Just a quick pointer to the initial lineup announcement for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The US and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions are here. Check back tomorrow for the non-Competition lineups (Premieres – including the new Documentary Premieres, NEXT, Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, and New Frontier). Shorts will follow next week.
Category Archives: Sundance
Sundance 2011: Competition Lineups Announced
Filed under Film, Film Festivals, Sundance
On DVD/TV: RESTREPO
Premiering on TV Monday, November 29 at 9PM EST on National Geographic and coming to DVD on Tuesday, December 7: RESTREPO
Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington debuted their film at this year’s Sundance, where it claimed the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize. It was released theatrically in the Summer, and now has its TV and DVD premiere less than two weeks after the film has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.
Junger and Hetherington gain remarkable access to the men of the US Army’s Second Platoon in this harrowing look at the Afghanistan War. Set in an outpost in the dangerous Korengal Valley named after a lost soldier, RESTREPO documents one year in the trenches, as the soldiers fight al Qaeda and the Taliban, intensely bond like only people in their position can, and deal with the uncertainty of life and death in wartime. The result is a powerful, affecting portrait, no matter one’s politics.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
On DVD: COUNTDOWN TO ZERO
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, November 23: COUNTDOWN TO ZERO
Lucy Walker’s second of two docs premiering at this year’s Sundance had a limited theatrical release in the middle of the summer via Magnolia.
Less artful than Walker’s previous films (like WASTE LAND), COUNTDOWN TO ZERO nonetheless succeeds in drawing much-needed attention to an issue with global significance – the possibility of nuclear disaster. Investigating the present-day status of nuclear weapons, for the most part removed from the public consciousness once the USSR fell, Walker lets those in the know remind us exactly what’s at stake were something to go wrong – an accident or a use of the weapons during even a limited range war. Balancing this wake up call, and preventing it from becoming just an exercise in scaring the viewer, is the message that something can be done by world governments to make the chance of a nuclear armageddon much more unlikely. Sobering, and worth a look.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
Special Screening: 12TH & DELAWARE
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction next Tuesday, November 16: 12TH & DELAWARE
Co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady debuted their new film at Sundance this year. It’s gone on to screen at others festivals and on HBO and is coming to STF as part of their fall season.
No strangers to controversial subjects, as their previous film JESUS CAMP demonstrated, the duo take a critical look at abortion, at the titular microcosm, a street corner where a clinic is situated right across the street from a pro-life organization. Expertly allowing the passionate pro- and anti- forces to tell their own stories, the doc emerges as close as possible to a film that could potentially be embraced by both sides in the intractable abortion debate, even if the pro-choice side is clearly favored. Eschewing narration, Ewing and Grady instead focus their cameras on the experiences of the women who are caught in the middle, often duped into believing the pro-life building is the abortion clinic due to their manipulative practices, and promised support to carry through with their unwanted pregnancies – support which doesn’t materialize in the way they expect. 12TH & DELAWARE is intelligent, subtle, and provocative.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Sundance
In Theatres: A SMALL ACT
Coming to theatres this Friday, October 29: A SMALL ACT
Jennifer Arnold’s inspirational doc premiered at Sundance, where it attracted the attention of Bill Gates and George Soros and began receiving pledges of support for the education charity spotlighted in the film to the tune of $300,000 and counting. HBO screened the film this summer, and it’s now coming to theatres for a limited run.
Simply and powerfully demonstrating the idea that a small act of charity can yield profound change for its recipient, Arnold’s film tells the story of Swedish Hilde Back and Kenyan Chris Mburu. Years ago, Hilde sponsored Chris, sending small amounts of money each month for his education in his rural village community – so small, she barely remembered it when she was contacted by the now-grown and successful Chris, a Harvard graduate and United Nations lawyer, who informed her that he had begun a scholarship program in her name. A SMALL ACT tells their story, as well as that of the top Kenyan students competing for the fund, as the impact of Hilde’s generosity reverberates through the decades to create hope for a new generation of students.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
In Theatres: WASTE LAND
Coming to theatres next Friday, October 29: WASTE LAND
Lucy Walker followed up her critically acclaimed first two documentaries, DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND and BLINDSIGHT by premiering two new films at this year’s Sundance – COUNTDOWN TO ZERO and this upcoming Arthouse Films release, which took Sundance‘s World Cinema Documentary Audience Award. The doc went on to claim additional awards at numerous other festivals during its play on the circuit, including at Berlin and Full Frame, and it screened as part of DocuWeeks this Summer to qualify for Oscar consideration.
