Two days after the recent presidential elections, after Donald Trump’s surprising victory, Richard Herskowitz was in Texas for the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. Many of artists and filmmakers were floored and the mood, says Herskowitz. Likewise, about that same time in New York, the cast of “Hamilton” addressed then-Vice President-elect

When the Mountains Tremble, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, and 500 Years Revisiting When the Mountains Tremble (1983) for the first time in years is apt to take the viewer back to their first encounter with this remarkable documentary. I first watched the film in the 1990s, not long

About three-quarters of the way through What Lies Upstream, writer and director Cullen Hoback unexpectedly takes the microphone from the confused host at an event titled “Safe Water for West Virginia.” Hoback is in the midst of a two-year investigation into the contamination of 300,000 West Virginians’ drinking water with

In Earth Seasoned…#GapYear, director Molly Kreuzman gives an up-close and detailed look at the year-long journey of five women into the Oregon Cascade Mountains. Their epic trip was part of the Coyote Trails Caretaker Program, a unique program that gives youth and young adults access to a private campsite and

A great marriage is a work of art, and the charming Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story is a heartfelt tribute to a couple that put their hearts and souls into a lasting creative and romantic partnership. Harold Michelson had an enviable career as a storyboard artist, art director,

In Portland-based Matt McMormick’s thought-provoking documentary Buzz One Four, archival US Air Force animation shows the routes flown by B-52 bombers carrying nuclear warheads at the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s and the 1960s. The B-52s would fly toward the USSR, either over the North Pole

To gain a better insight to director Jennifer Kroot’s most recent film, The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, it is instructive to consider another recent film she directed, To Be Takei, a charming profile of George Takei. Best known as Sulu on the original “Star Trek” series, Takei was imprisoned as

Directed by Lionel Braverman and written-directed by Matias Piñeiro, Hermia & Helena follows Camila (Augustina Muñoz), a young woman from Argentina who’s participating in a fellowship in New York to translate Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” the Shakespeare rom-com that also, not coincidentally, lends itself as the flight pattern for the

A women’s rugby team fights together on the field, garnering fresh bruises and cuts. An audience listens to the curious story of a man’s death. A woman survives on the run by seeking help from an unlikely stranger. These stories, all by local filmmakers, are being presented at the Ashland

A new feature-length documentary. A new home. A standing ovation at Sundance. Opening Night Film at AIFF. Welcome to the Rogue Valley, Director Peter Bratt. “What could be more perfect than to open the festival with Dolores,” says Richard Herskowitz, Director of Programming for the Ashland Independent Film Festival. “We