Dancer, directed by Steve Cantor, charts the rise, fall and comeback of world-renowned Ukranian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin. When he was merely 19-years-old, he was the youngest principal dancer ever to join the British Royal Ballet. With unflinching, behind-the-scenes archival footage and current interviews, Dancer rises about your average hagiographic documentary. It's a worts-and-all doc that doesn't shy away from focusing on Polunin's physical and mental struggles and sacrifices that he had to endure throughout his career. Despite a flourishing career, he surprised everyone by resigning from the Royal Ballet in early 2012. He later danced his way back to fame in 2014 thanks to music director David LaChapelle's dance video showing him dancing to the music of Hozier's "Take Me to Church." Cantor shows you that video in its entirety, and you'll find yourself mesmerized by the breathtaking talents of Polunin on display. You don't have to be a dance aficionado to appreciate Dancer; if you've ever struggled to fulfill your dream dream or are in the process of fulfilling it, you will be able to relate to a certain degree, especially if you've had to give up spending time with your family and friends for the sake of your career. As with anything in life, there's always a purpose to suffering---without suffering, we probably wouldn't be able to grow as much as human beings. At a running of time just 85 minutes, this is an exhilarating, moving, illuminating and, ultimately, inspirational documentary. It opens via Sundance Selects at IFC Center and Walter Reade Theater. In A Family Affair, director Tom Fassaert travels to his 95-year-old grandmother, Marianne Hertz, when she invites him over to write him into his will. He sets out to get her to reveal more about her secretive past, a task that turns out to be either said than done because she doesn't open up so easily at first. He learns about her emotionally abusive parents she was raised by during her childhood, and of the different men she slept with, one of whom left her with an unwanted pregnancy that she didn't abort---Fassaert and his grandmother visit that estranged son of hers, Rene, eventually. As the film progresses, you can see the many cracks within the director's family that make it dysfunctional. Marianne clearly wasn't loved enough as a child, so she's been trying to replace that lack of love throughout her life. It's all rather tragic, dark and even creepy at time, i.e. when Marianne admits that she wants Tom to be her lover and refuses to see him as a grandson. She sounds like a textbook narcissist who doesn't understand the concept of boundaries. At least she makes for a very engaging and moving subject filled with skeletons in her closet, and she's also a pretty good storyteller. You might feel like you're prying into these people's lives occasionally as if you were a voyeur, but there's something to be learned by observing the psychologically troubled lives of others even if it's far from uplifting. With a running time of 110 minutes, A Family Affair is an intimate, revealing and heartbreaking doc. This would make for an interesting double feature with Ordinary People and the recent doc, Look at Us Now, Mother!. Abramorama opens it at Cinema Village.

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Blair Witch
Directed by Adam Wingard