By Peter Keough

A trio of films in which certainty and security hav been disrupted and people must make the best of what remains.

A scene from Lisa Olivieri’s Recovery City.

In these troubled times one might heed the advice given in the Robert Frost poem “The Oven Bird” and learn to make the most of a diminished thing. This is one of the themes in several of the documentaries in this year’s Provincetown International Film Festival (June 12-16), beginning with Lisa Olivieri’s aptly titled, deeply affecting and inspiring Recovery City (screens June 13 at 6:30 p.m. and June 14 at 6 p.m. at Waters Edge. The director and filmmakers Kai Kilburn and Matthew Kilburn will be attending).

For several years in Worcester, Massachusetts Olivieri followed the progress of women who were in various stages of recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol. Most had come from broken homes and had a history of abuse, domestic violence, and close calls with overdoses. Despite the odds, each had made astonishing progress in their recovery, remaining sober, independent, and contributing to the community.

Among these, Christine in particular shines as an outstanding model of rehabilitation — in recovery for several years, she is self-supporting and active and in programs to assist others. But she still struggles to recover what has been taken from her — her children — and to that end her biggest obstacle has been the stigma of her addiction which the government offices that decide her fate refuse to forget. That, and her gender: as she notes, the ever-shifting standards that apply to her do not seem to apply to men in similar circumstances, like the father of one of her children who has been granted custody despite being admittedly a practicing addict.

But articulate, determined, and with a rueful sense of humor, Christine perseveres. Others, though, are not as fortunate — the film ends with an epilogue dedicated to two who did not survive.

A scene from Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness.

Unlike the experiences of those in Recovery City, the past in Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness (screens June 14 at 11 a.m. at Waters Edge) is idyllic. The film opens with images of an enviable existence, that of a Norwegian family living off-the-grid on a small farm. Three cherubic children and their chisel-featured father tap a maple tree. “That was yummy!” says one, tasting a few drops. One of them walks away along a sun-dappled path through the woods in an image like W. Eugene Smith’s picture “A Walk to the Paradise Garden.”

Pointing the camera at herself a woman sums it up: “Mother of four. Photographer. Nature lover. I’m someone trying to make sense of it all through photos and stories.” Backed by a montage of stills of bucolic beauty she explains how the family has chosen to give up the luxuries and conveniences of civilized society to grow their own food and home school the children. “We govern our own lives,” she says. “We want to be independent, free, and full of love.”

But then, shockingly, everything changes. In a series of harrowing images the mother is shown gaunt and with an IV tube attached to her. Her hair is shaved off, she is hugged and kissed, the sky darkens, and in short order the father and children are gathering flowers for her grave.

Can they continue with their idealized life as the dead woman would have wanted? Unfortunately, without her income the father must sell the farm and get a job, relocating to a nearby community and placing the kids in a school. This being Norway, the new surroundings are inviting and the school is enlightened. Still, the children, especially the older ones, feel bereft and alienated, and the father, a British native, feels isolated. Perhaps he should return to his homeland where he has family, maybe buy another farm there. The prospect looks dark. This, then, is the new wilderness — a future in which all certainty and security has been disrupted and one must make the best of what remains.

A scene fromLana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes.

What recourse is there for those who have lost loved ones and for whom memories and mementoes are not enough? Lana Wilson’s haunting — in more ways than one — Look into My Eyes (screens June 14, 4 p.m. at Waters Edge; producer Kyle Martin is scheduled to attend) opens — and closes — with a doctor recalling an experience she had when first working in the ER of a New York City hospital. A child was brought in dead on arrival with a gunshot wound to the head. It was the first time the doctor had confronted such a case and she had to relay the bad news to the girl’s mother — all of which she managed to do professionally and without losing her composure. Only later did she break down and weep. She had a question for the person listening to her off camera: how was she doing?

She was referring to the girl who died, and the person to whom she is speaking is one of the seven New York psychics (one for animals) profiled in Wilson’s film. They are an appealing lot, clearly not in it for the money given their modest, sometimes cluttered surroundings. In some ways these clairvoyants are as damaged as their clients. They are also outsiders of a sort – not a straight white male among them – and their calling has provided them with a voice, a means of effecting positive change, and a supportive community. Some are victims of abuse, or prejudice, or bad luck, and most are broken in some way. They came across this calling by chance, and found it suited them.

Some seem genuinely gifted, like an Asian-American medium whose client serendipitously turns out to be a former classmate seeking contact with a mutual friend who had committed suicide. Others seem to be at times spitballing it, though expertly and reassuringly, such as the Black woman who is counseling the doctor looking for answers at the beginning and end of the film about the murdered girl in the ER. “Even if this is fake it feels good and I need it,” she says at one point. “It feels like church.”

Other festival films worth your time that explore other aspects of what is lost and what can be saved include No One Asked You (screens June 13 at 4 p.m. and June 15 at 1:30 p.m. at Waters Edge) about what can be done now that Christian fanatics have succeeded in stripping away women’s basic rights, and Jazmin Renée Jones’s Seeking Mavis Beacon (screens June 15 at 1 p.m. at Waters Edge) about how to reclaim a lost icon of Black identity. Also two films I have written about previously, Every Little Thing (screens June 13 at 9 p.m. and June 15 at 4 p.m. at Waters Edge) about how the tiniest creature can fill the biggest void, and Jules Rosskam’s Desire Lines (screens June 14 at 8:30 p.m. and June 16 at 6 p.m.) in which gender distinctions are lost and a world is gained.

Peter Keough writes about film and other topics and has contributed to numerous publications. He had been the film editor of the Boston Phoenix from 1989 to its demise in 2013 and has edited three books on film, most recently For Kids of All Ages: The National Society of Film Critics on Children’s Movies (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).