WASTE LAND follows artist Vik Muniz from Brooklyn back to his native Brazil to photograph a number of catadores, a diverse group of individuals who scrape together a living by picking through the world’s largest garbage dump for recyclable materials to sell. Inspired by his subject’s experiences, Muniz transforms his photographs into breathtaking, large-scale collages using the very garbage they comb through each day. These portraits, combined with the film’s stunning cinematography, reveal a remarkable, transformative beauty and dignity in the face of poverty and squalor.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
On DVD: SMASH HIS CAMERA
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, October 19: SMASH HIS CAMERA
Oscar Award-winning documentary director Leon Gast (WHEN WE WERE KINGS) scored the US Directing Award for his latest film, which premiered at Sundance at the beginning of the year. Magnolia gave the film a limited theatrical release this summer.
SMASH HIS CAMERA is a portrait of Ron Galella, the master paparazzo made infamous when he was sued for harassment by Jackie Kennedy Onassis. While showcasing and celebrating Galella’s decades of celebrity photography, Gast also tackles the criticism the 79-year-old still-working photographer has amassed due to his notorious invasion of privacy. Despite the ethical quandaries that come with his profession, Galella, and the film, ultimately emerge as likeable and entertaining.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
On DVD: KIMJONGILIA
Coming to DVD next Tuesday, October 12: KIMJONGILIA
NC Heikin’s debut documentary had its world premiere in competition at last year’s Sundance – the project was also supported by the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and participated in the Sundance Story & Edit Labs in 2008. After the festival, Lorber Films gave the film a limited theatrical release.
KIMJONGILIA takes an in-depth look at North Korea through the testimony of survivors of the dictatorship’s legendary prison camps who managed to escape, as well as through a stunning amount of propaganda films and other rarely-seen official footage extolling the magnificence and beneficence of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il. The former prisoners’ stories of injustice, abuse, and famine serve as a powerful counterpoint to the lush images of a happy, prosperous country.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases, Sundance
On Cable: SINS OF MY FATHER
Coming to HBO this Monday, October 4: SINS OF MY FATHER
Nicolas Entel’s portrait of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his son has been on the festival circuit for the past year, making stops at Mar del Plata and IDFA before coming stateside at this year’s Sundance and winning both the Audience and Jury Award at the Miami Film Festival.
After the death of his father in 1993, Juan Escobar and his mother, Pablo’s widow, went into exile in Argentina, changing their names to avoid being connected to his notoriety. Entel convinces Juan, now known as Sebastián Marroquín, to discuss his father and his legacy for the first time publicly, having experienced a surprisingly different side to the man Colombia viewed as its most wanted criminal. The film effectively shows the personal conflict that the younger Escobar has gone through, paying for his father’s crimes, but seeking reconciliation with his past and expiation of his inherited guilt, culminating in a poignant meeting arranged between the sons of two of his father’s most prominent victims and himself.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Sundance
Special Screening: AMERICAN SPLENDOR
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction next Tuesday, October 5: AMERICAN SPLENDOR
STF pays tribute to underground comic book artist Harvey Pekar, who died this summer, with a special screening of this narrative/documentary hybrid by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, an adaptation of his long-running comic series. Premiering at Sundance in 2003, the film claimed the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and went on to screen at scores of additional festivals, winning prizes at Cannes, and numerous guild and critics’ nods after its theatrical release.
Drama/doc hybrids are often awkward creatures – neither fish nor fowl, they at times miss the mark when considered as examples of either form, or emerge as interesting experiments but ultimately unsatisfying. Luckily, however, AMERICAN SPLENDOR just works. It might be because of the nature of the already explicitly autobiographical source material – it’s not a far stretch to accept the real-life Pekar breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience as a narrator or Greek chorus commenting on the sequences enacted by Paul Giamatti. I wouldn’t want to see a lot of imitators attempting to copy this formula though – it does seem very specific to this project, and it does frankly lean more towards narrative than documentary in the end. Still, despite being an unusual choice for STF, it’s definitely an appropriate one, and I’ll be curious to hear how a documentary-specific audience responds to the film in this context.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Sundance
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