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

[Chris Knipp]

Filmleaf capsule review:
ONE FINE MORNING (Mia Hansen-Løve 2022)

From Directors' Fortnight at this year's Cannes but it could perfectly well have been in Competition, this eighth feature by the French director who began as an actress and life companion with Olivier Assayas packs the kind of emotional wallop and has the directness of her best work. Adultery, single-parent child-rearing, and a father with neurodegenerative disease are interwoven subjects. Also in the NYFF Main Slate.

[Chris Knipp]

THE PASSENGERS OF THE NIGHT/LES PASSAGERS DE LA NUIT (Mikhael Hers 2022)

Time-lapse tale of a Parisian mom left by her husband who gets a job at a nighttime talk show and raises two teen kids on her own, along with a waif she picks up. Perfectly fine and full of sweet sadness and subtlety - and Charlotte Gainsbourg. But it avoids the hard stuff Mia Hansen-Løve so powerfully takes on.

[Chris Knipp]

PATH OF THE PANTHER (Carlton Ward Jr. 2022)

Conservation photog Ward, from a family many generations in Florida, tracks and protects the endangered Florida panther.

[Chris Knipp]

WE DREAM OF ROBOTS/SOÑAR ROBOTS (Pablo Casaberta 2022)

Uruguayan kids from far-flung rural environments, competing in an international robotics fair, have surprising success, form lasting bonds, and despite the pandemic are inspired with plans for the future - and your own mind may be blown. A delightful, inspiring documentary in Spanish suitable for all from age ten up.

[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.