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Back to School Documentary Week
September 1, 2023 – September 14, 2023
Even if your life is no longer punctuated by the academic year, back-to-school energy creates a fitting reason to explore different ideas and discover new topics. From Friday, Sept. 1, through Thursday, Sept. 14, The Lindsay will offer documentaries bound to expand your thoughts and provoke stimulating conversations.
These are no dry classroom films—they’re dynamic, template-breaking works that explore fascinating and potentially controversial topics. Join us on this journey of exploration and learning on the big screen.
Speakers, talkbacks with filmmakers and other activities will provide dimension to select showings. Stay tuned for these special opportunities in our Weekly Updates or by visiting our website.
Each documentary will screen on different times and dates during the series. Tickets are on sale now!
For audience members 21 and older, BYOB is available.
Join or Die
NR | 1h 39m
Directors: Pete Davis, Rebecca Davis
Stars: Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, Glenn Loury
This compelling film explores the changing fabric of American democracy through the lens of social scientist Robert Putnam, who sounded the alarm on the dire consequences of nationwide individualistic trends and growing isolation. Join or Die follows Putnam as he pulls together the threads that expose America’s civic unraveling, as revealed in his groundbreaking book Bowling Alone, which discusses America’s decades-long decline in community connections.
Credited with creating the concept and terminology of “social capital,” the Harvard professor was awarded a National Humanities Medal for his work.
“With such a dense subject matter, one would assume the film begins to feel heavy and tiresome, but Join or Die never overextends its audience, keeping each moment light—much of the infusion of energy and light-heartedness coming from its visual aids and its main subject, Putnam,” says Film Inquiry.
“It’s easy to feel charged up about something after watching a movie with an audience at a film festival,” Slashfilm says. “But can that feeling last beyond the walk to your car when real life starts creeping back into your brain? I can tell you this much: days later, I am still thinking about Join or Die and its message about community…If that isn’t the mark of a good documentary, what is?”
Co-director Pete Davis will join us virtually for Q&A after the 1:30 p.m. screening on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
King Coal
NR | 1h 20m
Director: Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Stars: Lanie Marsh, Gabrielle Wilson
This New York Times Critics’ Pick explores how the coal industry permeates the culture of Appalachia, and questions what happens now amidst that industry’s steady decline. Directed by coal-miner’s-daughter-turned-filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon, King Coal “profiles a region’s relationship with fossil fuel and presents a eulogy for a way of life.”
Shot in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, among other states, King Coal captures traditional coal-focused community events such as the annual Bituminous Coal Queen pageant in Carmichaels, Greene County, PA.
“There are fewer than 12,000 coal miners left in West Virginia, but the combination of the value, power and danger of the rock in question means the job retains a mythic quality,” says the Wall Street Journal, praising Sheldon’s “breathtakingly expressive job of capturing the strangeness, the beauty and the devastation of her homeland in this poetic, entrancing documentary.”
Noting her family’s four generation of miners, WSJ continues: “Though the film is too short on footage of actual mining, the few minutes of images we do see clarify that on its best day, the experience is an alarming one. The worst days are ones we’d rather not think about as we flip the light switch.
“The post-coal era can’t come fast enough for some. For others, coal is at the heart of who they are and where they came from. ‘Some think place matters less today,’ the filmmaker notes,” the WSJ concludes. “Her lovely, lyrical film makes a profound statement against that notion.”
Elaine McMillion Sheldon, writer, director and co-producer, will join us virtually for Q&A after the 2:50 p.m. screening on Wednesday, Sept. 6.
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
NR | 1h 20m
Director: Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Stars: Lanie Marsh, Gabrielle Wilson
The powerful Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World is “revelatory in every sense,” raves The Hollywood Reporter. It exposes the role of Native Americans in contemporary music history, a critical missing chapter “eloquently demonstrated in this engaging documentary.”
