Tag: Sundance winner

ANDRE IS AN IDIOT – Review

Sundance award winning documentary ANDRE IS AN IDIOT is a hilarious, remarkably entertaining and ultimately touching documentary film about a smart, creative, funny person, Andre Ricciardi, with wild salt-and-pepper frizzy hair and 1000 watt smile, who is also an idiot. Andre says it himself. So, why is Andre an idiot? For not getting a colonoscopy when he turned fifty. A year later, when he did get one, he got shocking news: cancer, stage 4. A documentary about someone with terminal cancer is not something you expect to be described as “hilarious” but that was part of Andre Ricciardi’s goal with ANDRE IS AN IDIOT, which won the Audience Award for Best U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered.

Andre Ricciardi wanted to make a film as a warning about the importance of getting a colonoscopy, but he didn’t want it to be something he wouldn’t want to watch himself – something sad, serious and emotional. Instead, director Tony Benna crafted a film that told Andre’s story Andre’s way, with crazy humor and creativity, and wonderful claymation animation, as well as with honesty and heart. Ultimately, ANDRE IS AN IDIOT is touching too but you won’t be sorry you took this journey.

The result is one of the most surprising and entertaining documentaries you will ever see, and one of the year’s best films so far, as well as something uniquely Andre. ANDRE IS AN IDIOT introduces us to this creative, funny, honest Andre, tells us his story and then lets Andre takes us along on his last journey. The story of this intriguing, charismatic fellow is told through photos and footage, interviews with Andre, his wife, their two daughters, his brother, his friends and others, and especially through wonderful claymation, stop-motion animation.

Although Andre approaches everything with humor, he is smart, clear-eyed and honest about his situation. His motto used to be “no cops, no doctors” but he amended it to “some doctors.” Treatment is about gaining more time, especially with his teen-aged daughters, rather than a cure, but he still is going to do everything on his own terms, including planning a final yell as he leaves this world, “So long, suckers.” The documentary also includes glimpses of his discussions with his therapist and moments when he drops the humor in favor of introspection, although humor is a big part of just how he interacts with the world.

We hear about Andre’s happy marriage, which actually began as a “green card” marriage but turned into a real one, about his life, his kids and his friends. Hearing versions of stories, or just about Andre, from his brother, his wife, his kids, his friends, sometimes has a “Rashomon” aspect to it, with Andre and other people each telling the story their own way. One thing is constant: Andre has plenty of charisma, a unique view, and a determination to do things his own way.

The animation sequences are a special delight, creative and appealing joy, something that really helps make this film as enjoyable as it is. Things more “medical” that might be uncomfortable to see are shown in animation and with a comic slant. In between those animated sequences, we hear from his friends and family, and get footage of quirky Andre just being himself as he goes about life.

“Unique” and “creative” are two words nearly everyone uses to describe Andre. The smart, multi-talented Andre was someone who could have done anything in life. What he did do was have a career as an advertising creative. “Advertising!” says Andre. “Who does that?” That quote from the film gives a taste of Andre’s playful personality. Making this documentary seems a very Andre thing to do, judging by what people say about him in this film and what we see on screen – make a movie about his final journey, as a cautionary tale to others not to be an idiot and get a colonoscopy but tell his story with humor, honesty, and his own style.

The result is one of the funniest movies you will see, and a documentary about a remarkably unique individual. ANDRE IS AN IDIOT is both a cautionary tale / public service announcement but also a fascinating, highly entertaining biographical documentary about one unique, creative, funny person who deserved more time on this planet. This impressively good film is not one you will regret seeing.

ANDRE IS AN IDIOT opens in theaters on Friday, Mar. 27, 2026.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

HIVE – SLIFF Review

Yllka Gashi as Fahrije in HIVE, which will be shown at the 2021 St. Louis International Film Festival, Photo credit Alexander Bloom.

A triple winner at Sundance and Kosovo’s official submission for the Oscars, HIVE is one of several outstanding international films featured at this year’s St Louis International Film Festival.

Writer/director Blerta Bashollo’s HIVE is her feature film debut. The moving drama about women in Kosovo struggling in the aftermath of war is based on a true story about one of the many women left in limbo when their husbands disappeared during the war. Fahrije (Yllka Gashi) continues her endless search for her missing husband, showing up as mass graves or buried clothing are found periodically by aid workers, but with little hope of finding him. At the same time, she also struggles to support her two children and her wheelchair-bound father-in-law by tending the beehives her husband once cared for, while her elderly father-in-land sells the honey at the local market, But the bees are not as productive now in the devastated landscape, and sales of honey bring a meager income for the family.

