Digital Video magazine — April 2015
Irascible, Irrepressible Iris: Inside the Affectionate Documentary from Albert Maysles

Capping a career that spanned more than half a century of filmmaking, legendary documentarian Albert Maysles’ last finished film was 2014’s Iris, about nonagenarian textile designer and fashion icon Iris Apfel. The film premiered last fall at the New York Film Festival, where Maysles and Apfel spoke afterward to an adoring and enthusiastic crowd. Distributed by Magnolia Pictures, Iris arrives in theaters in limited release on April 29.

One of the pioneers of direct cinema, cinéma vérité’s North American counterpart, Maysles was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama in 2013. Serving as director, co-director or cinematographer, Maysles collaborated on at least 75 movies over the course of his lifetime, including, alongside his brother David, who died in 1987, the beloved Grey Gardens (1976), about a reclusive mother and daughter living in a decaying mansion in the East Hamptons, the Rolling Stones concert documentary Gimme Shelter (1970), and Salesman (1968), which was named to the National Film Registry in 1992. (Read full story…)