FFF: Sunday, April 10

Noon at Regal Winter Park - Chekhov for Children (3 Stars) There is no knowledge of Anton Chekhov required for this touching documentary about a group of New York City junior high schoolers putting on Uncle Vanya in the late 1970s. The play, which should have been impossible for a group of 12-year-olds to put on, was directed by writer and critic Philip Lopate, and the documentary was inspired by his essay. Insightful if somewhat nostalgic, it is a fascinating exploration of growing up. -RB

12:30 p.m. at Regal Winter Park - Hamill (3 Stars) Hamill, the story of the titular wrestler who became the first deaf person to win an NCAA championship must have swiped every line of dialogue off of a doctor's office motivational poster. There are only Big Moments in Hamill - prom rejection, loss of scholarship, falling in love by a waterfall - and no time for subtlety or any event that doesn't polish Hamill's halo. Bizarrely, the film is bookended by, and glorifies, one of Hamill's real-life UFC matches. So the fact that he grew up to beat the shit out of people in a cage for money is our happy ending? -JS

3 p.m. at Regal Winter Park - 
mindFLUX (3 Stars) A gaggle of New York theater luminaries spends an hour praising the genius of experimental director Richard Foreman, who's also on hand to explain the philosophy of confrontation and challenge that drives his absurdist tableaus. Though those tableaus seem provocative enough, we don't see quite enough of them to make up our own minds. The largely chronological portrait cuts off abruptly in the mid-'70s, leaving us feeling less confronted than merely tapped on the shoulder. -Steve Schneider

3:15 p.m. at Enzian Theater - 
Tanzania: A Friendship Journey (2 Stars) For an interminable two hours, we follow bubbly blond Kristen as she travels to Tanzania and openly marvels at their uncivilized ways. "I can't believe I'm eating with my hands!" "SHUT. UP. There's a giraffe?!" It's like going to Busch Gardens with an easily impressed sorority girl, who doesn't mind telling her African friend how "primitive" she finds his homeland to be until she realizes just how easy and AIDS-free she has it back home. Ugh. -WG

4 p.m. at Regal Winter Park - Stuff (5 Stars) Hoarders meets Hamlet as documentarian Lawrence Johnson takes responsibility for his late father's avalanche of personal effects. Storage facilities are filled to the brim with mysterious mementos, photos and bric-a-brac, just as the movie is packed with themes: memory, faith, misogyny … oh, and the 
institutionalized impoverishment that has led an entire generation to consider its downward mobility a personal "failure." Yet the doc doesn't press any one point too hard, a fine choice for a film that dares to ask how much crap you want to carry around with you. -SS

6:15 p.m. at Regal Winter Park - Journey From Zanskar (3 Stars) This documentary is subtitled "A Monk's Vow to Children," which should spell out just how well-meaning it is. Granted, the filmmakers' intentions are perfectly sincere, as Buddhists isolated by the geography and the politics of their region go literally to great lengths to see their children educated, but the content is effortlessly, endlessly noble, shot with all the grace of a home movie and solemnly narrated by Richard Gere. Yeah, it's that kind of doc. -WG

> Email Justin Strout, Rob Boylan, William Goss, Seth Kubersky, Billy Manes, Steve Schneider, Erin Sullivan and John Thomason