"Then there’s another documentary that I saw last time at Sundance, which is called Position Among the Stars. This is a Dutch-Indonesian director who has made a portrait of one family over the course of 12 years in Indonesia. His name is Leonard Retel Helmrich. I talked to him for a few hours on the last day, before he won the award in Sundance, about what he was doing and how he was doing it, because the way in which he conducts his camera is completely different. He said, “I wanted to make a very simple portrait about a very poor family in Indonesia and see if I could find a link to the bigger picture, so to speak, and the alignment of the stars above their head.” And he succeeded. It’s an awesome documentary. It’s just a portrait of a small family, with a universal theme coming out of it at the end."

"“Free Solo” is the rock climbing documentary du jour, and for very just cause. But Alex Honnold’s climbing partner Tommy Caldwell is also the subject of his own documentary, about a different historic ascent of El Capitan. It was directed by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer, and was released almost simultaneously with “Free Solo,” and thus hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. I saw it at its premiere at SXSW in March, at which the entire audience erupted into a standing ovation – during the movie! I couldn’t help but go back for an encore screening a few nights later, which I think is the first time I’ve ever seen a movie twice at a film festival. While Honnold’s achievement is certainly more historic, Caldwell’s unbelievable life story and his accent of the titular wall with Kevin Jorgensen makes for one of the most triumphant feel-great narratives I’ve seen in years. I would recommend watching both docs, back to back, and then joining a climbing gym."

"You know, a movie that I always come back to, which is a documentary — I hope that’s okay — is American Movie, which I think is one of the funniest and saddest movies I’ve ever seen. So quotable. And it really says a lot about hope, optimism, naivete, the movie business. Even though they’re hundreds of miles away from LA and have no real access to Hollywood… I just love that movie so much."