Fahrije also works for a local organization that tries to help other women in her small village, women and families left in the same limbo by missing husbands and fathers. As long as their deaths are not confirmed, the women are not widows, although in practical terms they are. As long as there is the chance their husbands might be alive, she and the other widows face harsh restrictions in the male-dominated traditional culture of her village, including vehement opposition to learning to drive or having a job.

Despite these threats, the desperate Fahrije starts a home-based food business, making a popular local condiment of peppers for a grocery store in a nearby city. The little business faces angry backlash from the men in the village and vicious gossip, but it also gives her and the other widows a means to survive, and hope.

HIVE is a touching, inspiring drama about the power of sisterhood, filled with fine performances, particularly by star Yllka Gashi, and an insightful glimpse into another culture and an inspiring look at a world of women enduring and succeeding under tough circumstances. One of the best touches in this uplifting drama are the shots of the real Fahrije shown with with the end credits.

HIVE, in Albanian with English subtitles, plays SLIFF on Nov. 5 at 1pm and Nov. 6 at 7pm at the Tivoli Theater. See the SLIFF website, https://www.cinemastlouis.org/sliff/festival-home, for tickets and other information. Covid procedures are in place, so all audience members must show proof of Covid vaccination and wear masks.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

HONEYLAND – Review

HONEYLAND is a documentary but it seems more like a narrative film with its strong dramatic arc and touching story. There is no narration and no introductory text to tells us in this visually-stunning award-winner at Sundance, which gives us a moving tale a traditional beekeeper in North Macedonia.

HONEYLAND opens with a gorgeous shot of a middle-aged woman in traditional Eastern European garb, making her way across a windswept rocky landscape. The camera follows her as she climbs up the mountainside and inches along a ledge, while the wind whips her skirts around. She then stops to pry loose a rock, which reveals a wild honeybee hive. Calmly, slowly, she reaches in and pulls out honeycombs and bees, and puts them in her basket.

It is a graceful, contemplative action, and the landscape is dramatic, setting the tone for this stunning, immersive documentary. The woman is traditional beekeeper in rural North Macedonia, a vanishing tradition, a perhaps the last of her kind, although with the film does not let us know that directly. Instead, HONEYLAND tells its human story more like an epic, with such a strong dramatic pull that one has to remind oneself that it is documentary. There is no introductory text at the start to tell us who she is or where we are, and there is no voice-over. Instead it is just the fly-on-the-wall camera, strikingly beautiful photography, and a intimate tale of a human life. The story is filled with human sweep, moments of humor, and an unspoken message about cultural change and caring for the earth.

The woman, Hatidze, lives in a small stone hut with her elderly mother, who is bed-ridden, blind in one eye and a little deaf. The landscape around their home is strewn with crumbling stone walls, and looks like it was once a small village. Now, all the other houses are in ruin, and Hatidze and her mother have only a dog and a couple of cats for company.

Still, they seem content with their simple life in the hut lit by candles and a wood stove. Chatting and joking in a way that reveals their close relationship, and the daughter’s good-naturalness and basic decency shine through in her care for her feisty mother. Occasionally, the beekeeper travels to the nearby city of Skopje to sell her honey, where her traditionally garb, of headscarf, high-neck blouse, flowing skirt and heavy stockings, make her look like she stepped out of another time. She socializes with vendors at the market, and does a little shopping. Hatidze is no beauty but we learn through conversations with her mother she once had other ambitions for her life. Her gentle personality, devoted care for her mother, and her unfailing politeness make her shine, winning out hearts.

At first, it looks as if the documentary will continue in this quiet fashion. But then neighbors arrive, and the quiet changes to chaos. Arriving in a mobile home, a couple move in across the street, with lots of noisy children, chickens, and a herd of cattle, none of which they seem to know how to manage. The father, Hussein, may be well-meaning but he is clearly in over his head, and has a tendency to blame others around him for his mistakes, particularly the children. The beekeeper and her mother are wary at first but since the newcomers speak the same Turkic language they are hopeful. Soon the children come over, and then the parents cone to visit. Gentle, good-natured Hatidze seems to enjoy the company, particularly the children, with whom she plays sweetly.

But the neighborly warmth doesn’t last, things grow tense when Hussein starts doing things that endanger Hatidze’s bees, ignoring Hatidze’s gentle helpful advice and then her complaints. There is tension and conflict, and the story takes unexpected twists as the two families try to figure out if they can indeed be neighbors.

