Documentary

“THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD | co-writer-director, Morgan Spurlock

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 2:30 pm — Library Center Theatre] The biggest surprise for me in the making of The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was that we actually got brands and companies to not only agree to be in the film, but to actually pay for it. I called hundreds of companies and had hundreds of doors slammed in my face. I had people tell me how they’d “get reamed,” “be a laughing stock” or “never work again” if they took part in the movie. But every once in a while we’d get someone who would actually call back […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2011
“THESE AMAZING SHADOWS” DIRECTORS PAUL MARIANO & KURT NORTON

Although any cinephile worth his salt knows that movie watching is but a fleeting experience, few comprehend that it may be one they won’t be able to repeat. The studios who produce films aren’t museums — they’re in the business of protecting their own assets, not our cinematic history. Without intervention, scenes, moments and entire back catalogues might be lost to the inevitabilities of decay. Sundance newcomers Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s These Amazing Shadows tells the story of the National Film Registry, a government-appointed body that each year adds another 25 films it deems “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jan 22, 2011
“THE INTERRUPTERS” | director, Steve James

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Making The Interrupters was, by its very nature, a series of hoped-for surprises: Producer Alex Kotlowitz and I wanted to be awakened in the middle of the night by a violence interrupter and told we should come quick to capture them dealing with a potential mediation. No such moment was more surprising than “Flamo,” a young man full of rage, making his entrance into our film by opening his front door and angrily flinging his cell phone out into the snow. He was on a warpath of revenge against this […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“THE FLAW” | co-writer-director, David Sington

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 9:45 pm — Broadway Centre Cinemas V, Salt Lake City] If I am completely honest, I would say that the biggest surprise was getting into competition at Sundance! I took on The Flaw because it seemed like a really difficult project to pull off. The brief was to make a film about the fundamental underlying cause of the present economic crisis. The first problem was therefore to identify what that was, to get beyond the stories of Wall Street shenanigans (which were obviously a big part of what went wrong, but equally clearly not the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 | writer-director, Goran Hugo Olsson

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 9:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] To me the biggest surprise in making The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 was meeting one of my subjects: Angela Davis. I had admired her for so many years from seeing her on TV and her biography. The footage that we assembled in the film is something that no one outside of Swedish television had seen before. While watching those segments from years ago, I was moved by her interviews and the way she spoke so directly and with knowledge and a subtlety that was so powerful. Then, when I actually […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT | director, Marshall Curry

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre] The making of this film has been a series of surprises. The first surprise hit when my wife came home from work and said that four federal agents had come into her office that day and arrested one of her employees. He was accused of burning down two timber facilities in Oregon four years earlier when he was part of the Earth Liberation Front, and if found guilty, he would go to prison for the rest of his life with no chance of parole. That seemed like a surprising sentence […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“SENNA” | director, Asif Kapadia

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] The biggest surprise with Senna has been the reaction from audiences who have never heard of Ayrton Senna before: people who have no interest in sports, who literally run from the house if motor racing is on. I wanted our film to appeal to exactly those people, but to actually have them respond in such a positive way has been wonderful. Friends of mine, who detest sport of all kinds, who couldn’t understand why I wanted to make this film, have been in touch after seeing Senna and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“THE LAST MOUNTAIN” | co-writer-director, Bill Haney

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 5:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre] Almost 30 years ago I began my professional life as an inventor, and the first device I worked on was a system for reducing the air-pollution effects caused by burning coal. So when I began work on The Last Mountain, a tale about the struggles of a small community fighting against dominant power of a local coal-mining operation, I was sure I understood the dust-smeared consequences of burning coal. But at every turn I was surprised, at the scale and scope of the coal industry’s black smudged paw across […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011
“BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD” DIRECTOR LIZ GARBUS

For the lucky few who get in, Sundance isn’t just a festival — it’s a resource. Over the years, the festival has nurtured the careers of a number of documentary filmmakers who went on to become what senior programmer David Courier recently termed “master filmmakers” — filmmakers so good and so respected that the festival had to create the out-of-competition category, “Doc Premieres,” to make sure their work didn’t overshadow the greener directors. It should come as no surprise to anyone in the documentary community to find Liz Garbus’ name in a category reserved for such filmmakers. Garbus’ history with […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jan 21, 2011
“BUCK” | director, Cindy Meehl

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 2:30 pm — Library Center Theatre] What I have found most surprising about my film Buck is how it appears to affect people in so many different ways. As I started this journey to tell Buck’s story, I thought it would be about changing people’s perceptions about how they treat and train horses, as well as how to deal with life’s difficulties with a bit of cowboy wisdom. However as the film was completed and we started test screening it for a wide cross section of friends and associates, I was pleasantly surprised that we […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2011

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