Documentary
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SUNDANCE WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Announced moments ago, the Sundance Film Festival awards were given out in Park City. The dramatic Grand Jury prize went to Debra Granik‘s Winter’s Bone (pictured), which was picked up by Roadside Attractions earlier in the day. Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington‘s look at a platoon stationed in Afghanistan, Restrepo, won the Grand Jury doc prize. Josh Radnor‘s relationship dramedy happythankyoumoreplease took the dramatic audience award, and Davis Guggenheim‘s Waiting For Superman, which was the first big acquisition of the fest, won the documentary audience award. And winning the first ever best of the NEXT films was Todd Barnes & […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 30, 2010 -
Banksy Revealed? Parsing a Sundance Mystery
Sundance documentaries have developed a strong track record. Hits out of recent festivals include Man on Wire, The Cove and We Live in Public, each of which captures an element of society and finds the human connection within. This year, however, the human connection in some of the more talked about nonfiction entries is highly suspect. At the center it all: Banksy. Exit Through the Gift Shop, the alleged directorial debut of the anonymous street British street artist, wound up with a surprise slot in the Spectrum section of the festival. Banksy’s enigmatic career and life beyond the film world […]
by Eric Kohn on Jan 27, 2010 -
“HIS AND HERS”‘ KEN WALDROP | By Alicia Van Couvering
Ken Waldrop’s His & Hers is a documentary focusing on 70 women from the Irish Midlands, arranged chronologically from age 0 to 90, telling small stories about their lives. Irish Midlands women, being funny, sarcastic, charming and warm, are good subjects; Waldrop knew that because he grew up the son of one of very funny and sarcastic Irish Midlands mother. He constructed the film to mirror his own mother’s life; the women speak of their marriages in their twenties, their sons, and, finally, their husbands and these men’s deaths. Some of the interviews are about tiny things (who controls the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2010 -
“ODDSAC” | director, Daniel Perez
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 8:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Deciding not to do a tour documentary on the band, which was what was first proposed. I have strong feelings about the distance between performer and audience, and I didn’t want to contribute anything more to this gap. I wanted to make something that I would be psyched to see and here it is. That and deciding which kid to kill in a scene were pretty difficult. In the end it was a combination of his hair and fake blood that did it.
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010 -
SUNDANCE SENIOR PROGRAMMER SHARI FRILOT TALKS NEW FRONTIER | By Alicia Van Couvering
Tasked with “celebrating experimentation and the convergence of art and film,” the New Frontier section at Sundance has been exhibiting feature films and installations for the last four years. Shari Frilot is the programmer, and spent the entire year reviewing work from new artists, figuring out which part of the ground being broken she wants to put in front of the Sundance audience. How to show film art in an art film context? Frilot tries to make sure that the artists all “speak the same language” as cinema. This year, the spotlight artist is Pipilotti Rist, who creates video work […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 25, 2010 -
“JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK” | director, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] Well let’s just say this, making a film about Joan Rivers was not easy. Phew! There’s Darfur, Afghanistan and then there’s Joan Rivers! Our producer Seth Keal reminded me of truly the hardest decision we had to make during the filming process. It came during the editing process when we were faced with whether or not to leave in the vagina fart jokes. It almost came to fisticuffs in the editing room, seriously! You think Obama had it tough when he decided to send in 30,000 additional troops […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 -
“JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD” | director, Tamra Davis
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] All the decisions that I thought were hard choices seem so obvious when I look back. While making my documentary I wrestled with the idea of putting myself in the film. I felt awkward studying this idea. I didn’t want the film to be about my personal journey but about the story of my subject, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Now when I watch and show the film I see that the personal texture I added has become one of its strongest narrative elements.
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 -
“BHUTTO” | director, Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O’Hara
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision was whether to bring in a narrator or try and let Benazir tell the story through her own words. The easy way out would have been a narrator, but since Benazir was such a public figure from such an early age we decided to piece her life together in her own words, keeping her alive not only by virtue of the documentary but in the documentary itself. We had a stroke of good fortune when producer Mark Siegel remembered the existence of interview tapes from […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010 -
“CLIMATE REFUGEES” | director, Michael Nash
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 8:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] The single biggest decision I was faced with during the making of Climate Refugees literally happened on the first day. Was it possible to make a documentary film about climate change that would be politically bipartisan? I wanted to create a film that would play to both sides of the aisle. To me, I saw climate change as a metaphor in which a woman is swimming in the ocean. She is attacked by a shark. She is barely able to swim to shore. Two men see the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010 -
“THE TILLMAN STORY” | director, Amir Bar-Lev
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 3:00 pm – Temple Theatre, Park City] Here’s a challenge I faced making The Tillman Story: As a documentary filmmaker making a movie about Pat Tillman, I’m expected, of course, to get to bottom of who he really was and to leave no stone unturned in presenting his biography and character to my audience. Pat Tillman is synonymous with sacrifice and unflinching patriotic duty because it’s generally accepted that he was so moved by the events of 9/11 that he dropped everything, quit his football career, and enlisted in the Army Rangers. However the more […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
