MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL #45 (October of 6-16, 2022)

[Chris Knipp]

PROVO (Emma Thatcher 2022)

Modest indie tale of a dissipated ex-Mormon going back from Chicago (home base of the filmmakers) to see her dying father surprises with the authenticity its characters and acting.

[Chris Knipp]

FINDING HER BEAT (Dawn Mikkelson, Keri Pickett 2022)

A documentary about women who have triumphed in Japanese Taiko drum performance, traditionally the domain only of men. The focus is on an historic joint performance of female Taiko artists from Japan and North America in Minnesota just before the pandemic shutdown. A thoroughly conventional film that tries to cram too much into its 90 minute run-time, but its ebullience and hopefulness are too strong to object.

[Chris Knipp]

THE YOUNG VOTE (Diane Robinson 2022)

A short film about the importance of getting out the biggest block in the American electorate, the 18-29 voters. Robinson uses a conventional talking head presentation - which still works for a utilitarian informational doc like this one - and provides young role models, white, black, Latino, to show how the percentage of participants has grown since 2016 and how gerrymandering, shutting down polling places, and other ways of restricting the vote, are at war with this.

[Chris Knipp]

FAULTLINE (Rob Nilsson 2022)

An introduction (my introduction) to 80-something NIlsson's remarkable oeuvre, an epic of identity and the West and the search for the father. Dialogues in black and white with intense closeups.