LOVE TO LOVE YOU, DONNA SUMMER (SXSW2023) – Review by Diane Carson

In the documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer, directors Roger Ross Williams and Donna Summer’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano celebrate Donna Summer, including her eight year involvement with German avant-garde music, as lead singer of the psychedelic bank Crow, and, back in the U.S., her dominance of the dance scene from the mid-70s on. Through candid photographs, a wealth of home video footage, personal audio recordings, her paintings, and numerous clips from her performances, this superstar’s life in front of and behind the cameras is revealed.

Read more

Rosa Ruth Boesten on MASTER OF LIGHT and the Impact of Art (SXSW 2022) – Leslie Combemale interviews

Master of Light, the feature documentary debut for filmmaker Rosa Ruth Boesten, executive produced by renowned filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, was made in collaboration with subject and artist George Morton, who honed his talent as a classical painter while incarcerated in federal prison for dealing drugs. Morton is a Black man who has chosen to confront the damage he has sustained by intergenerational trauma and systemic racism both personally and as an artist. Since his release, he has worked to rise above his own and his family’s history to become a success in the white-dominated art world. Boesten comments on her experience working with George Morton, how the film changed her, and bringing attention to the vast potential and talent our society stands to lose by the racially-biased mass incarceration continuing to happen in America.

Read more

WEEK IN WOMEN: Disco Queen Donna Summer Rocks New Doc – Brandy McDonnell reports

The late “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer will be the subject of a new feature documentary titled “Donna” from Polygram Entertainment, the film and television division of Universal Music Group. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Music by Prudence, Life, Animated) will direct the documentary alongside Summer’s daughter, Brooklyn Sudano.

Read more

THE INNOCENTS, THE BFG, MICROBE & GASOLINE, LIFE ANIMATED and other July 1 openers – Reviews by Jennifer Merin

Top picks among this week’s opening films are Anne Fontaine’s harrowing post World War II drama, The Innocents, plus Steven

Read more