Portside

So exuberant and full of life that it would convince you movies were back even if they hadn’t gone anywhere, “In the Heights” is the kind of electrifying theatrical experience that people have been waxing nostalgic about since the pandemic began.

Filmed in the 1950s, Vittorio De Seta's luminous shorts depicting the hardscrabble lives of fishermen, shepherds, peasants, and miners in rural Italy turn documentary into art film.

'Pritty', a 20-minute animated short, reimagines the typical queer coming of age story by replacing Black trauma with Black joy and discovery through the lens of an intentional Black experience.

In 1978 body snatchers really did dig up and try to ransom the corpse of the legendary actor Charlie Chaplin shortly after his death. 'Stealing Chaplin' uses this fact-based bit of skullduggery as a mere launching pad for its fact-free comedy.

On Instagram and other social networks, gymnasts have tagged posts with #GymnastAlliance to share their own experiences in the wake of a Netflix's new documentary 'Athlete' A that highlights verbal and physical abuse by coaches.

In the face of impunity, there is a sacred role for the storyteller. We can tell stories which invite people to confront painful truths. To combat the lies of impunity, you are doing the task of the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes.

John Lewis declares that, during the 1960s, he was arrested “a few times.” Then the elder statesman and éminence grise of the civil rights movement pauses before correcting himself in front of the large Dallas crowd he’s addressing: “40 times…"

“Homemade,” a wondrous and mostly satisfying anthology of 17 short films made round the world over the past two months - reveal a scattershot collage of the world in 2020.

"I stand with Black Lives Matter but still, as I watched the obligatory scene of Vietnamese soldiers getting shot and killed for the thousandth time, I thought: Does it make any difference if politically conscious Black men kill us?"

Two recent documentaries, both now streaming, try to unpack the McCarthyite Trump-whisperer—progenitor of the postmodern political world we now inhabit.