Clockwise from top left: Uncharted (Sony Pictures Releasing), The Baker (Darius Films/Productivity Media), Deliver Us (Magnet Releasing)Image: The A.V. Club
To begin the new year with something new, Hulu has added some under-the-radar movies as well as a few big-budget favorites from the past few years to its streaming library.
To begin the new year with something new, Hulu has added some under-the-radar movies as well as a few big-budget favorites from the past few years to its streaming library.
- 1/1/2024
- by Robert DeSalvo
- avclub.com
Aka Mr. Chow
(HBO Documentary Films)
This portrait directed by Nick Hooker follows the life and career of painter turned restaurateur Michael Chow, the owner of the Mr Chow restaurant chain, as he returns to the art world with his first solo show in nearly 60 years.
American Symphony
(Netflix)
Matthew Heineman switches gears from following the front lines of the Mexican drug war (the Oscar-nominated Cartel Land) and the early days of the Covid crisis in New York City (The First Wave), this time helming an intimate profile of Late Night With Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste as he balances an incredible year of professional success while aiding his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, through her battle with a rare form of cancer.
Anonymous Sister
(Long Shot Factory/Gravitas Ventures)
Emmy Award-winning director Jamie Boyle chronicles her family’s collision with the opioid epidemic. The film, currently holding a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes,...
(HBO Documentary Films)
This portrait directed by Nick Hooker follows the life and career of painter turned restaurateur Michael Chow, the owner of the Mr Chow restaurant chain, as he returns to the art world with his first solo show in nearly 60 years.
American Symphony
(Netflix)
Matthew Heineman switches gears from following the front lines of the Mexican drug war (the Oscar-nominated Cartel Land) and the early days of the Covid crisis in New York City (The First Wave), this time helming an intimate profile of Late Night With Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste as he balances an incredible year of professional success while aiding his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, through her battle with a rare form of cancer.
Anonymous Sister
(Long Shot Factory/Gravitas Ventures)
Emmy Award-winning director Jamie Boyle chronicles her family’s collision with the opioid epidemic. The film, currently holding a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes,...
- 12/8/2023
- by Tyler Coates and Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mast-Del.“There are two festivals occurring at the same time,” I heard from multiple attendees at this year’s Camden International Film Festival. They were alluding to a split in Ciff’s creative vision, but this was also something of a geographical fact: the four-day Maine documentary festival has two hubs, Camden and Rockland, which were linked by a 20-minute shuttle ride. Screenings overlapped throughout the festival, and since the vast majority of films played only once, each choice closed off a possibility. The two opening night films, Beyond Utopia and El Castillo, started in the same hour, essentially asking festivalgoers to select one film, or festival, or the other. This also meant that any interruptions caused by Hurricane Lee, forecasted to reach the West Penobscot Bay on the penultimate day of the festival, would be definitive. Thus another duality: the linear plan for the festival nearly a year in the making,...
- 12/7/2023
- MUBI
You may think you have a notion of how terrible it is to live in North Korea. You don’t. The media shows us military parades and atomic bomb tests. But many of the isolated country’s 26 million inhabitants are hungry or starving, and believe that America is their sworn enemy. It is impossible to cross the Dmz between North and South Korea, riddled with 2 million landmines, so anyone brave enough to defect must follow an elaborate route through China, which is friendly to North Korea, as well as several other hostile Communist countries, in order to reach safety in Thailand. And if a defector is caught, they go straight to the gulag, where they are beaten and tortured.
In the eye-opening “Beyond Utopia”, from editor-turned-director Madeleine Gavin (“City of Joy”), which won the U.S. documentary audience award at Sundance 2023, we follow a heroic and fearless Christian pastor, Seungeun Kim,...
In the eye-opening “Beyond Utopia”, from editor-turned-director Madeleine Gavin (“City of Joy”), which won the U.S. documentary audience award at Sundance 2023, we follow a heroic and fearless Christian pastor, Seungeun Kim,...
