For those attending the SILVERDOCS film festival, come celebrate our first birthday and our films screening there: The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan and War Don Don.

The party is Saturday, June 26th from 7-9 pm at the Cinema Lounge: The A.V. Club@Silverdocs, 921-J Ellsworth Drive.  Drinks and light hors d’ouvres will be provided, as well as a good time for all!

RSVP at Facebook and be sure to become a fan of Naked Edge Films.

Two documentaries from Naked Edge Films will be in competition at the SILVERDOCS documentary festival in Silver Spring, MD the week of June 21st: the world premiere of The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan and the award-winning War Don Don.

McKinley Nolan will be screening Thursday 6/24 @ 9:30pm and Saturday 6/26 @ 5:00pm, and War Don Don will be screening Tuesday 6/22 @ 4:15pm and Saturday 6/26 @ 3:00pm.

Be sure to get your tickets before they sell out!

In the heart of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the “special court.” Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors say Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of heinous crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in bringing peace to Sierra Leone. With unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims, and, from behind bars, Sesay himself, War Don Don puts international justice on trial for the world to see — finding that in some cases the past is not just painful, it is also opaque.

Credits

• Directed and produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen
• Produced and edited by Francisco Bello
• Line producer: Abu-Bakarr Jalloh
• Executive producers: Jim Butterworth & David Menschel
• Co-producer: Daniel J. Chalfen
• Directors of photography: Nadia Hallgren & William Charles Moss
• Composer: Max Avery Lichtenstein
• Featuring the song “War Don Don” by Bajah + Dry Eye Crew

Reviews/Quotes

“The film supplies incredible visual power, is rhythmically precise in its pace and timbre, and presents the hard-won access these filmmakers had to its very best advantage for the viewer to weigh, ponder, listen and learn. … This is highly-nuanced, thought-provoking filmmaking, providing profound sustenance for both the mind, the conscience and the heart.”

— Pamela Cohn, Still In Motion

“‘War Don Don’ is one of the most thought-provoking documentaries you will see this year. It tells the story of the trial of accused war criminal, Issa Sesay, a leader of the rebel army in Sierra Leone during the country’s brutal civil war. … It’s hard to imagine how Sesay could be a sympathetic character—the fact that he does is not the only surprising thing about this movie, which packs more information in 90 minutes than just about any other film like it.”

— Michael May, Texas Observer

“‘War Don Don’ forces its audience to challenge preconceived notions of righteousness, justice and retribution. Even the seemingly secure concept of truth is quickly muddied, creating the most satisfying intellectual and emotional discomfort. … The film’s aesthetic, simultaneously stunning and disturbing, matches the tenor of the issues at hand. Refraining from voiceover and allowing the war, the court and Sierra Leone itself to serve as much of the soundtrack, Cohen deftly removes herself from the film. Instead, she elegantly allows the violence, the individuals involved, and, in the end, the lingering questions to haunt the viewer.”

— Rebecca Agule, Harvard Law Record

“An extremely well-made documentary. … When a prosecutor says he sees pure evil in Sesay’s face and Sesay’s lawyer says he sees a good man, you want to look into the commander’s eyes and see for yourself.”

— Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

“Fascinating and complex…a remarkably sophisticated examination of the machinery of justice.”

— The Independent Weekly, Raleigh, NC

Trailer

Private McKinley Nolan vanished forty years ago in Vietnam on the Cambodia frontier. Some say he was captured, some say he was a traitor, some even say he was an American operative. The U.S. Army officially claims he was radicalized and “went native,” joined the Viet Cong and was later murdered by the Khmer Rouge. In 2006, retired U.S. Army Lt. Dan Smith, revisiting the battlefields of his youth, may have encountered McKinley, alive. S o begins a journey into the heart of darkness.

The film follows the Nolan family from the cotton belt of Texas, to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, to the killing fields of Cambodia and unfolds a mysterious fever dream filled with doubt, longing and the will to believe. Nolan’s ghost starts out seeming like a nostalgic vision that we want to capture. But, like a will-o-the-wisp or a banshee, he calls us deeper and deeper into the jungle and into the impossible liaisons with Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge. The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan is a mystery, but it’s also, more profoundly, a haunting meditation on war, memory, and love.

Credits

• Directed by Henry Corra
• Produced by Celia Maysles, Jeremy Amar and Henry Corra
• Executive producers: Danny Glover, Joslyn Barnes and David Alcar
• Executive producer for Naked Edge Films: Jim Butterworth
• Editors: Kimberley Hassett and Eben Bull
• Consulting producers: Richard Linnett and Rithy Panh
• Consulting producer for Naked Edge Films: Daniel J. Chalfen

Reviews/Quotes

“Intimate and beautifully shot, the film takes us on a fugue-like counterpoint between Texas and Cambodia, Vietnam and D.C., families and governments, the grieving and the guilty, loss and acceptance, leaving the audience stunned, moved and profoundly haunted.”

— George Williams, author of Degenerate and Gardens of Earthly Delight

“‘The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan’ is a visceral road-run through a landscape of faces, emotions, pain and war. Michael Nolan is an incredible presence; he fills the screen with his tireless and noble spirit.”

— George Hamilton, actor

Trailer

Synopsis

Cape Wind is a feature-length documentary illuminating the divisive controversy of the Cape Wind Project — a proposal to build 130 massive wind towers five miles off the coast of Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound. The film translates the furor that exploded on Cape Cod into a definitive battle that will be replicated hundreds of times over as industrial-scale renewable energy projects are proposed for America’s deserts, ridgelines and waterways.

