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“People always ask why,” Michael Metelits admits at the start of this meticulously composed, emotionally haunting documentary about his mother, Marion Stokes.

“Why did she do it?”

The “it” is simple: over the course of 30 years, Stokes recorded TV news around the clock on multiple channels, in multiple rooms, until she amassed an archive of 70,000 VHS tapes. But the “why”? That’s not so easy. There will be as many opinions as there were people who observed her life — and now, with “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project,” that includes us.

Also Read: How Tegna Is Finding a Second Life for Old News Coverage With Podcasts Like 'Bomber'

In fact, it was mutability itself that first inspired Stokes. As a fiercely private black woman in politics in the mid-20th century, she brought perspectives that were rarely shared by anyone she met, let alone the white men with whom she most often worked.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has unveiled the 159 documentary features that have been submitted for the 92nd annual Academy Awards.

A shortlist of 15 films will be announced on Dec. 16. Nominations will be announced on Jan. 13. The winners will be revealed on Feb. 9.

High-profile titles include “American Factory,” “The Apollo,” “Apollo 11,” “The Biggest Little Farm,” “Echo in the Canyon,” “The Edge of Democracy,” “For Sama,” “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice,” “One Child Nation,” “Sea of Shadows,” and “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”

AMPAS noted the several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases.

“Free Solo” won the documentary Oscar on Feb. 24 for filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes, and Shannon Dill.

See the full list below.

Advocate

After Parkland

The All-Americans

Always in Season

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary

American Dharma

American Factory

American Relapse...

Documentary submissions may also qualify for Oscars in other categories, including best picture.

Apollo 11, The Biggest Little Farm, The Sea Of Shadows and The Elephant Queen are among 159 features submitted for consideration in the documentary feature category for the 92nd Academy Awards.

The Academy unveiled the list on Tuesday (12).Several films have not yet had their Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submissions must fulfil theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process.

Documentary submissions may also qualify for Oscars in other categories, including best picture.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released its list of 159 documentary features that have been submitted for the 92 annual Academy Awards. See the full list below.

A shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 16.

The Academy notes that several of the films have not had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases yet. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process.

Documentary features that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival or have been submitted in the International Feature Film category as their country’s official selection also are eligible in the category.

Here is the alphabetical list:

Advocate

After Parkland

The All-Americans

Always in Season

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary

American Dharma

American Factory

American Relapse

Angels Are Made of Light

The Apollo

Apollo 11

Aquarela

Ask Dr.

Do you still own any VHS tapes? In 2019, the video recording cassettes hold more in common with horror anthologies, overused internet aesthetics, and cheap iPhone filters than the actual analog format that shaped a generation. Nevertheless, if she were still alive today, Marion Stokes may have contributed a handful of thought-provoking diatribes on the purity of analog instruments versus the intangibility of digital constructs—it certainly would not be out of her character.

Continue reading ‘Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project’ Examines The Fine Line Between Brilliance And Insanity [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

From 1979, just before the launch of CNN, to 2012, when she passed away, Marion Stokes — an African-American Philadelphia woman, communist, public access television host, collector of Apple computers, media critic — recorded continuous streams of 24-hour-cable news on VHS tapes that piled, floor to ceiling, the various apartments she owned throughout the city. Conserving stock by recording in extended play mode, she employed assistants who’d shuffle tapes in and out of the eight or so […]...

From 1979, just before the launch of CNN, to 2012, when she passed away, Marion Stokes — an African-American Philadelphia woman, communist, public access television host, collector of Apple computers, media critic — recorded continuous streams of 24-hour-cable news on VHS tapes that piled, floor to ceiling, the various apartments she owned throughout the city. Conserving stock by recording in extended play mode, she employed assistants who’d shuffle tapes in and out of the eight or so […]...

Team Experience reporting from the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Here's Jason Adams...

I always think of Amy Poehler's funny line on SNL about "soggy board-games and cat skeletons" when I think on the concept of hoarders. Sad people beside blackened sinks. But what if the hoarder's instincts turn out to be less a mental illness -- something more, grander? Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project uncovers that exception in a woman who obsessively recorded 35 years of news programming, from the Iran Hostages through 9/11 and up to Sandy Hook. And in the process the film argues that, as with superstition being science we just haven't yet confirmed, perhaps some of Marion's documentarian's madness wasn't madness, but prophecy...

VHS tapes now have a weird sort of stodgy magical aura. Long ago, they were standard. With the arrival of DVD, they were behind the curve. Then they were totally outdated and unworkable. But now they’re so old they’re like mystic electromagnetic tablets from a lost age.

“Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project” is Matt Wolf’s documentary about a lifelong African-American resident of Philadelphia, Marion Stokes (born in 1929), who starting in the late 1970s developed an obsession with making home recordings of TV news coverage. For 30 years, she kept 3 to 8 VCRs going round the clock, 24 hours a day, taping multiple channels. She retained every tape, cataloguing and storing it, creating a running diary of television news coverage, from network to CNN to the cable channels that followed. Those tapes became her purpose and her lifeblood, maybe her identity.

What drove the obsession? That, of course, is the subject — the essential mystery — of “Recorder.

In the early days of network television’s slide into wall-to-wall news coverage, Marion Stokes started a project with the flick of a button. It would consume the rest of her life and result in the creation of over 70,000 video tapes, all of which were filled with hours upon hours of wide-ranging television footage, most of it focused on the behemoth that is news-based entertainment. A rabble-rouser, activist, and major intellect, Stokes had long been interested in the way media shaped public perception, and as the influence of televised media grew, she became obsessed with capturing as much footage as she could, all the better to see the world changing through a TV tube. Stokes recorded multiple channels of television every day, every hour for over thirty years, but it all started with just one push of a Vcr button in 1977.

Matt Wolf’s remarkable “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project...

‘Mystify: Michael Hutchence’

Richard Lowenstein’s feature documentary on Michael Hutchence will have its world premiere at the 18th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs from April 24 to May 5.

Produced by Lowenstein, Maya Gnyp and John Battsek for Ghost Pictures and Passion Pictures, Mystify: Michael Hutchence will screen in the documentary competition for best documentary feature, cinematography and editing.

Co-funded by Screen Australia, the film is described as an intimate look at the life of the Inxs lead singer through his many loves and demons, featuring Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen.

Madman Entertainment is the Australian distributor and Dogwoof is handling international sales. The ABC and BBC pre-bought the film.

Lowenstein tells If the doc features live music from Inxs and Max Q, Hutchence’s only completed solo album which was a collaboration with Ollie Olsen, remixed for Atmos, plus archival footage which had been in his attic,...

The Tribeca Film Festival has set its full feature slate for 2019, selecting 103 titles including world premieres of films by Jared Leto, Christoph Waltz, and Margot Robbie.

The 18th edition of the festival, which runs from April 24 to May 5, will include documentaries from Antoine Fuqua, Werner Herzog, and Abel Ferrara, and music-focused docs highlighting the lead singer of band Inxs (“Mystify: Michael Hutchence”), Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman (“The Quiet One”), and musician Linda Ronstadt (“Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice”) with Sheryl Crow performing after the premiere.

Leto’s “A Day in the Life of America” is a crowd-sourced documentary featuring footage from all 50 states on July 4, 2017. Waltz is making his directorial debut with the crime drama “Georgetown,” starring himself, Annette Bening, and Vanessa Redgrave. Robbie stars in and produces “Dreamland,” a Depression-era drama set in the Oklahoma dustbowl.

Other notable titles include “Mad Men” producer Semi Chellas making...