The Documentary Premieres section is the perfect fit for acclaimed returning director Steve James and his newest film, THE INTERRUPTERS, a masterful look at what one organization is doing to bring an end to violence in a beleaguered Chicago.
Category Archives: Recommendations
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: THE INTERRUPTERS
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: REBIRTH
Jim Whitaker’s multiyear portrait of emotional and physical rebuilding following 9/11, REBIRTH, screens in this year’s new Documentary Premieres section.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Special Screening: GREY GARDENS
Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction next Wednesday, January 19: GREY GARDENS
Easily one of the best documentaries of all time, GREY GARDENS, directed Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer, premiered in 1975 at the New York Film Festival and went on to Cannes and Toronto the following year. In 2006, unused footage of Big and Little Edie was assembled into a follow-up film, THE BEALES OF GREY GARDENS, while HBO aired a narrative version of the film, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, in 2009.
GREY GARDENS is a must-see for any documentary fan, and especially for those who love cinema verité. The filmmakers capture the Edith Bouvier Beale and her 56-year-old daughter Edie, close relatives of former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, at their dilapidated East Hampton mansion, dubbed Grey Gardens, whose better days were long ago. Like their home, the reclusive Beales are viewed by many as past their prime, dwelling in reminiscences of better days as they bicker and keep each other company. A fascinating and poignant film about the complex relationship between mothers and daughters, and how living in the past many times makes one unable to cope with the present.
If you’re in the NYC area, go to STF for a chance to see the film on the big screen, and for the post-screening Q&A with filmmakers Albert Maysles and Muffie Meyer. The previous night, the film will receive the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors Legacy Award.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD
Sundance alumna Liz Garbus is appropriately featured in Documentary Premieres with her newest film, BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD, a comprehensive examination of the renowned chess champion.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: THESE AMAZING SHADOWS
Next in Documentary Premieres is Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, on the origins and preservation work of the National Film Registry.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: BECOMING CHAZ
My doc-by-doc look at this year’s Sundance line-up shifts to the new Documentary Premieres section, an addition to the longstanding Premieres category, and featuring the work of established and accomplished documentarians or own bigger subjects. First up is the newest doc from multiple Sundance alumni Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, BECOMING CHAZ, following the former Chastity Bono’s path to his new public identity as a transgender man.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: SENNA
Wrapping up this year’s World Cinema Competition is Asif Kapadia’s SENNA, from the UK, the story of the eponymous three-time Formula One world champion.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: PROJECT NIM
Heading into the homestretch of this year’s World Cinema Competition is Academy Award-winning British director James Marsh’s portrait of the simian subject a unique 1970s scientific experiment, PROJECT NIM.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: POSITION AMONG THE STARS
The third of three films in the World Cinema Documentary Competition that also screened at IDFA, Leonard Retel Helmrich’s POSITION AMONG THE STARS, from The Netherlands, concludes his three-film portrait of a poor Indonesian family and how they are coping with modernization.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
2011 Sundance Docs in Focus: SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE
The World Cinema Documentary Competition heads to San Francisco, care of Australian director Matthew Bate, with his SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE, the behind-the-scenes story of a worldwide viral audio cult phenomenon.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
