It’s time for Nonfiction November! Did you know that Davenport Public Library has a robust nonfiction DVD selection? Here are a few critically acclaimed documentaries that are new to the Davenport Public Library shelves. (Descriptions below provided by the publisher.)
Four Daughters
The riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and artful reenactments to examine how the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized by Islamic extremists. Casting professional actresses as the missing daughters, along with acclaimed Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, award-winning director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) restages pivotal moments in the family’s life. These scenes are interwoven with confessions and reflections from Olfa and her younger daughters, offering the women agency to tell their own stories and capturing moments of joy, loss, violence, and heartache. Winner of four prizes including L’Oeil d’Or (Best Documentary) when it screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Four Daughters is a compelling portrait of five women and a unique and ambitious work of nonfiction cinema that explores the nature of memory, the weight of inherited trauma, and the ties that bind mothers and daughters.
Shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is a beguiling documentary portrait that follows poet and activist Nikki Giovanni as she approaches 80. The film explores Giovanni’s Afrofuturist-feminist philosophical outlook as well as her poignant relationship with her family, her political audacity, and her poetic eloquence, all knit together with a constant eye and ear for its subject’s own aesthetic verve. Looking back at a personal life and history cast in the long shadow of American racism, and forward to hopeful, possible futures, Giovanni acts as our guide and narrator, with refreshingly unorthodox filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michl̈e Stephenson refraining from traditional chronologies or talking-head conventions. Going to Mars is fueled by constant intellectual engagement and radical imagination in the search for emotional and political fulfillment in a world of disenfranchisement.
Kindred explores the importance of discovering your place in the world and realizing that home and love truly can be found in the people and places your heart connects to. This intimate film is a continuation of the ongoing conversations between Wills and Moody, documenting their emotional searches for belonging and how their abiding friendship has offered solace in turbulent times.