Festival:
The 25th Slamdance Film Festival
Dates:
January 25-31
About:
The smaller, alternative January Park City film festival has an anniversary year, screening 10 docs among its nearly 30 features.
SKI BUM: THE WARREN MILLER STORY
The festival opens with the world premiere of Patrick Creadon’s SKI BUM: THE WARREN MILLER STORY, on the influential ski filmmaker, who died in 2018.
KIFARU
Other world premieres are: Matt Kliegman’s MARKIE IN MILWAUKEE, about a transgender Baptist preacher who struggles with her identity; Heidi Yewman’s BEHIND THE BULLET, which explores gun violence from the perspective of perpetrators; Joe LaMattina’s MEMPHIS ’69, revisits a seminal blues concert; Daniel La Barbera’s THE PROFESSIONAL: A STEVIE BLATZ STORY, a portrait of a struggling entertainment entrepreneur in PA; David Hambridge’s KIFARU, which follows the caretakers of the last Northern White Rhino; and Tim Tsai’s SEADRIFT, an investigation into the origins of hostility toward Vietnamese refugees along the US Gulf Coast.
DESOLATION CENTER
Rounding out the doc lineup: Stuart Swezey’s DESOLATION CENTER, which explores a 1980s punk desert happening; Marcin Borchardt’s THE BEKSINSKIS. A SOUND AND PICTURE, an archival recontruction of the story of a Polish painter and his family; and Jonathan Sutak’s DONS OF DISCO, whch uncovers an unusual scandal and rivalry behind a popular 1980s Eurodisco singer.
what (not) to doc 