Get this: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ shortlist for the Best Documentary category is fifteen films long. Fifteen! Sort of makes you question the entire use of the phrase “shortlist”, especially given that their other shortlists are, you know, actually short. We can chalk this up to some pretty significant rules changes to qualification in that particular area, instituted by the Academy this year. It’s not unusual for the AMPAS to alter or fine-tune the rules for submission and eligibility year to year– as the culture of film ebbs, flows, and otherwise changes, it’s likely a necessity, else the Academy is just fickle– but as Deadline reports,…
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[IFFBoston Review]…Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
There’s a degree to which the story of Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei– filtered through the lens of director Allison Klayman– is incomprehensible. Not in terms of our ability to latch onto and absorb the information Klayman conveys to us, mind; referring to craft and technique, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry has much and more to recommend it. Supporting all of that is the compelling narrative Klayman constructs about Ai’s life, career, and confrontations with Chinese authorities, and that final detail represents the element that makes the film so difficult to process. Ai, perceptive, compassionate, and endlessly clever, lives in a world where creative expression can lead to a person vanishing into…
