2017 Sundance Docs in Focus: AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER

inconvenient sequelAN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER
Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk helm the follow-up to the Academy Award-winning AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Festival Section:
Documentary Premieres

Special Program:
The New Climate

Sundance Program Description:

A decade after AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes – in moments private and public, funny and poignant – as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.

Renowned filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk (AUDRIE & DAISY, 2016 Sundance Film Festival) have taken the baton from 2006 Academy Award–winner Davis Guggenheim. What started then as a profound PowerPoint lecture has become a gorgeously cinematic excursion. Our extraordinary former vice president invites us along on an inspirational journey across the globe that delivers the tools to heal our planet. The question is: Will we choose to take the baton?

Some Background:
Director:

  • Bonni Cohen
    Past Sundance docs:

    AUDRIE & DAISY
    3 1/2 MINUTES, TEN BULLETS (2015, executive producer)
    WONDERS ARE MANY (2007, producer)

    The Emmy-nominated Cohen is also a co-founder of the Catapult Film Fund.

Director/Director of Photography:

  • Jon Shenk
    Past Sundance credits:

    AUDRIE & DAISY
    THE BATTLE OF AMFAR (short) (2013, cinematographer)

    The Emmy Award-winning Shenk directed the Toronto audience award winner THE ISLAND PRESIDENT, a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program supported film, for which Cohen served as a producer. He is also an Independent Spirit Award winner for his feature directorial debut, LOST BOYS OF SUDAN, another DFP-supported film.

Producers:

  • Richard Berge
    Past Sundance docs:

    AUDRIE & DAISY

    Berge also produced PRESIDENT and both directed and produced the Emmy-nominated THE RAPE OF EUROPA together with Cohen.

  • Diane Weyermann
    Past Sundance docs:

    3 1/2 MINUTES, TEN BULLETS
    A PLACE AT THE TABLE (2012)
    CANE TOADS (2010)
    COUNTDOWN TO ZERO (2010)
    WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” (2010, Sundance US Documentary Audience Award winner)
    CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY (2010)
    CHICAGO 10 (2007)
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006)

    Participant Media’s executive vice president of documentary films was previously the director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program for several years and the director of the Open Society Institute’s arts and culture program before that.

Co-Producer:

  • Sara Dosa
    Past Sundance docs:

    AUDRIE & DAISY (producer)
    INEQUALITY FOR ALL (2013, associate producer)

    Dosa produces through Cohen and Shenk’s Actual Films production company and is herself a director.

Executive Producers:

  • Jeff Skoll
    Past Sundance docs:

    3 1/2 MINUTES, TEN BULLETS
    A PLACE AT THE TABLE
    CANE TOADS
    COUNTDOWN TO ZERO
    WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”
    CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY
    CHICAGO 10
    THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

    Philanthropist and social entrepreneur Skoll is the founder and chairman of Participant Media. His Skoll Foundation has been a major partner of the Sundance Institute for several years.

  • Davis Guggenheim
    Past Sundance docs:

    WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” (director)
    IT MIGHT GET LOUD (2009, director)
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (director/executive producer)

    Guggenheim won the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award for TRUTH, and was Oscar-shortlisted for his most recent doc feature, HE NAMED ME MALALA.

  • Lawrence Bender
    Past Sundance docs:

    COUNTDOWN TO ZERO (producer)
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (producer)

    Bender is a three-time Oscar nominee for Best Picture, well-known for producing several of Quentin Tarantino’s films.

  • Laurie Lennard David
    Past Sundance docs:

    FED UP (2014, executive producer)
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (producer)

    David is an environmental activist and producer.

  • Scott Z Burns
    Past Sundance docs:

    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (producer)

    Burns is known as a screenwriter for such films as THE INFORMANT! and THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM.

  • Lesley Chilcott
    Past Sundance docs:

    WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” (producer)
    IT MIGHT GET LOUD (producer)
    AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (co-producer)

Editors:

  • Don Bernier
    Past Sundance docs:

    AUDRIE & DAISY
    THE OVERNIGHTERS (2014, additional editor)

  • Colin Nusbaum
    This marks Nusbaum’s first Sundance credit.

Why You Should Watch:
Part of The New Climate, the festival’s special environmentally-themed programming, the film premieres as one of this year’s Day One screenings, making it a hotly anticipated part of the lineup. Despite the immense challenges facing climate change reform, Gore nevertheless emerges as an immensely affable and defiantly optimistic figure.

More Info:
For Sundance screening dates and times, click the film title in the first paragraph.

To experience the festival through the eyes of this year’s filmmakers, follow my Sundance 2017 Twitter list.

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Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance

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