The second half of my spotlight on the 2011 Sundance US Documentary Competition titles begins with Andrew Rossi’s PAGE ONE: A YEAR INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES, whose subtitle makes this one pretty self-explanatory.
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2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: PAGE ONE: A YEAR INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
This look at the 2011 Sundance US Documentary Competition reaches the halfway mark with Director Marshall Curry and Co-Director Sam Cullman’s exploration of activism outside the law, IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED
My rundown of the 2011 Sundance US Documentary Competition continues with Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion’s THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED, a portrait of a born again evangelist who was formerly the greatest mass murderer during Liberia’s brutal civil war.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: HOW TO DIE IN OREGON
Another alumnus, Peter D Richardson, returns to Sundance with his sophomore film, screening in the US Documentary Competition, HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, a poignant and affecting look at individuals facing terminal illnesses and their desire to choose the terms of their own deaths.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: THE LAST MOUNTAIN
Bill Haney’s look at the controversial issue of Appalachian mountaintop coal removal, THE LAST MOUNTAIN, is the next US Documentary Competition title in my film-by-film look at the upcoming Sundance doc slate.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Dear Documentary Filmmakers: Technical Considerations
Dear Documentary Filmmakers: Fascinating characters can let you get away w a lot, but pay attn to your doc’s tech aspects.
I can think of few things more frustrating for a programmer than sitting down to a documentary and being simultaneously enraptured by a topic or interview subject but repulsed by the shoddiness of the filmmaking. It pains me to have to pass on some otherwise promising projects because they just don’t measure up professionally or aesthetically.
Filed under Dear Documentary Filmmakers, Documentary, Film
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: WE WERE HERE
My look at Sundance 2011’s US Documentary Competition title continues with returning filmmakers, Director David Weissman and Co-Director Bill Weber, and their new project, WE WERE HERE, which looks at the early impact of AIDS on San Francisco through the stories of some of the men, and one woman, who lived through the epidemic.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: CRIME AFTER CRIME
Continuing my film-by-film look at the documentaries of Sundance 2011 is US Documentary Competition title CRIME AFTER CRIME by Yoav Potash, an emotional five-year chronicle of justice long delayed for a battered woman pushed to murder.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES
Next up in my 2011 Sundance doc line-up overview is Jon Foy’s US Documentary Competition title RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES, an investigation into a literally street-level unsolved mystery going back more than twenty years.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY
My look at the more than forty feature-length documentaries in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival begins with the US Documentary Competition and Constance Marks’ BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY, a portrait of the man behind SESAME STREET’s wildly popular furry, red, and perpetually three-and-a-half-year-old Muppet.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
