Don Schwartz Spotlight on Documentaries
Welcome to the Blog of actor/journalist/personal historian Don Schwartz.
Don has been published in a variety of publications since 1977. His book, Telling Their Own Stories: Conversations with Documentary Filmmakers, is available from Amazon in softback or Kindle edition.
Don holds multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in psychology and counseling from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Don is a regular guest on our web radio show, The Art of Film Funding, produced by From the Heart Productions, reviewing documentary films with founder Carole Dean—http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-art-of-film-funding
Don also contributes film reviews and filmmaker profiles to CineSource Magazine online—www.CineSourceMagazine.com
His weekly film review appears in The Marin Post—https://marinpost.org/
You can access Don’s Personal Historian services at:
Silenced tells of the investigations and prosecutions of three federal government workers who blew the whistle on governmental malfeasance in post 9/11 America. Instead of being honored as patriots, two were accused of treason and one was investigated—their lives were shattered.
Writer/director James
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PlantPure Nation is much more than just another movie about eating right, and filmmaker Nelson Campbell is much more than a documentary filmmaker pointing out a social ill.
Campbell is also a charismatic activist addressing the life-destroying diets of the American people—as well as the co
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The ‘frame’ is a bicycle frame, the fire emits from a welder’s torch.
Marinoni: The Fire in the Frame is Tony Girardin’s affectionate profile of part-curmudgeon, part-angel Giuseppe Marinoni, an Italian transplant living his life in the Canadian province of Quebec.
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Tragedy trumps triumph in the story of Nelson Algren’s life. Yet, without the many tragic circumstances and events of the life of this legendary American writer the world would not have benefited from his literary triumphs.
Mark Blottner, Ilko Davidov, and Denis Mueller wrote and directed Nelson Algren: The E
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Mike Correll is a one-man-band filmmaker. He wrote, directed, shot, and edited Chet Zar: I Like to Paint Monsters—a biographical documentary about artist Chet Zar.
The film introduces the naive viewer to both Zar and ‘The Dark Art Movement’—art with dark themes and
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Written, produced, and directed by Mark Brian Smith, Fear No Fruit begins and ends as a celebration of Frieda Caplan who broke gender barriers and changed America’s culinary habits throughout her decades-long career as a wholesale distributor of fruits and vegetables.
In-between Caplan
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Written, directed, and narrated by the prolific, highly accomplished Patricio Guzmán, The Pearl Button is the most beautiful, and the most haunting documentary I have ever seen.
Part ecstatic, poetic, cinematic essay, and part tragedy, the film covers the centuries of vi
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Dayani Cristal is the only daughter of Honduran Dilcy Yohan Sandres Martinez. As an expression of love Yohan had her name tattooed on his chest in large longhand letters with elaborate flourishes. It was this tattoo—along with his fingerprints—that enabled U.S. government workers to establish the identity of his corpse which was found by border patrol agents in the Arizona desert, 20 minutes outside of Tucson.
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Written and directed by Nadav Schirman, and based on Mosab Hassan Yousef’s memoir, Son of Hamas, The Green Prince tells the powerful, improbable story of two sworn enemies discovering common ground, working together, and forming a life-long bond.
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The deceptively titled Where to Invade Next is a continuation of Michael Moore’s life-long examination and disparagement of social, economic, and political inequities in the United States.
No, it’s not about a consideration of which middle eastern country the U.S. military should invade next—although w
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