Full Frame 2021: Part 1

In April 2020, the 23rd Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was cancelled due to rising concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. It was sad, but, of course, completely understandable. Now, Full Frame is back, but with a catch: the entire festival is a virtual event. That’s despite the promotional image above that shows an outdoor screening - there will be none of those. So my yearly trip back and forth to the Carolina Theater, and the Marriott Convention Center in Durham is replaced by staying home, and watching a bunch of docs on the small screen.

Another thing that is different is that there is a much smaller roster this time around – only 36 titles are being presented, which is way less than the over 100 films that usually make up the program. To be exact, 21 feature films and 15 shorts will be available via fullframefest.org. This means that folks may actually be able to see all of the docs that are offered.

Because of these changes, I am conducting my coverage differently. Regularly I would post each day of the festival – i.e. Day 1, Day 2, and so on – but since I won’t be adhering to a schedule, the posts will be Part 1, Part 2 and so on. Besides, Full Frame began two days ago, on June 2, so there’s that.

I’ll start with the first two docs I watched, and we’ll see where this online-only event takes us.

TELEVISION EVENT (Dir. Jeff Daniels, 2020)

Several years ago, an episode of the FX series The Americans, a show about Russian spies in the ‘80s, reminded me of the controversial TV movie, THE DAY AFTER. The 1983 ABC telefilm dramatized the effects of a nuclear attack on various people in the Midwest, and I remember seeing it as a 13-year old, and getting pretty scared. President Reagan himself even felt that way. This doc, directed by Jeff Daniels (no, not that Jeff Daniels), puts the THE DAY AFTER into fascinating perspective, with interviews and footage, that take us into the film’s making, its airing, and the overwhelming reaction that came from the fact that 100 million viewers watched its original broadcast.

Despite that one of the producers said that they “didn’t want to have recognizable stars,” the film starred Oscar winner Jason Robards, Oscar nominee John Lithgow, Oscar nominee Jobeth Williams, and Steve Guttenberg (yes, that Steve Guttenberg), who will never come close to winning a Oscar.

Director Nicholas Meyer (TIME AFTER TIME, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN) dominates the interview segments, and that’s a good thing too as he talks about his fights with Standards and Practices, and the producers, as well as revealing that he “was thinking if I just made a movie showing what nuclear war was, I could unseat Ronald Reagan when he ran for re-election.” The “making of” segments are equally interesting as they show how effects such as people vaporizing, and convincing mushroom clouds were created. THE DAY AFTER had a major impact spawning extensive media coverage, considerable classroom discussions, and even a news panel moderated by Ted Koppel that aired after the film that included Carl Sagan, Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, Robert S. McNamara, and William F. Buckley. Now, ain’t that a brain trust!

Despite a few too many aerial shots of the Century City towers in Los Angeles where ABC’s offices are located, TELEVISION EVENT is a crisp, swift breakdown of what went on behind the themes of arguably the most devastating depiction of nuclear war ever shown on television. I’m not sure it’ll make me rewatch THE DAY AFTER all these years later, but I’m thankful for all the transfixing insights that this doc delivers.

THE FACILITY (Dir. Seth Freed Wessler, 2021)

This short doc, which runs nearly 27 minutes, concerns immigrants detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, during the early days of the pandemic. We are first introduced to Nilson Barahona, an inmate from Honduras, who has been incarcerated for 20 years despite that the rest of his family are U.S. citizens. Then there’s Andrea Manrique, from Columbia, who while on a tourist visa was detained for revealing she feared returning to her home country, and says that her stay at the ICE facility has been “a living hell.”

Director Wessler conducts his interviews with Barahoma, Manrique, and a few other detainees through a site called gettingout.com, a site devoted keeping prisoners in touch with their families. When a few people (an employee and one of the immigrants) contract the virus, the inmates go on a hunger strike, and refuse to work at the facility. This is followed by protests when a whistleblower alleges medical neglect at the Center including unnecessary surgeries. Although it ends on a positive note with the release of Barahona and Manrique, and the closing of the facility, the takeaway is how disturbing the conditions of many of these places are. It probably won’t be seen by enough people, but the ones that do view THE FACILITY will most likely look at the issue of immigration just a little bit differently.

Okay, so those are my first two docs of Full Frame 2021. Stay tuned for more coverage as I consume more non-fiction film goodness.

More later...