My Favorite Movies from the 52nd Annual Nashville Film Festival

The Nashville Film Festival was held from September 30th to October 6th of 2021 and I was lucky enough to attend the festival, virtually. I would have loved to be there in person but my capacity as a full time radio host and my duties with the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and my gig reviewing general release movies, meant that there was no getting away from home and only the chance to see several select movies from the Nashville Film Festival. For this article I settled on three movies that I loved the most from my time virtually attending the Nashville Film Festival.

Charm Circle

The most striking and memorable film, for me, at the Virtual Nashville Film Festival was a documentary called Charm Circle. Charm Circle was directed by Nira Burstein and it follows the story of her family, focusing specifically on her father, Uri Burstein, and her mother, Raya Burstein. Uri and Raya are an odd pair, she’s doddering but sweet and he’s perpetually whining and loud. They live with their oldest daughter, who has special needs, and on a precarious financial footing.

Nira Burstein captures a rather harrowing story about people barely hanging onto the economic ladder and they happen to be her parents which make you feel deeply for the filmmaker. Nira’s little sister, Adina Burstein is also getting married as this documentary is unfolding, after having moved to the west coast to escape her family. She’s marrying two other women in a special ceremony and she’d like her family to be there but Uri is opposed to her marriage for religious reasons.

The style of Charm Circle is cinema verite and Nira Burstein herself is pulled from behind the camera at times lending itself to the verite aesthetic within the loose narrative of the documentary. It’s an exciting and fascinating documentary that is very much on its own unique wavelength. Charm Circle is bracingly original and the warts and all presentation of Uri and Raya risks being off-putting, which creates a rather riveting sense of a high wire act as to whether or not Burstein can manage to keep us from being fully repulsed by her family. Charm Circle is one of my favorite documentaries of 2021.

A-Ha The Movie

Another terrific documentary is one that is far more conventional but compelling in its own unique way. In America the band A-Ha is known as a one hit wonder. It’s thus incredible to have that bubble of knowledge blown apart by A-Ha’s massive worldwide success. Known here for the legendary song and music video, Take On Me, A-Ha has a worldwide fanbase in the tens of millions. On two occasions they’ve played in front of record sized crowds that compare favorably to the size of crowds seeing The Rolling Stones and U2.

A-Ha The Movie contains these revelations but also the very intriguing story of A-Ha’s entire career from their founding in Sweden through their breakthrough success and on to today where the band exists in a state of perpetual business. The three members of A-Ha stopped being friends years ago and became business partners who get together to do business which just happens to be making music and playing sold out concerts everywhere but in America.

A-Ha The Movie is wonderfully surprising, a fascinating picture of what it means to be successful and how relationships between friends can change dramatically over the course of a lifetime. The documentary is insightful and wonderfully crafted as directors Thomas Robsahm and Aslaugh Holm use the well known roto-scope animation of the Take on Me music video to beautifully help weave the story of A-Ha in times when they weren’t on camera, vibrantly bringing documentary style, talking head stories to life. A-Ha The Movie is a must see documentary.

Luzzu

The best narrative feature I saw at the Nashville Film Festival was a film from Malta called Luzzu. This engrossing film from first time feature director Alex Camilleri is a brilliantly observant drama about a fisherman in Malta who turns to the black market to support his family. The film stars a real life fisherman, Jesmark Scicluna, as the main character, also named Jesmark. This lends a documentary feel in some scenes as Camilleri observes Jesmark at work on his boat, his quiet, peaceful work life, and the chaos of the fishing industry in Malta, a market ravaged by new regulations to the point where it’s nearly impossible to make a living for the average, independent fisherman.

With a new baby at home, Jesmark is forced to choose between the business he loves, passed down to him by generations, and making enough money to support his wife and child. Alex Camilleri brilliantly captures the inner turmoil of Jesmark while never becoming overwhelmingly dispiriting. Your heart rises and falls with Jesmark’s troubles and your pulse races when he makes particular choices but Luzzu is not a thriller, it’s all very naturalistic and feels of the moment. The look of Luzzu is sun drenched and weathered, a kind of beauty that is specific to places like Malta, and the Mediterranean.