The human drama on the screen is remarkable, all the more so because this is real life unfolding before our eyes. In the process, our admiration grows for Hatidze’s basic character, her resilience, warmth, and even a natural nobility. HONEYLAND is a documentary that is beautifully filmed, has a moving human story and unforgettable people, as well as something important to say about the value of traditional sustainable practices.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

ONE CHILD NATION – Review

A scene from the documentary ONE CHILD NATION. Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Sundance’s grand jury prize winning documentary ONE CHILD NATION examines the impact of China’s brutally-enforced “One Child” policy, from the viewpoint of people who experienced it. This is an eye-opening documentary about a policy that shaped modern China in many ways, but told from a very personal and human perspective. Director Nanfu Wang was born under China’s One Child policy, which restricted families to one child only from 1979 to 2015, but has lived in the U.S. as an adult. Growing up, she thought little about the policy which seemed a part of ordinary everyday life – until she had a child of her own.

Returning with her infant son to visit family in China, director Wang began to peel back the layers of this pervasive policy by talking to people directly impacted by it – doctors and local officials that enforced it, and family and neighbors who experienced its devastating effects. What Wang uncovers, through personal experiences, is something much darker and deeper than we expect, far beyond an idea for family planning.

While any documentary might have taken a straight-forward historical approach to the one-child policy, Wang’s ONE CHILD NATION focuses on individual people, both those impacted by the policy and those who carried it out. That choice makes this documentary more harrowing and gut-wrenching than a conventional documentary might have been.

As Wang notes, the policy was instituted at a time when China’s large and growing population was sparking fears of famine among Chinese Communist government officials. The policy included a propaganda campaign promoting the “One Child” policy, public social pressures to reinforce that and a host of local government officials and doctors to see that it was strictly enforced. Those enforcement efforts went much further than many suspected, as Wang’s investigation reveals.

Wang takes a very warm and personal approach, starting off by noting that her family was a bit different that most Chinese ones under the One Child policy in that her parents were granted permission to have a second child, an exception sometimes given to rural families like hers. Wang talks about how as a child in China under the policy, it was a source of social embarrassment at school that she had a younger brother. The consequences for having a second child without permission were severe.

The director’s return home with her baby sparks her curiosity about the One Child policy. Wang starts out with just questions for her family about how the now-abandoned policy might have impacted them directly. Her questions reveals a lingering reluctance to discuss the topic, one tinged with fear perhaps, and also lead her to discover a long-held family secret.

She interviews a retired local official who reveals some of the harshness of the policy before her inquiry is shut down with implied threats from the official’s wife. The official describes talks with people and admits that families who violated the policy by having another child often had their houses knocked down but the interview sparks her journalistic curiosity about other consequences. She tracks down a doctor who participated in enforcing the policy, who now helps families with infertility as a form of atonement, and finds that enforcing the ban extended far beyond talks or the destruction of houses the official described.

This is shocking, bracing stuff that makes clear the reason for the reluctance to talk about it. Wang delves into what happened to pregnant women, to babies born in violation of the policy, and the rise of the international adoption industry, which has a darker side than one might expect.

Wang’s focus on person stories and first-hand experience brings home the way this policy impacted people, with more emotional impact than a drier documentary approach would. Wang also expresses her opinion that this restrictive, strictly-enforced government policy limiting families has parallels, through the common theme of government dictating decisions on child-bearing to women, to forces in the U.S. pushing to pass laws restricting access to abortion. Some viewers may disagree but Wang notes that in her opinion both are cases of outsiders intruding in making family decisions.

This deep dive into the One Child policy uncovers how it transformed Chinese society and impacted individuals, an impressive piece of investigative journalism from a personal, human perspective. This is an eye-opening revelatory documentary n

The results of Wang’s inquiry are startling. Her personal investigation takes us deep into this strictly-enforced edict which had a profound impact on the lives of all Chinese people, revealing heartbreaking, even horrifying details about this how this family planning policy was carried out and its consequences. Wang’s skillful, probing style makes us feel like we are going down a deep rabbit hole of secrets long held, connecting dots unsuspected between the one-child policy and its legacy in the present. The searing documentary gives us insights on the people who endured it and the Chinese government that enforced it. ONE CHILD NATION is a revelatory documentary no one should miss.

ONE CHILD NATION opens Friday, Aug. 23, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

RATING: 3 1/2 out of 4 stars