewing "Jesus Camp", (Academy Award nominee), and "12th & Delaware" (Peabody Award winner).

The Window on Death Row tells the story of Joaquín José Martínez, a Spanish citizen, who at the age of 24 was convicted of a double murder in the state of Florida. He spent the next five years behind bars, three of those on death row. With the help of the Spanish government and many of his country men, he was eventually exonerated of all charges against him. The case pitted the U.S. courts against that of the European Union and their ban on the death penalty. Nearly 20 years after his exoneration, Martínez transforms his personal trauma into public advocacy against the death penalty. His Catholic faith and relationship he built with his death row chaplain Dale Recinella have been central to his healing. We are joined on this edition of Cinemafile by director and producer Linda Freund and Executive Producer Mike Farrell.

About the filmmaker -Linda Freund is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist based in Barcelona. Prior to “The Window on Death Row” (2025, Spain), she directed the documentary “The Migrant Priest” (2022, Italy). Most recently, she was a senior video journalist at The Wall Street Journal. Previously, she reported from conflict zones across South Asia and East Africa.

About the filmmaker - Actor/producer/activist Mike Farrell (MASH) has signed on as executive producer. A leading voice against capital punishment, Farrell has championed human rights for more than three decades. He has been president of the non-profit advocacy organization Death Penalty Focus since 1994.

ROSEMEAD centers on an ailing woman who uncovers a terrifying secret: her teenage son is consumed by violent impulses. As her health rapidly declines, she’s forced into a desperate struggle—how far will she go to stop what she fears he is becoming, and what is she willing to sacrifice to protect him? Set within the quiet tensions of a Chinese American household, the film explores the unraveling of a family pushed to the brink. ROSEMEAD marks the feature directorial debut of acclaimed cinematographer Eric Lin (The Exploding Girl, The Sound of Silence, Hearts Beat Loud) and introduces breakout newcomer Lawrence Shou alongside a searing career-defining performance by Lucy Liu. Our guest, Director Eric Lin stops by to talk about the film’s origin story, working with screenwriter Marilyn Fu and cinematographer Vincent Lyle, approaching lead actor Lucy Liu and his reflection on universality of this deeply moving family’s story.

About the filmmaker - Eric Lin is best known for his cinematography work on the critically acclaimed THE EXPLODING GIRL (Oscilloscope), THE SOUND OF SILENCE (IFC Films), HOUSE OF SPOILS (Amazon Studios), I SMILE BACK (Broad Green), and HEAR TS BEAT LOUD (Gunpowder & Sky), which premiered at prestigious film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, and T oronto. Early in his filmmaking days, Lin’s own New York University MFA short documentary, MUSIC PALACE, gained notice and played at Telluride and New Directors/New Films. ROSEMEAD marks Lin’s feature directorial debut.