Maria Garcia

Film Review: 2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary

This year's documentary shorts are dominated by the war in Syria and the world's refugee crisis. The likely winner is among them, although 'Joe's Violin' may get the Oscar because it skews toward the Academy's traditional preferences.

Film Review: 2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

This year's Oscar-nominated live-action shorts are an eclectic mix of romantic tales, with one politically relevant film on the effect of xenophobia, and another on bullying.

Film Review: I Am Not Your Negro

Intelligent but sometimes discursive documentary about African-American author James Baldwin.

Fathers and Sons: Jamal Joseph depicts redemption in Harlem in ‘Chapter & Verse’

In the early 1990s, New York City’s only black mayor, David Dinkins, used anti-crime funds to establish Beacon centers in every school district, a landmark re-envisioning of the role of schools in the lives of students.

Museum of Modern Art salutes Italian comedy master Dino Risi

Italian filmmaker Dino Risi (1917-2008) is the subject of a retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that runs through January 6.

Raptor Rapture: Otto Bell’s ‘The Eagle Huntress’ focuses on a pioneering young girl in Mongolia

Otto Bell’s debut documentary, 'The Eagle Huntress' (opening on Oct. 28 from Sony Pictures Classics), is about a girl and her eagle. It is also the story of that rare bond between human beings and wild creatures.

Gianfranco Rosi's 'Fire at Sea' examines the people of Lampedusa and its tide of refugees

The leitmotif of Gianfranco’s Rosi’s documentary, screening at this year’s New York Film Festival, is immediately apparent in the oxymoron of its title. Fire at Sea, set in Lampedusa, depicts the sharp and seemingly irreconcilable divisions between the people who inhabit the tiny Italian island...