- 11/1/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Harrowing stories have been told by those who’ve survived their escape from North Korea, but that struggle emerges with a startling urgency in director Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia with footage unlike any we’ve seen before. The film uses interviews with defectors and archival footage to provide historical context about the stringent control that North Korea’s security apparatus has over its citizens and how they’re bombarded and controlled by propaganda. But it’s the hidden camera and cellphone footage taken by defectors themselves that most terrifyingly attests to the horrors committed by the kleptocratic dynastic regime.
The on-the-grounds footage focuses primarily on Hyukchang Wu and his family, who at the start of the film are hiding along the border between China and North Korea. We witness their first contact with Seungeun Kim, a well-known pastor who, with minimal resources, has managed to help numerous people escape from North Korea.
The on-the-grounds footage focuses primarily on Hyukchang Wu and his family, who at the start of the film are hiding along the border between China and North Korea. We witness their first contact with Seungeun Kim, a well-known pastor who, with minimal resources, has managed to help numerous people escape from North Korea.
- 10/30/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
Human Rights Watch states the case very clearly: North Korea “remains one of the most repressive countries in the world.”
In a 2022 report, the nonprofit said, “The North Korean government does not respect the rights to freedom of thought, opinion, expression or information… Fear of collective punishment is used to silence dissent.”
Amnesty International, in a 2022 report of its own, noted, “More than 40% of the population were undernourished and required humanitarian assistance.” It added, “Teenagers were reportedly executed for watching and sharing a South Korean TV show.”
A North Korean propaganda poster
The U.S. State Department, in a 2022 assessment, outlined a staggering tally of abuses in North Korea, “including coerced abortion and forced sterilization; trafficking in persons… and the worst forms of child labor.”
Given these nightmarish conditions, small wonder that many in the country of nearly 26 million would like to leave (even though they are told from childhood...
In a 2022 report, the nonprofit said, “The North Korean government does not respect the rights to freedom of thought, opinion, expression or information… Fear of collective punishment is used to silence dissent.”
Amnesty International, in a 2022 report of its own, noted, “More than 40% of the population were undernourished and required humanitarian assistance.” It added, “Teenagers were reportedly executed for watching and sharing a South Korean TV show.”
A North Korean propaganda poster
The U.S. State Department, in a 2022 assessment, outlined a staggering tally of abuses in North Korea, “including coerced abortion and forced sterilization; trafficking in persons… and the worst forms of child labor.”
Given these nightmarish conditions, small wonder that many in the country of nearly 26 million would like to leave (even though they are told from childhood...
- 9/4/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Fathom Events and Roadside Attractions are teaming up to release Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia.”
The film takes viewers on a harrowing journey as one family risks everything to escape from North Korea. The pact comes after the film made its world premiere in the U.S. documentary competition section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the doc audience award.
While the film attracted plenty of interest from distribution companies following its debut in Park City, the market slowdown has led to deals taking longer than usual to nail down.
Roadside acquired domestic rights to “Beyond Utopia” and will release the film theatrically in select markets later this fall, thereby qualifying the docu for Oscar consideration. Fathom Events will release the film in more than 600 theaters nationwide during a special two-night only event on Oct. 23-24.
Using hidden camera footage, Gavin tells the...
The film takes viewers on a harrowing journey as one family risks everything to escape from North Korea. The pact comes after the film made its world premiere in the U.S. documentary competition section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the doc audience award.
While the film attracted plenty of interest from distribution companies following its debut in Park City, the market slowdown has led to deals taking longer than usual to nail down.
Roadside acquired domestic rights to “Beyond Utopia” and will release the film theatrically in select markets later this fall, thereby qualifying the docu for Oscar consideration. Fathom Events will release the film in more than 600 theaters nationwide during a special two-night only event on Oct. 23-24.
Using hidden camera footage, Gavin tells the...