Cape Wind tackles the root causes of society’s inability to produce a large-scale solution to the global energy crisis it created, framing the events of the Cape Wind Project as a microcosm of America’s struggle toward sustainability and energy independence. It is a detailed exploration of the trials and tribulations of implementing a massive energy project and how a community of active citizens struggles to protect itself in these uncertain times.

Credits

• Directed and produced by Robbie Gemmel
• Produced and written by Daniel Coffin
• Executive producers: Josh Levin, Libby Handros, John Kirby, Marcel Quiroga & Jim Butterworth
• Consulting Producers: Mark Landsman & Daniel J. Chalfen
• Co-Producers: Steven Latham & Catherine Day
• Executive Editor: John Kirby

Trailer

In connection with the 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Cinereach presented its annual Cinereach Award to Rebecca Richman Cohen for her work as Director/Producer of War Don Don. The award, which includes a $5,000 prize, recognizes excellence in artful, vital storytelling. See the full press release here.

Synopsis

A retired NY cop searches for her son who vanished in Austria, and on her quest exposes police corruption, institutional homophobia, and the desperate plight of those missing abroad.

Credits

• Directed and produced by Gretchen & John Morning
• Produced by Daniel J. Chalfen
• Executive producer: Jim Butterworth

Trailer

Synopsis

Dr. Mohammad Jawad is on a mission to tackle one of the Muslim world’s most disturbing problems.

Last year, the world was captivated by the story of Katie Piper, a 26-year old model who was the victim of a brutal acid attack in the streets of London. The story of her attack and recovery was the most requested story on BBC World and was recently featured on 20/20 and soon to be on Oprah.

Katie’s doctor — who she calls her “personal hero” for the revolutionary new techniques he used in reconstructing her face — is Dr. Mohammad Jawad, who travels frequently to his home country of Pakistan to lend his remarkable talents to helping acid survivors.

SAVING FACE will be an expose of this terrible problem affecting the Muslim world and a story of a courageous Muslim man trying to help his own community. Not only will the film highlight Dr. Jawad’s efforts to help these individual women whose lives have been brutally upended — and provide a glimmer of redemption to an otherwise horrific social problem — it will shed light on the problem to help eradicate it.

Credits

• Directed and produced by Daniel Junge

Seoul Train is the gripping documentary exposé into the life-and-death struggle faced by North Korean refugees as they flee their homeland through China. Seoul Train combines vérité and hidden camera footage with personal stories and interviews to reveal the harrowing journey attempted by some 250,000 North Koreans, whose refugee status is not recognized by China. Their clandestine escape covers hundreds of miles of Chinese territory via an “underground railroad” of safe houses and hidden routes. The refugees — and the activists that help them — face imprisonment and possibly execution if captured and returned to North Korea. With rare and candid interviews with U.N., U.S., South Korean and Chinese officials, Seoul Train skillfully explores the geopolitical forces behind this crisis — with a human face.

Credits

• Produced by Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butterworth
• Directed by Jim Butterworth, Aaron Lubarsky and Lisa Sleeth
• Edited by Aaron Lubarsky
• Camera by Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butterworth
• Additional Camera by Ishimaro Jiro, Ahn Chol, Oh Young-phil, Chun Ki-won, Moon Kook-han and Beth Butterworth
• Assistant Editor: Brandon Park
• Assistant Editing: Jim Butterworth, Lisa Sleeth and Paul Lee
• Post-Production Facility: postDox
• Audio Post-Production: Zlatko Makiç, Zimage Sound Production
• Color Correction: Will Cox, Final Frame
• Original Music: David Harris
• Associate Producers: Ronald Eisen and Richard Lim
• Translation: Jisu Kim, Grace Lee, Kim Sang-hun, Sin-U Nam, Sun-mi Peters, Julien Mailland, Rev. Ju Jang-don, Shul-Ping Lu, Leonid Petrov, Aleksandra “Ola” Stawecka, Karin & Evi Millette, Corrine & Dominique, Adrian Hong, Jinna Park, Stéphanie Bonin, Natálie Šeborová, Shioe Okamura and Leslie Simitch
• Graphics: Chad Roark, Eun Jung Song, Lauren Kim and Dan-ah Kim

Reviews/Quotes

“A brilliant documentary”

— The New York Times

“So compelling that you can’t stop watching”

— Wall Street Journal

“If this film doesn’t sear your heart, you haven’t got one.”

— Bloomberg News

“A truly remarkable film…raw emotional power.”

— Council on Foreign Relations

“Drive, walk, run…but however you do it, be sure to see Seoul Train.”

— Denver Post

“A harrowing geopolitical study…Seoul Train is a must see.”

— Honolulu Weekly

“A gripping documentary.”

— ABC News

“Emotionally evocative”

— Cleveland Free Times

“An unprecedented exposé…a stunning portrait of a humanitarian crisis in the making”

— Bright Lights Film Journal

“A groundbreaking documentary.”

— KoreAm Journal

“A powerful documentary that clearly reveals the tragic human conditions in North Korea.”

— Venice Magazine

“Seoul Train is a must see.”

— Film Freak Central

“Intensely visceral, illuminating, and deeply moving”

— Strictly Film School

Trailer