This week’s new theatrical releases for documentary are not all opening as planned due to Hurricane Sandy. Many cinemas in NYC are still without power, so films set to debut at the IFC Center, Film Forum and Quad Cinema have been delayed until the electricity is back on.

That should be this weekend for all of them, but this isn’t completely certain. Half of the new films, namely High Ground and A Man’s Story, are at least now playing in L.A., while the other two films, Bones Brigade and Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, also have screenings elsewhere this week.

Read up on the four new theatrical releases after the jump.

Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

From Stacy Peralta, the skater-turned-filmmaker who directed the skateboarding history Dogtown and Z-Boys and the surfing doc Riding Giants, comes another history involving boards sitting atop wheels rather than waves. Here’s the official synopsis:

In the early ’80s, skateboarding was fading away until Stacy Peralta brought a profoundly talented group of outsiders together and dubbed them the Bones Brigade.

This documentary chronicles their epic rise, using awesome archival footage and moving first-person accounts from Brigade members Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, and Rodney Mullen, among others.

Through passion, drive, creativity, and a surprising sense of teamwork, they revitalized the sport and influenced generations to come. BONES BRIGADE will blow the minds of anyone who grew up emulating these guys, but it also resonates for anyone who ever found a family or a purpose in an unexpected place.

Now playing at the IFC Center in NYC (or this weekend, once power is restored post-Hurricane Sandy). Also screening this week at special events in Oregon, California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Nebraska. For more information and to see future openings, visit the film’s website. Available on VOD beginning Tuesday.

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters

Ben Shapiro’s new film about the titular artist. From the Film Forum synopsis:

Gregory Crewdson’s riveting photographs are elaborately staged, elegant narratives compressed into a single, albeit large-scale image, many of them taken at twilight, set in small towns of Western Massachusetts or meticulously recreated interior spaces, built on the kind of sound stages associated with big-budget movies. Ben Shapiro’s fascinating profile of the acclaimed artist includes stories of his Park Slope childhood (in which he tried to overhear patients of his psychologist father), his summers in the bucolic countryside (which he now imbues with a sense of dread and foreboding), and his encounter with Diane Arbus’s work in 1972 at age 10. Novelists Rick Moody and Russell Banks, and fellow photographer Laurie Simmons, comment on the motivation behind their friend’s haunting images. But Crewdson remains his own best critic: “Every artist has one central story to tell. The struggle is to tell and retell that story over again – and to challenge that story. It’s the defining story of who you are.”

With its planned mid-week opening delayed due to Hurricane Sandy, the film is expected to open this weekend at the Film Forum in NYC, once the theater has electricity. Also screening Sunday at Indie Memphis in Memphis and next week at the Loft Film Festival in Tucson, which starts Thursday. For upcoming openings in other locations, check the film’s screenings page.

High Ground

The latest adventure documentary from director/cinematographer Michael Brown, who shot Lucy Walker’s Blindsight, and Oscar-winning Disney producer Don Hahn (Beauty and the Beast; also director of Waking Sleeping Beauty). Here’s the official synopsis:

Eleven veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan join an expedition to climb the 20,000 foot Himalayan giant Mount Lobuche. With blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer and a team of Everest summiters as their guides, they set out on an emotional and gripping climb to reach the top in an attempt to heal the emotional and physical wounds of the longest war in U.S. history.

Representing nearly every branch of the military, the veterans, and the Gold Star Mom who joins their trek, bring humor and deep emotion to this hero’s journey all captured with breathtaking, vertigo-inducing cinematography by three-time Emmy® winner, director Michael Brown.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2012 Newport Beach Film Festival.
Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2012 Boulder International Film Festival.
Winner of the Cadillac Audience Award at the 2012 Vail Film Festival.

Now playing in Los Angeles, Modesto and Lancaster, CA, Boston, MA, Columbus, OH, and Golden, CO. Set to open at the Quad Cinema in NYC this weekend, once power is restored in the wake of Hurricane Sandy damage. For upcoming openings in other locations or to set a screening up via Tugg, visit the film’s screenings page.

Man’s Story

Official synopsis:

Tailor to Hollywood’s A-list, and a superstar in his own right, Ozwald Boateng is a dynamic force of energy, passion and colour.

1998: already celebrated as one of the most talented menswear designers in the world, Ozwald Boateng is about to go bankrupt and divorce his first wife. Through luck and circumstance director Varon Bonicos is able to switch on a camera. It continues to roll for the next twelve years. What emerges is a groundbreaking film that takes us on an exhilarating behind-the-scenes ride into the world of high fashion with one of one of the most influential menswear designers of his generation. Ending in 2010 when Boateng closes London Fashion Week with the biggest menswear show in history, Bonicos is able to get behind the headlines and chart Boateng’s singular dream to succeed. Instinctive, flawed and generous, A Man’s Story goes to the very heart of what Boateng has spent an entire career trying to distil: “what it is to be a man.”

Now playing at the Laemmle North Hollywood in L.A. and set to open this weekend at the IFC Center in NYC once the power is restored in the wake of Hurricane Sandy damage. For upcoming openings in other locations, check the film’s cinema listings page.