Documentary of the Week

Laura Poitras is known for her Oscar-winning documentary “Citizenfour” about Edward Snowden. Now, in “Risk,” she gains access to Wikileaks leader Julian Assange and his associates, focusing heavily on his activities around the 2010 “Cablegate” leak of U.S. State Department documents and tracking him through the 2016 Presidential election.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information click here to visit the official film web site.

Marcel Ophuls is best known for his epic documentaries “The Sorrow and the Pity” and the Oscar-winning “Hotel Terminus.” But he believes his best film is “Memory of Justice,” which has scarcely been available since its original release in 1976. Now Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation has led an effort to restore the film, allowing us to experience its magisterial exploration of bringing justice to war crimes.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more inforation, click here to visit the film web site.

The author and activist Jane Jacobs changed the way we look at cities, emerging in the 1960s as the visionary opposition to her nemesis, the New York power broker Robert Moses. In “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City”, filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer tells the story of how Jacobs led a movement to block Moses from building a highway through lower Manhattan.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

John Coltrane died too young, at the age of 40, in 1967. But the master saxophonist packed his years with enough musical innovation for several lifetimes. In the new documentary “Chasing Trane,” director John Scheinfeld tells Coltrane's story through the eyes and ears of contemporaries and fans. Coltrane’s words are voiced by Denzel Washington.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

The Netflix series “Five Came Back,” adapted from Mark Harris’ book, explores the Hollywood directors who made propaganda documentaries for the U.S. military during World War II. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Laurent Bouzereau, the 3-part series enlists contemporary directors such as Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola to reflect on works such as Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight," John Ford’s “The Battle of Midway,” and John Huston's “San Pietro."

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the film web site.

In the documentary “Karl Marx City,” filmmaker Petra Epperlein investigates a mystery from her East German childhood to discover if her father was an informer for the Stasi secret police. Watching the film, directed by Epperlein and her husband Michael Tucker, you can’t help thinking about our modern state of surveillance and its consequences.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

The documentary “I Called Him Morgan” is a moody investigation into the life and death of the trumpet player Lee Morgan. In 1972, Morgan was shot and killed in a New York bar by his common law wife Helen. Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collins spent several years trying to understand her crime of passion.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

In 2010, filmmaker Danae Elon moved back to Jerusalem, the city of her childhood, with her family. Her late father Amos Elon, the acclaimed writer, had warned her not to move back. In this documentary “P.S. Jerusalem,” filmed over three years, she gives a first person account of the city’s political tensions.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen 

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

If you were a black woman who wanted to make a film in the civil rights era, the doors were mostly closed. Madeline Anderson managed to overcome those obstacles. Now she presents three of her short films “Integration Report 1” (1960); “A Tribute to Malcolm X” (1967); and “I Am Somebody” (1970) at the Metrograph theater.

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the theater web site.

For 50 years, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a key bone of contention for peace negotiations. Now a new documentary "The Settlers,” by the Israeli-American director Shimon Dotan, tries to unravel this complex history. 

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.