“American popular music—and the history of rock and roll itself—wouldn’t be the same without the contributions of Native American performers,” The Hollywood Reporter observes. They influenced blues and jazz, punk and rock, crooners and headbangers, starting in 1958 with Link Wray, the mastermind of Rumble, the only instrumental song banned from U.S. radio.
Among the top-name artists profiled is The Band guitarist/composer Robbie Robertson, who passed away earlier this month. Robertson recalls being told when he was young, “Be proud you’re an Indian, but be careful who you tell.” The part-Mohawk artist also composed soundtracks for Martin Scorsese films Gangs of New York and The Departed. Scorsese is among the big names interviewed in the film, alongside multi-genre musicians Steven Van Zandt, Wayne Kramer and Iggy Pop, crooner Tony Bennett, bluesman Taj Mahal, folk’s Buffy Sainte-Marie and funk master George Clinton.
“The winning streak for music documentaries continues with Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, says the New York Times. “If you couldn’t name two Native American musicians at the beginning of the documentary, you’ll remember at least a half-dozen after the end. And it’s a good bet you’ll be searching for their albums, too.”
Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie
NR | 1h 32m
Director: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins
Stars: Richard Dickson, Kristina Duncan, Michelle Chidoni
Did this 2018 documentary successfully predict 2023’s blockbuster and global phenomenon? Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie looks back on the past 60 years of this foot-high icon, featuring unprecedented access to the inner workings of the toy giant Mattel during Barbie’s most recent reinvention and examining her popularity and impact on women and culture.
“What does a plastic doll have to say about feminism? Everything, (the) documentary argues,” The Atlantic says, hailing Director Andrea Blaugrund Nevins’ film as “fascinating.”
“From her very conception, Tiny Shoulders reveals, Barbie was problematic. Prior to her creation, the only toy dolls available for children came in the form of babies…” The Atlantic continues.
Is Barbie “an empowering toy that encourages girls to dream big and, in doing so, helps them define their feminist identities? Or is she the embodiment of an unrealistic, and thus harmful, vapid sexist ideal, making women of all ages feel bad about themselves and their bodies?” asks Variety. “Nevins’ documentary suggests that the answer to both questions is yes.”
If you can’t get enough of Barbie or have been waiting for a more intellectual take on the doll, this one’s for you!
Producer, director and writer Andrea Blaugrund Nevins will join us virtually for Q&A after the 5:15 p.m. screening on Friday, Sept. 1.
Behind the Stage Door
NR | 1h 21m
Director: Brian Stork
Stars: Rich Engler, Doc McGhee, Alex Lifeson
Having promoted concerts of Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney, Sewickley resident Rich Engler has been the driving force behind vibrant concert scenes in Pittsburgh and across the nation.
“Few figures in 20th-century rock music—and, in all likelihood, no one based in Pittsburgh—had more impact on modern music than Rich Engler,” says Pittsburgh Magazine. “He had a profound impact on live music during the heyday of what we now call classic rock.”
The son of a Creighton, Pa., glassworker, Engler began his professional life as a drummer for Grains of Sand, which opened for the likes of David Bowie, the Beach Boys, the Yardbirds and Yes.
Behind the Stage Door, “inspired by Engler’s 2012 book of the same title, covers everything from the intricacies of the music industry to Engler’s insider stories of high-living rock-stars,” reports WESA-FM. “The film features interviews with members of bands like Rush, Kansas, and Styx and local notables Donnie Iris and Joe Grushecky.”
“Engler could fill a 10-hour documentary with the tales he has to tell,” like juicy tidbits regarding Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Axl Rose, and the emotional story of a very ill Bob Marley’s final show in 1980, notes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
You know the name; now learn the back story of this fascinating Pittsburgher and his many brushes with fame.
Rich Engler will be at the Theater after the 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 11, screening for Q&A and a book signing.
Live the Stream: The Story of Joe Humphreys
NR | 1h 33m
Directors: Lucas Bell, Meigan Bell
Stars: Joe Humphreys, Johanna Humphreys
Back by popular demand! This Pennsylvania-made charmer was a favorite in The Lindsay’s Summer Classic Series.
