The Daily Beast picks documentary The Carrier as one of the ones to watch at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. Maggie Betts directs and Ben Selkow produces.
New York Magazine names “The Carrier” to its 25 Films to See at the Tribeca Film Festival list.
In less sure hands, a documentary about a Zambian HIV-positive woman (and her layabout, polygamous husband and his two other HIV-positive wives) could play as nothing but sensational tragedy. But with uncommon composure, debut documentary filmmaker Margaret Betts delicately crafts an astute depiction of difficult lives in the middle of an epidemic. —L.H.
Ben produced the feature documentary film The Carrier for first-time director Maggie Betts. The film is about a young mother Mutinta, a Zambian subsistence farmer in a polygamous marriage who has just learned she is HIV positive. Newly pregnant, Mutinta does everything she can to protect her unborn baby while navigating complicated family dynamics and village politics. The Carrier sculpts a sensitive observational portrait of one woman’s struggle leading up to her newborn’s birth. The film will premiere in the World Documentary Competition section of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
Variety cites The Carrier as one of the contenders in the competition films at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
With his project Buried Above Ground, Ben was selected to participate in The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma’s 2010 conference entitled “When Veterans Come Home: A Workshop for Working Journalists” at The Carter Center in Atlanta, GA. The workshop featured a wide range of leading mental health and policy experts, award-winning journalists and veterans’ advocates, in addition to opening speaker Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is dedicated to informed, effective and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.
Ben was selected as a Fellow for The Carter Center’s 2010-2011 Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism for his documentary Buried Above Ground. The fellowship program is part of the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program, which works around the world to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses and to decrease incorrect and stereotypical information. The program also seeks to increase access to mental health services and inform mental health public policy.
Ben wrote three articles for the Huffington Post in 2007 for his documentary film A Summer in the Cage which focused on a friend’s battle with bipolar disorder. It premiered on Sundance Channel and is now available on home video from IndiePix Films.
Telegraph21 interviews director/producer Ben Selkow and features clips and discussion about his feature documentary A Summer in the Cage. The film premiered on Sundance Channel and is available on DVD at www.cagethemovie.com. A Summer in the Cage began with a chance meeting between the filmmaker, Ben Selkow, and the subject, Sam, in the summer of 2000. What began as their collaboration to document life on and around the West 4th Street basketball courts in Manhattan – affectionately referred to as “the Cage” – evolved into a portrait of Sam’s battle with bipolar illness—a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person’s mood, energy, and ability to function, marked by manic highs and depressive lows— as seen through the lens of Ben’s camera.
Rolling Stone’s National Affairs Contributing Editor Tim Dickinson reviews A Summer in the Cage.
An Excerpt and whole review here:
“Buddy flicks come in all shades and flavors, but Ben Selkow’s film is probably the world’s first guy movie about manic depression. It is also an exceptional and deeply humanizing look at bipolar disorder, which afflicts roughly five percent of Americans… and probably someone you know.”
WNYC’s Leonard Lopate interviews A Summer in the Cage director Ben Selkow. Listen here.
