Wednesday marks the opening night of the 2021 New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs — once again happening in the parking lot next to Sally’s Apizza on Wooster Street — featuring two films that shine a light on two obsessions: collectible toy cars and vinyl records.
Vinyl Nation follows music lovers discussing the hows and whys of their predilection for collecting and listening to actual physical records of their favorite artists. Directors Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone cover all sides — from record shops and conventions to those who manufacture the product and the machines that play them — letting a diverse group of fans take a spin at telling their own stories. This includes an exploration into how the beloved twelve-inch record almost became a relic of the past thanks to CDs, and their resurgence with Record Store Day, the origins and impact of which are also detailed.
They ask questions about the listening experience (does vinyl sound better than other forms of media?) and examine the tug of nostalgia (is vinyl a way to cling to the past or is it a time-honored tradition to be passed along through generations?). But the instantly fun and informative film primarily captures the enthusiasm of audiophiles to whom there is no other way to listen to music and connect with others. Vinyl Nation will have you running to rummage through your family’s old records, or heading out to your nearest store to search through the racks and rediscover a past love, or perhaps unearth a new one.
This feature is preceded by the short yet fascinating film The Matchbox Man, directed by NHDocs’s own Gorman Bechard. It takes a brief but deep dive into the world of Charlie Mack, collector of more than 42,000 Matchbox cars and an expert in their history and value.
Earlier in the same evening NHDocs presents a showing of Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous at the New Haven Free Public Library. This absorbing film, directed by Susan Hagedorn, highlights the lives of brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, both priests who dedicated their lives to activism beginning in the 1960s and carrying on throughout the rest of their lives undeterred by multiple arrests and time spent in prison. Along with Sister Elizabeth McAlister, who Philip married after both were excommunicated from the church, they became an inspiration to a host of others who chose the path of peaceful protest and anti-war activism.
The film contains news footage from the trio’s multiple arrests and trials — including the brothers’ roles as part of the Catonsville Nine, a group of Catholic activists whose actions sparked a movement that helped end the draft — as well as archival interviews with each of the three, Philip and Elizabeth’s children, and numerous peace activists who knew them. All this helps illuminate the trio’s engrossing journey and educate the viewer about their vital work, and its effect on them, their family, and the anti-war movement as a whole. Viewers also get unique insight into each of the brothers’ thoughts and feelings via Daniel’s poetry and Philip’s letters, read by Liam Neeson and Bill Pullman respectively. If you did not know the story of the Berrigans before this film, it will soon become one you will be eager to share with others.
Tickets for the above events and others in the film festival’s lineup can be purchased at the NHDocs website here.