The following past Sundance Film Festival documentaries are scheduled for release this month:
>January 8
On TV: HBO & Streaming: MAX
GOING TO MARS
Sundance 2023
Director:
Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson
About:
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.
>January 8
On TV: Independent Lens
BEYOND UTOPIA
Sundance 2023
Director:
Madeleine Gavin
About:
Hidden camera footage augments this perilous, high-stakes journey as we embed with families attempting to escape oppression, ultimate revealing a world most of us have never seen.
>January 9
On DVD/VOD
PIANOFORTE
Sundance 2023
Director:
Jakub Piątek
About:
Young pianists take part in the legendary International Chopin Piano Competition. A unique chance of a lifetime, portrayed from backstage and set to Chopin’s music.
>January 9
On VOD
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE
Sundance 2023
Director:
Nicole Newnham
About:
Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?
>January 12
In Theatres: Anthology Film Archives
LAST THINGS
Sundance 2023
Director:
Deborah Stratman
About:
Evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks. A humid take on minerals, where sci-fi meets sci-fact. The geo-biosphere is a place of evolutionary possibility, where humans disappear but life endures.
>January 18
Streaming: Hulu
INVISIBLE BEAUTY
Sundance 2023
Director:
Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng
About:
Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity.
>January 23
On DVD/VOD
SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD
Sundance 2023
Director:
Anna Hints
About:
In the darkness of a smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, washing off the shame trapped in their bodies and regaining their strength through a sense of communion.
>January 24
On DVD
PLAN C
Sundance 2023
Director:
Tracy Droz Tragos
About:
A hidden grassroots organization doggedly fights to expand access to abortion pills across the United States keeping hope alive during a global pandemic and the fall of Roe v Wade.
>January 29
Streaming: Netflix
THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP
Sundance 2024
Director:
Bao Nguyen
About:
In 1985, 46 music icons, including Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, came together for the most star-studded recording session in history. This is the untold story of the legendary global pop song “We Are the World” — which very nearly didn’t happen.
>January 30
On DVD
FANTASTIC MACHINE
Sundance 2023
Director:
Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck
About:
From the first camera to 45 billion cameras worldwide today, the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity’s unique obsession with the camera’s image and the social consequences that lay ahead.
what (not) to doc 