DOC NYC 2022 – “Queen of the Deuce” (Seth Shire)

November 14, 2022.  Writer, director and producer Valerie Kontakos’ documentary “Queen of the Deuce” is a raucous, insightful, heartwarming, outrageous, “stranger than fiction” tale of survival against tyranny and traditional norms.  Chelly Wilson, a larger-than-life character, was a Jewish, Greek immigrant to the United States who fled the Nazis from Greece in the 1940s, only to blossom in the pornographic movie business in Times Square during from the late 60s to the mid-80s.

Chelly’s eclectically decorated apartment was located above, and could be entered from inside the lobby of, the “Adonis,” New York’s premiere gay porn movie theatre over which Chelly reigned.  Chelly owned more porn theatres in New York City than anyone and was even involved with the production of pornographic films.  Her grandson, interviewed in the film, recalls “Everything you said about her sounded like it was made up.  She was completely the most un-grandma–like person anyone could have.”

DOC NYC 2022 – “Beba” (Wendy Moscow)

 

November 13, 2022.  Messy, joyful, searching, angry, self-important, honest, revealing, smart… all are words that describe the personal documentary “Beba,” and Beba (Rebeca Huntt) herself, as she navigates the uncertain waters of childhood, teenagehood, college and the transition to becoming “grownish” (while living in her parent’s apartment). The special challenges of being Afro-Latina in America are explored and embraced, as well. Huntt uses the medium of film effectively to declare, “Here I am (like it or not)!” There’s a lot to like.

She begins by saying “This is my part. Nobody else speak,” and what follows is a rare (bravely self-created) opportunity for a young Black woman of Latinx descent to make her life known. Instead of allowing the larger culture to define her, she is “the lens, the subject, the authority.”

DOC NYC 2022 – “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” (Wendy Moscow)

(left to right) “1946” director Sharon “Rocky” Roggio and scholar Ed Oxford

November 13, 2022.  Living in New York City, where couples of varying gender identities walk down the street hand-in-hand, companies fall over each other to show their support for Pride Month activities and many churches hang out rainbow flags and have signs welcoming LGBTQ+ people, it’s easy to forget that there are parts of the country (and, I’m sure, even places in this city) where those who are not hetero-normative are struggling to reconcile their Christianity with their sexual orientation — people for whom what the bible says shapes their sense of self-worth. These folks usually come from fundamentalist, evangelical churches whose preachers inveigh regularly against the “gay lifestyle,” justifying their position with several biblical passages that appear to condemn homosexuality. But do they really?

Sharon “Rocky” Roggio’s film, “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” sets out to show us that, prior to 1946, the word “homosexual,” does not appear in the bible at all. Roggio follows writers and scholars Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford as they do the laborious work of uncovering who made the change and why. It’s important to know that the change is made in the Revised Standard Version — one of the most widely used bibles in the English speaking world, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. What is actually a mistranslation and conflation of two Greek words, “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai,” (roughly, “effeminacy” and “sexual pervert”) has been weaponized against LBGTQ+ people in Christian settings from that point forward. Roggio (whose interest in this topic emerges from personal experience — she not only grew up in a fundamentalist environment, but her father is a fundamentalist preacher) wants us to understand the far-ranging implications of this misuse of language for our society. How many suicides of LGBTQ+ Christians might have been prevented if these words had not been translated as “homosexual”?

DOC NYC 2022 – Short Films – Cultural Pride, Meaningful Work, New York Stories (Wendy Moscow)

November 12, 2022.  There are many small gems among the short films at DOC NYC. Here are three of them:

“Coming Home”

The title “Coming Home” in Naim Naïf and Margot Bowman’s warm and lively short film, has at least two different meanings. For expat Palestinians in Bay Ridge, coming home to an occupied country is fraught with difficulty and sadness. Is it possible to “come home” in a foreign place by celebrating one’s culture, family life and faith?

For the young men who are part of the Freedom Dabka Group, the joy, precision and pride expressed by the traditional dance called the dabka, allows them to do just that. These young men bond, earn respect, teach others on social media and have a lot of fun, like young people anywhere.

The dabka is a rhythmic, athletic line dance that clearly imbues its dancers with a sense of agency and empowerment, as well as being emblematic of an often misunderstood culture. One of the dancers describes it as “aspirational.” “Coming Home” shows us, in scenes of family life (including a funny moment when the father of one of the boys screws up a couple of important facts and is corrected by the mother), dramatic black and white stills, footage of a political protest, and, of course, the young men dancing, how a culture can survive and thrive so far from where it began.

DOC NYC 2022 – “Theatre of Thought” (Wendy Moscow)

November 10, 2022.  Known for his inimitable, occasionally ponderous (but how we love them) voiceovers and unquenchable curiosity about the world, Werner Herzog has gifted us with a new film about the brain that, if you’re paying attention, will have your neurons firing at breakneck speed with the wonder of it all.

Herzog interviews PhDs representing many disciplines who give us a whirlwind, yet in depth tour of cutting edge advances in brain science, covering areas as diverse as the ability to read thoughts via brain scans, to how the brain obeys the laws of quantum mechanics, to research on the tiny hydra (the “Rosetta Stone” of the brain), and how our past memories generate our present. Our thoughts can not only control artificial limbs, but can, perhaps, control what someone else is thinking (and doing!). Parkinson tremors can be alleviated with brain manipulation and pain vanquished.