When you think of fly-fishing, the crystal streams and towering mountains of the American West may come to mind, but an internationally known fly fishing giant plies his trade in lovely central Pennsylvania.
Live the Stream: The Story of Joe Humphreys is “a beautiful wade in the water” with “a 90-year-old rock star of the fly fishing world,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Husband and wife filmmakers (Lucas and Meigan Bell, originally from Cheswick and Sarver) spent a year following fishing legend Joe Humphreys, of the State College area, to his favorite fishing holes, creating a documentary praised by audiences and critics on festival circuits from Breckenridge, CO, to Reading, PA.
“Trout streams are fountains of youth for Joe Humphreys: a man who was born to fly fish, lives to teach and strives to pass on a respect for our local waters,” shares Fins and Feathers. “Far more than a fly fishing film, this character story about the one-of-a-kind Joe Humphreys is an emotional and powerful narrative about aging, family, friendships and the power of positive influence.”
Venice: Infinitely Avant-Garde
NR | 1h 30m
Director: Michele Mally
Stars: Hania Rani, Carlo Cecchi
The gondolas, the bridges, the mysterious alleyways. Whether you’ve been there or not, we invite you to the delightful Venice: Infinitely Avant Garde.
“Every corner in Venice, every canal, leads you toward a dreamlike dimension,” says one of the lovers of this magical city interviewed for the film.
For 1,600 years, Venice has always been known for its openness to the world and to the future through its art as well as its narrow streets. The film showcases masterpieces by Tiepolo, Canaletto, Rosalba Carriera and the intellectuals who fell in love with Venice: Goethe, Byron and Walter Scott, down to the great Hollywood stars drawn to its unique, yearly Film Festival.
Combining decadence with cutting-edge excitement, Venice has always been a cosmopolitan city of commercial and cultural exchange with the East.
Bring along your favorite travel companion and learn how this city has conserved its unique urban environment made of stone, earth and water, and its legendary history.
Every Body
R | 1h 32m
Director: Julie Cohen
Stars: Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, River Gallo
“Every Body is a moving, fascinating look at a too-often-ignored subset of the world’s population, filled with empathy and understanding but also a cool, analytical anger about what history has put them through,” says Roger Ebert. “The subject is intersex people.”
The “I” in L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+, intersex people are born with physical, chromosomal or hormonal characteristics that are consistent with both males and females. Some are raised as a certain gender, and some are surgically altered to make them look more like one gender.
The film focuses on three intersex people advocating for greater understanding of the intersex community: Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel and River Gallo, who seek to end to unnecessary surgeries.
“Director Julie Cohen and her editor Kelly Kendrick interweave the three main stories and troves of accompanying historical and medical facts with admirable economy and imagination,” says Roger Ebert. “Stylistically this is one of the cleanest American documentaries of the year. A lot of information is packed into the movie’s brief running time, but Every Body never feels cluttered.”
Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
NR | 75m
Director: Thomas Piper
Star: Piet Oudolf
Piet Oudolf, the world’s most celebrated garden designer, is known for his groundbreaking work on New York’s High Line, Chicago’s Lurie Gardens and Philadelphia’s Calder Gardens, “meticulously cultivating some of the urban world’s great outdoor spaces,” says the Village Voice.
“If there’s a rock star garden designer worthy of a biopic, then Piet Oudolf is probably the one,” says Gardenista.
Filmmaker Thomas Piper captures Oudolf ‘s creative process in Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf. “For gardeners everywhere, the film is a tantalizing 75 minutes in which to lose yourself in one man’s vision and passion,” raves Gardenista.
In the documentary “chock-full of spark and life…it’s enchanting to see Oudolf’s gentle joy at discovering swathes of Technicolor wildflowers in the Texan countryside—and it’s just as satisfying to watch his bemused reaction to barbecue,” the Village Voice concludes. “Piper’s cinematography (whether through a sunny haze or a snowy blanket) and contemplative storytelling have done these gardens justice.”
