Documentary

“A SMALL ACT” | director, Jennifer Arnold

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 22, 12:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] The documentary project A Small Act follows five main characters through two interlocking storylines, but we only had one camera. We were constantly forced to decide which story, and which character within the story, to follow. There was one day in particular that we absolutely needed to be in three places at once, which was impossible of course. We were filming three Kenyan students as they competed for a life-changing scholarship. The students had taken a national exam and the exam score determined their scholarship eligibility. If they […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 22, 2010
“MY PERESTROIKA’”S ROBIN HESSMAN | By Alicia Van Couvering

Robin Hessman’s My Perestroika is a documentary that shows modern-day Russia from the inside out. Five Russian adults reveal their personal histories through interviews and home movies, talking us through their childhood in school together during the die-hard communist Brezhnev years of the 1970s, through Gorbachev, the collapse of the USSR, and, finally, the coups, oligarchs and wealth transfers that are shaping Russia today. Borya and Lyuba, a married couple, teach history at School #57, which their teenage son also attends, and the film begins in their modest apartment, the same one Borya grew up in. Olga, the prettiest girl […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 21, 2010
ASTRA TAYLOR ON INTERNET SERFDOM

Okay, I promised Sundance posts only for the duration of the festival… but that was before I got grounded in Phoenix. I hope to make it to Sundance tonight, but the weather is not being hospitable. In the meantime, I started reading on the plane the new issue of The Baffler, a beautifully produced journal of arts and ideas that is taking a valiant stand against the technocratic pressures that are dumbing down print journalism. In fact, that process is partially the subject of documentary filmmaker Astra Taylor’s “Serfing the Net,” an essay in which she argues that the ideologies […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 21, 2010
Jon Amiel, Creation

The first non-Canadian film to open the Toronto film festival in quite some time, Jon Amiel’s Creation seems to both embrace and shun the duties and limitations of the historical biopic. Paul Bettany stars as middle age naturalist Charles Darwin, well past his explorations on the HMS Beagle, who having settled into English country life with his children and wife Emma (Bettany’s real life spouse Jennifer Connelly), decides to finally tackle writing a book on his nascent theory of Evolution. Haunted by visions of his recently deceased daughter and the notion that he may permanently alter man’s conception of the […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 20, 2010
OUR 12 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS AT SUNDANCE 2010

As we pack our bags for the Sundance Film Festival, all of our correspondents this year have weighed in on the premieres that we’re most excited to see. Check back daily throughout the festival for features, reviews and commentary. 3 Backyards, Eric Mendelsohn. (pictured) I’ve heard from crew who worked on this that it’s great, and I’m a Judy Berlin fan. It’s a domestic drama with Edie Falco and Elias Koteas, and I really hope this is a film that can get suburban-disconnectedness — the bread of butter of Sundance movies — right. — Alicia Van Couvering The Company Man, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2010
“LIFE 2.0? | director, Jason Spingarn-Koff

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 22, 2:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Do I need permission to film that person? In my previous documentaries, the answer was always clear: get a signed release form. But this film was set in a different world: a virtual world called Second Life, populated solely by digital avatars. Was this a game or a place governed by the laws of the real world? To make things more complicated, most “residents” (as the users call themselves) fiercely guard their real identities, adopting fanciful new names, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, even species. Asking for a resident’s […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2010
“RESTREPO” | directors, Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, Jan. 21, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] Our goal in making Restrepo, a documentary about soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan, was to give viewers the experience of a 90-minute deployment. We had no difficult decisions, per se, but we did have important ones. First and foremost, we decided that our cameras would never leave the soldiers. We would not interview generals or diplomats; we would not return to the United States to talk to the families. We would limit ourselves to what the soldiers had access to and nothing more. Finally our film […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2010
THE CINE INSTITUTE COVERS THE CRISIS IN HAITI

Recently in Filmmaker Melissa Silvestri wrote about the Cine Institute in Haiti in this short report: India has Bollywood, and Nigeria has Nollywood, two examples of international film industries that have thrived outside of Hollywood, and soon, perhaps, Haiti can be added to that list. In the port city of Jacmel, considered the cultural capital of Haiti and home to many writers, painters and poets, is the Ciné Institute, which is steadily instilling film schools in the country’s young film students. The school had its origins as a film festival in 2004. The Festival Film Jacmel, founded by filmmaker David […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2010
THE RED TAIL LOOKS AT OUTSOURCING

Mike Johnston, who wrote the article here on the site about the indie film Ink and piracy, has started an online video series about indie film. His first episode consists of a phone interview with the makers of The Red Tail, a documentary about job loss and outsourcing. From the film’s website: While 4,400 aircraft mechanics wage a seemingly endless strike to keep their jobs from being outsourced – Mechanic Roy Koch and his daughter Melissa (Director of The Red Tail in collaboration with Dawn Mikkelson) follow the trail of outsourcing to China. The Koch’s journey is a search for […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2010
ROBINSON DEVOR MAKING DOC ON FORD ATTEMPTED ASSASSIN

In a press release sent out this week, director Robinson Devor (Police Beat, Zoo, which scored on Filmmaker’s Top 25 of the Decade list) is currently underway in San Francisco on a documentary on Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in September 1975 outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Written by Devor, Charles Mudede and shot by d.p. Sean Kirby, Moore (pictured), now 80 and currently on parole after thirty years in prison, returns to San Francisco for the first time since the assassination attempt to be interviewed. The film also chronicles the lead […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 8, 2010

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