Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, May 13: ONE CUT, ONE LIFE
Lucia Small and Ed Pincus’ personal meditation on mortality and collaboration made its bow at Full Frame last year. Its fest circuit has included IFF Boston, Woods Hole, Torino, and the New York Film Festival, among others.
Within a short span of time, two of filmmaker Lucia Small’s close friends die violent, unexpected deaths, and she learns that her one-time filmmaking partner, Ed Pincus, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Pincus, a pioneering figure in American nonfiction, had long ago retired from the craft to a quiet life with his wife Jane and his flower farm in Vermont. His previous collaboration with Small, 2007’s THE AXE IN THE ATTIC, brought him back to filmmaking, but put a strain on their friendship. Faced with his mortality and her friends’ recent deaths – and Jane’s objections – the duo decides to reunite on a new first-person project that instead celebrates life. Doubling as an examination of their fraught partnership and the tensions of the documentary/subject relationship, their intimate, sometimes (purposely) uncomfortable, film becomes a way for both participants to take charge of their respective traumas, and, if not heal them, at least make their peace.
what (not) to doc 