By: Jeff Ching Clean Slate is a documentary that can be described as The Fabelmans meets Dopesick. Instead of trying to cover the opioid crisis and the countless lives that have been ruined because of it, Clean Slate takes a more grounded approach; simply focusing on two best friends (Cassidy and Joshua) in rehab, whose lives have been ruined by their addiction to painkillers. However, Cassidy and Joshua share one passion – their love of…
Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras (Citizenfour; My Country, My Country) doesn’t hold back in her latest documentary, a devastating portrait of fiery artist and activist Nan Goldin. Words like “heartbreaking” and “inspiring” are insufficient to describe this powerful story of community, activism, and survival.
As the world struggles under this catastrophic pandemic, it seems prudent to remind us of another epidemic currently ravaging North America: the opioid epidemic. Consequently, Joey Klein’s timely Castle in the Ground depicts a band of young people struggling with addiction amid the trauma of their personal lives. While dramatically powerful and compellingly acted, the film has surprisingly little to say about the structural issues surrounding addiction and mental illness.