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The landscape for independent films has changed rapidly. On one hand, the opportunity to build a theatrical release has become increasingly difficult, but on the other hand, digital release has given indies a chance to play to a broad national audience at once. Each week, new indie releases will be profiled and because they might not be playing at a theater near you, one highly recommended film available now a click or two away via VOD (whether a new or not quite new release) will be presented for viewing without leaving your computer.

VOD Pick of the Week – Also in Limited Release

Kid-Thing

Kid-Thing is a different kind of coming of age story. While a loss of innocence is often a component of these stories, Kid-Thing focuses on a character whose innocence was shattered long ago. Instead, the film examines the moral awakening of a pre-adolescent.

Annie is a little hellion. She lives with her dad Marvin, a goat farmer/demolition derby driver, who provides absolutely no parental supervision, leaving Annie with no moral compass. She spends her days alone breaking stuff, shoplifting, throwing dough at passing cars, and terrorizing kids at the playground. At best she’s a brat, but she may very well be on her way to becoming an all out sociopath.

One day while wandering in the woods, Annie hears a woman’s voice calling for help from the bottom of an abandoned well. The voice belongs to Esther, who states that she has fallen into the well and tells Annie to go get help. Annie doesn’t respond well to being told what to do, but at the same time feels empathy, something she may not have ever felt before, towards Esther’s plight. On the other hand, she’s also concerned that Esther may very well be the devil calling to her from the bowels of Hell. While she does not go for help, she does return periodically with food and supplies.

The experience begins to change Annie. She starts to question whether her normal mode of acting out her impulses all the time is the best course of action and wonders if maybe thinking before acting is a better way to go. Still, she has very little guidance as she tries to figure this out. Her dad and his best friend are moronic caricatures, and the only adult that provides any insight at all is her former guitar teacher.

Sydney Aguirre gives a compelling performance as Annie in a role that is far afield from anything else you are bound to see from a pre-teen. This character is no plucky troublemaker with a heart of gold or a precociously charming kid. The film is loosely structured and light on narrative momentum, and thus can also be taken symbolically instead of literally. It is never clear whether Esther is actually a woman trapped in the well. She may very well be the devil as Annie fears or perhaps she is Annie’s conscience striving to be set free. The question becomes will Annie take a trip down that rabbit hole towards adulthood.

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New releases for May 24th

Before Midnight: When Before Sunrise premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the story of Jessie and Celine’s night spent together in Vienna became an instant romantic classic. The sequel, Before Sunset, miraculously improved on the original. Now in the third installment, Jessie and Celine have been together for nine years. If Sunrise examined the giddiness of idealized romantic potential, and Sunset looked at regret, Midnight is about the reality of making a romantic relationship work when faced with the day-in-day-out existence.


Fill the Void: Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv. She is about to be married to a promising young man of the same age and background, but when her older sister, Esther, dies in childbirth, the wedding plans are put on hold. When Esther’s widower is offered a match with a widow in Belgium and considers leaving the country with the family’s only grandchild, Shira is offered up as a match to keep the family together. Shira must decide between duty to her family and her own heart’s wishes. Fill the Void was Israel’s official entry in the Best Foreign Film Oscar race.


We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks: Alex Gibney, the Academy Award-winning documentary director of Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room turns his camera on WikiLeaks.org, founded by Julian Assange. The documentary covers the history of the founding and growth of the website before focusing on Bradley Manning, the U.S. private who secretly leaked massive amounts of classified documents to WikiLeaks which led to the peak of attention for the website. What followed was the downfall, with Assange being accused of rape and Manning being exposed and charged with crimes.