Basil Tsiokos is a Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on nonfiction features. He was most recently with DOC NYC for nearly a decade, where he served as Director of Programming since 2014, and with the Nantucket Film Festival as its Film Program Director. Prior to those positions, Basil was the longtime Artistic and Executive Director of NewFest. He has been affiliated with Sundance since 2005 as a Programming Associate. Basil serves on the feature nominating committees for the International Documentary Association Awards and Cinema Eye Honors. He has written about documentaries daily since 2010 on what (not) to doc. Basil holds a Masters degree from New York University and two undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.
Coming to Amazon Prime Video today, Friday, March 4: LUCY AND DESI
Director: Amy Poehler
World Premiere: Sundance 2022
About: Through interviews and archival, a tribute to trailblazing icons in comedy and entertainment, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and the story of their lasting love.
Coming to theatres and VOD tomorrow, Friday, March 4: DEAR MR BRODY
Director: Keith Maitland
World Premiere: Tribeca 2020 (unscreened)
Select Festivals: Nantucket, Telluride, SXSW, San Francisco Doc, Provincetown, Miami
About: In 1970, eccentric hippie millionaire Michael Brody, Jr decided to give $25 million away to anyone who needed it, sparking a media frenzy and thousands of letters from strangers all requesting his help.
About: Kyle Westphal grows up as an isolated autistic boy whose life is transformed by his fascination with fabric, leading him to become a fashion designer.
About: An immersion into the daily life of the director’s Turkish family, in which young adults fight every day to assert their freedom and independence in the face of a paternal authority anchored in traditional values.
Select Festivals: DOC NYC, Atlanta, St Louis, Cucalorus
About: Once prosperous but now reeling from the opioid epidemic, the town of Rutland, Vermont, becomes the center of an ideological debate on refugee resettlement.
Select Festivals: DOC NYC, Nantucket, Jihlava, Tallinn Black Nights, DocPoint Helsinki, DocEdge, Docville, Salem, Palm Springs, Sarasota
About: When a Lithuanian sailor seeking asylum jumps off his Soviet ship onto a US Coast Guard vessel in 1970, he sets off an international Cold War incident.
Select Festivals: DOC NYC, Telluride, Toronto, New York, Karlovy Vary, Visions du Reel, ZagrebDox, Camden, Docs Against Gravity, Jerusalem, Melbourne, Göteborg, Hong Kong, Helsinki, Nordisk Panorama, Zurich, Busan, Reykjavik, El Gouna
Notable Recognition: The doc has been nominated for three Academy Awards.
About: The affecting story of a former refugee who must confront the traumas of his past to move forward with his life.
I previously wrote about the doc before Sundance here.