Sundance Responses
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“PUTIN’S KISS” | director, Lise Birk Pedersen
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 2:30 pm –Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] I decided that I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker on a travel I had to China in 1995. I was there on my own for three month and I had a fantastic time being an observer in a country who was in the beginning of such a life changing development. There was obviously many great stories, interesting contrasts and characters and I had my sketchbook with me and was drawing the people and situations that I met. But the silent portrays didn´t really seem enough to me […]
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“GRABBERS” | director, Joe Wright
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 11:45 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City] Grabbers is a monster movie, first and foremost, and so much of the experience is visceral, for your eyes and ears… Whether it’s a monster roar vibrating your innards or the orchestra rising to mark a poignant look from our leading lady. You simply couldn’t have that experience reading a book, or watching a play. It isn’t possible. There’s something about the combination of pictures, and sound, plus time, that is utterly absorbing and compelling – when it’s done well. I enjoy a story told in a great film […]
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“CHASING ICE” | director, Jeff Orlowski
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 8:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City] Film is the most powerful art form an artist can work with. It takes the strengths of different mediums and puts them together, resulting in a piece where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. It leverages the power of photography, music, sounds, silence, words, portraiture, and most of all, time. When creating a photo book or painting, you never know what the viewer will look at, or for how long. But with film, it’s a medium where the viewer makes a commitment to […]
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Room 237 | Director, Rodney Ascher
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, Noon – Egyptian Theatre, Park City] Growing up I had planned on being a comic book artist, but at some point decided it’d be a little lonely spending all day in front of a drawing board by myself while filmmaking seemed like going on an adventure with a crazy group of friends. But years later I found myself working on this film alone in front of the computer for weeks on end, so joke’s on me. Of course THIS story, about how one film has managed to inspire so much speculation and become so important […]
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Kid-Thing | Writer/Director David Zellner
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 2:30 pm –Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Nathan and I have always wanted to study and work in film. To me it’s the ultimate art form, in that it has infinite possibilities and the unique ability to encompass and incorporate all other art forms. Even if all art is derivative, it’s that challenge: attempt to make something new in film that’s exciting to us. This was made clear to us as teenagers in the late ’80s when we were the personal videographers for Chuck Berry. Although known first and foremost as a rock-and-roll legend, he […]
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“L” | co-writer-director Babis Makridis
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 6:30 pm –Egyptian Theatre, Park City] Because of audiovisual. A bicycle
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Sleepwalk With Me | Co-Writer/Director Mike Birbiglia
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 5:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, park City] I’m drawn to be an artist because when I watch successful art- whether it’s stand up comedy or plays or movies- it makes me feel a little bit less alone. And the idea that I could do that for someone else seems worthwhile. Sleepwalk With Me is a based on a true story that actually HAS been expressed in different media: it was a story on This American Life. It was a book, and it was a one-man play of the same name. But the reason I decided […]
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“LOVE FREE OR DIE” | director, Macky Alston
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 6:00 pm –Temple Theatre, Park City] Last night, I was at a holiday party and I saw my five year old daughter in a silver-sequined dress through the lens of someone else’s video camera. Christmas lights shone in the center of the frame and my daughter glistened to the right of the frame. For a second, as she danced in front of the camera, I saw her as I knew her most truly to be and had never seen her before. It is for such moments of revelation that I am addicted to documentary film. […]
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“THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA” | directors, Don Argott and Sheena Joyce
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 9:00 pm –Temple Theatre, Park City] In these days of 140 characters or less, filmmaking, and particularly documentary filmmaking, allows us the space and the time to explore a character or an issue with breadth and depth. Our goal with The Atomic States of America was to take the intimidating topic of nuclear power, and to make it accessible and personal by telling the individual stories of people living in reactor communities, working as Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors, and advocating on both sides of the issue. When you begin the journey of making a documentary, […]
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“UNDER AFRICAN SKIES” | director, Joe Berlinger
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, January 22 8:00 pm –The MARC, Park City] I am as surprised as anyone that I have actually been able to raise a family by doing nonfiction work for the past 2 decades. In that time, I have witnessed a lot of change – in technology, in distribution, in audience appetites and in the maturation of nonfiction as an industry – and we can certainly have a healthy debate about whether it is easier or harder to make a living these days as a nonfiction film and television maker than it was 5, 10 or even 20 […]
