New to DocPlay in December

No word yet on when or where Ken Burns’ latest historical epic, The American Revolution, will land locally but DocPlay is premiering two of his more recent efforts — The American Buffalo and Leonardo da Vinci — on December 1.

The former is a lavishly acclaimed 2023 two-part, four-hour series about “the improbable shaggy beast that has found itself at the centre of many of the country’s most mythic and heartbreaking tales”.

“Who knew that Ken Burns has a David Attenborough, wildlife-filmmaker side, too?” The Boston Globe pondered.

“That heart-stopping beauty makes the story Burns tells all more heartbreaking.”

Thundered the San Francisco Chronicle: “It is not a dry history of the North American bison; it is an indictment on the very way the United States became the country that it is today.”

View the trailer here.

Last year’s Leonardo da Vinci  brings the Renaissance titan and his towering achievements to life through his voluminous personal notebooks, primary and secondary accounts of his life and times, and on-camera interviews with modern scholars, artists, engineers, inventors and admirers (view trailer).

Among the most admiring reviews was the Wall Street Journal’s:

It is ambitious, musically, visually and intellectually.Directed by Mr. Burns, daughter Sarah Burns and David McMahon, Leonardo da Vinci is always a feast for the eyes and often enough for the mind.

Riefenstahl (December 18) is an award-winning DocPlay exclusive about the Nazi propagandist filmmaker.

Rotten Tomatoes summed up the reaction thus: “Organising a treasure trove of archival materials with impressive intellectual rigour, director Andres Veiel’s documentary methodically dismantles Leni Riefenstahl’s self-mythologising to offer an historically clear-eyed assessment of her legacy.” (View trailer.)

Through rarely-seen archival footage, another exclusive, The Eichmann Trial (December 18, view trailer), documents one of the most shocking trials ever recorded — and the birth of Holocaust awareness and education — while The First World War: The People’s Story (December 8) is a four-part “must-see” 2015 series about the last surviving Tommies.

Welcome to Yiddishland (December 22) is Australian filmmaker Ros Horin’s celebration of the resilience and vitality of the Yiddish language across continents and generations (view trailer).

“Well-meaning talking heads can only engage us so far,” FilmInk said. “Still, when the music does get going, the film comes to life.”