It’s early April, the weather is mostly overcast and a bit dreary, so that means it’s time to watch a bunch of documentaries inside at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, going on right now in downtown Durham, N.C. Every year (well, except during the pandemic) since 2009, I’ve been attending and babbling about the great event that offers four days of non-fiction infotainment so I’m pleased to be back to take in a handful of the 49 docs from 30 countries that are on the schedule from April 3-6 for the 27th Annual year for the festival.
I’ve just attended the first two days of Full Frame 2025, and am ready to report on what I’ve seen so let’s get right to it.
MISTRESS DISPELLER (Dir. Elizabeth Lo, 2024)
When Full Frame director and artistic director Sadie Tillery was introducing the film, she talked about when writing the descriptions for the festival’s features, they tried not to overuse words like “glorious,” “insightful” and especially “intimate,” but that Lo’s work in this immaculately made, thoughtful study of a love triangle was indeed intimate, and I wholeheartedly agree. The methods that Zhenxi carefully employs to get inside the matter are fascinating to see in action, and while it can feel voyeuristic at times, it’s touchingly engrossing to see how it all resolves.
The Opening Night Film at the fest was a this well chosen portrait of Jacinda Ardern, who was the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and leader of the Labour Party from 2017 to 2023. The story of Ardern, who is the world’s second elected head of government to give birth while in office, is told through videos shot by her husband, Clarke Gayford, news footage, and previously classified audio diaries all deftly edited into a very entertaining narrative.
Pavel Ilyich Talankin is a teacher and school videographer in the small industrial town of Karabash in Russia, which he tells us in his voice-over narration is the “most toxic city in the world.” After the invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, Talankin secretly documented the propaganda his school is spreading through scripts the educators have to go by for their students who are, as Pavel puts it, are being groomed to be future dead soldiers.
As Talankin decries the militarization of his former place of learning, we see his students getting drafted into war, and how demeaning the indoctrination into forced patriotism can be on a daily basis. The doc is shot and presented in a casual manner that makes us feel like we’re in the hallways and classrooms with these people, which sometimes can be unsettling, especially when it comes to one stern Putin-supporting teacher, who considers.
PRIME MINISTER (Dirs. Lindsay Utz, Michelle Walshe, 2025)
MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (Dirs. David Borenstein, Pavel Ilyich Talankin, 2025)
Pavel Ilyich Talankin is a teacher and school videographer in the small industrial town of Karabash in Russia, which he tells us in his voice-over narration is the “most toxic city in the world.” After the invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, Talankin secretly documented the propaganda his school is spreading through scripts the educators have to go by for their students who are, as Pavel puts it, are being groomed to be future dead soldiers.
As Talankin decries the militarization of his former place of learning, we see his students getting drafted into war, and how demeaning the indoctrination into forced patriotism can be on a daily basis. The doc is shot and presented in a casual manner that makes us feel like we’re in the hallways and classrooms with these people, which sometimes can be unsettling, especially when it comes to one stern Putin-supporting teacher, who considers.
With his many messages to resist authoritarianism, Talankin makes many poignant observations throughout, but the one that might say the most is “Love for your country is not about propaganda - loving your country is being able to say, ‘We have a problem.’” MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN says that strongly, and with the looming threats to our freedom coming closer every day, we should really take it to heart.
Having worked in bookstores, I was aware of the Irish novelist, Edna O’Brien, but had no knowledge of her work. This superb biodoc lays out her controversial career which began with her 1960 debut, The Country Girls, which angered her less successful writer husband, Ernest Gébler, who made her sign her royalty checks over to him. After their divorce in 1964, O’Brien, flourished through her sexually frank writing in dozens of novels, and short stories, and held lavish parties attended by the likes of Sean Connery, Richard Burton, and Michael Caine.
BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY
(Dir. Sinéad O'Shea, 2024)
Actress Jessie Buckley (Fargo, MEN, WOMEN TALKING) provides narration via O’Brien’s diary entries, and the film is decorated with a wealth of photographs, letters, and archival footage with my favorite bits being clips from her appearances on European talk shows in the ‘60s and ‘70s. O’Brien herself appears in interviews filmed last year, before she passed last summer at the age of 93. BLUE ROAD, named because of a criticism her ex-husband made of one her descriptions (“There are no blue roads”), is a lovely tribute to a inspirational literary figure, and a great introduction for such neophytes like me.
Stay tuned for coverage of days three and four of Full Frame.
Stay tuned for coverage of days three and four of Full Frame.
More later...