- 8/28/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
Nobody who runs into Pastor Seungeun Kim would ever suspect that he was one of the world’s top covert geopolitical operatives. The soft-spoken Korean man — whose wife’s first impression of him was that he looked like Kim Jong-il because of his large belly — seems like he has more in common with a dorky dad from a Geico commercial than Jack Ryan. But don’t be fooled by appearances: Pastor Kim is a straight-up badass. Over the past decade, he’s helped over 1,000 North Koreans escape to freedom — a jaw-droppingly impressive feat that should make every single person who watches “Beyond Utopia” question what they’ve done with their lives. If you have a family member looking to escape Kim Jong-un’s oppressive regime, he’s the guy you call.
Using his Rolodex of brokers, mercenaries, corrupt cops, and safehouses, he operates a pipeline that transports North Korean defectors...
Using his Rolodex of brokers, mercenaries, corrupt cops, and safehouses, he operates a pipeline that transports North Korean defectors...
- 1/27/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
An astonishing real-life geopolitical thriller with a very run-of-the-mill historical explainer grafted to it like a remora, Madeleine Gavin’s documentary Beyond Utopia is so packed with high-stakes tension and nail-biting set-pieces that it’s fairly easy, and probably even ideal, to ignore its clunky structuring and expositional choices.
Beyond Utopia is primarily a three-pronged story about the perils of defecting from modern North Korea, as well as the nightmarish realities that make defecting such a necessity.
Seoul-based Pastor Seungeun Kim has spent decades putting his own life in jeopardy to coordinate and facilitate defections. He has a network of ethically compromised brokers in North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, but he’s more than just a guy moving strategic pieces from a distance. Motivated in part by personal trauma, Pastor Kim’s own participation in these escapes has left him with broken bones and a rap sheet in several countries.
Beyond Utopia is primarily a three-pronged story about the perils of defecting from modern North Korea, as well as the nightmarish realities that make defecting such a necessity.
Seoul-based Pastor Seungeun Kim has spent decades putting his own life in jeopardy to coordinate and facilitate defections. He has a network of ethically compromised brokers in North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, but he’s more than just a guy moving strategic pieces from a distance. Motivated in part by personal trauma, Pastor Kim’s own participation in these escapes has left him with broken bones and a rap sheet in several countries.
- 1/25/2023
- by Daniel Fienberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
North Korea is a place of fearsome fascination. It’s the most brutal regime on earth, led by a dynastic dictator, Kim Jong-un, who has proved to be even more ruthless and obsessed with nuclear weapons than his father, Kim Jong-il. We all have a certain vision of North Korea, a country sealed like a prison, cut off from the rest of the world by technology (or the absence of it). You could say it exists as a kind of ghost state, a totalitarian hellhole in lockdown. But when you watch Madeleine Gavin’s staggering documentary “Beyond Utopia,” which is about what really goes on in North Korea, and about a handful of desperate souls who attempt to defect from it, you see North Korea — the full nightmare of the place — as never before.
The filmmaker got ahold of forbidden footage that was smuggled out of the country, and in...
The filmmaker got ahold of forbidden footage that was smuggled out of the country, and in...
- 1/24/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
“Beyond Utopia” offers an astonishing look at the lengths people will go for freedom. The new documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it has attracted interest from several streaming companies, takes viewers on a harrowing journey as one family risks everything to escape from North Korea.
For director Madeleine Gavin, “Beyond Utopia” is an opportunity to change the conversation around the repressive regime by moving the focus from its brutal leader Kim Jong-un and onto the ordinary citizens who have been abused and neglected by the country.
“As I researched this film, I became more and more outraged that nobody is talking about North Koreans themselves,” says Gavin. “I wanted to crack that world open to people. Too often, we focus on what North Korea’s leaders want us to focus on, which is their nukes. That’s their only leverage. Without them, they would not exist as a country.
For director Madeleine Gavin, “Beyond Utopia” is an opportunity to change the conversation around the repressive regime by moving the focus from its brutal leader Kim Jong-un and onto the ordinary citizens who have been abused and neglected by the country.
“As I researched this film, I became more and more outraged that nobody is talking about North Koreans themselves,” says Gavin. “I wanted to crack that world open to people. Too often, we focus on what North Korea’s leaders want us to focus on, which is their nukes. That’s their only leverage. Without them, they would not exist as a country.
- 1/23/2023
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
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