PUSSY RIOT - A PUNK PRAYER plays in Sundance's World Documentary Competition.
I asked filmmakers in Sundance’s World Documentary Competition to describe what attracted them to their subject and what conversations they hope the film will start. Below are responses from 9 of the 12 films. As I receive others, I’ll update this page. In a future post, we’ll hear from directors in the Doc Premieres section. See the previous post on the US Documentary Competition. Thanks to Erik Spink for helping me compile this survey.
Zhao Qi, Fallen City
I remember feeling the first jolts in my office in Beijing that day on May 12th, 2008. An hour later, we learned there had been an earthquake in Sichuan. When I set foot in the worst-hit city Beichuan 3 days after the earthquake, it was a sea of wreckage before my eyes. No road was flat; no building was standing straight. Smoke and dust mixed with the smell of rotten corpses and disinfectants, wafted in the air.
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MANHUNT, directed by Greg Barker, premieres in Sundance Documentary Competition.
I asked filmmakers in Sundance’s US Documentary Competition to describe what attracted them to their subject and what conversations they hope the film will start. Below are responses from 13 of the 16 films. As I receive others, I’ll update this page. In future posts, we’ll hear from directors in the World Competition and Doc Premieres section. Thanks to Erik Spink for helping me compile this survey.
Audrey Ewell, 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, @99_film, @AudreyEwell
When people take to the streets en masse in your country and a national and even worldwide movement takes off, how do you NOT get interested in that? Not only has this not happened in my lifetime, it’s also fundamentally different than justice movements of the past. And I’d be lying if I said that the experimental process we employed on the film wasn’t also a little bit intriguing to me.
Our film not only goes behind the scenes of the Occupy movement to reveal what really happened and what it was and is all about, it also exposes the latticework of corporate, financial and political power operating behind the vestige of American democracy. Monumental economic and social decisions are being made, and if people don’t involve themselves in those conversations, their interests simply aren’t being protected. This film doesn’t really leave any room for doubt about that. The only question is, where does it go from here? And that’s an answer that can only be answered over time. This film lays the framework for us to understand the factors that got us into such a mess in the first place, and at the explosive birth and growth of this movement, so we may better understand what comes next.
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WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? on Tim Hetherington, premiering at Sundance.
Tomorrow the Sundance Film Festival kicks off with over 40 feature documentaries. Here are nine that I’ve seen in various stages of completion and predict will make waves in Park City and beyond.
BLACKFISH (US competition) – What caused an Orca whale to kill its trainer at Sea World? Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite conducts an impressive investigation, demonstrating this wasn’t an isolated incident. If you own stock in an aquatic amusement park, sell now.
THE CRASH REEL (Doc Premieres) – Snow boarding champion Kevin Pearce was favored for Olympic greatness until he had a horrific crash during a practice run in Park City. Two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker (Waste Land) follows Pearce in recovery to explore the world of extreme sports and its growing pressures and dangers.
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SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN won the World Audience Prize in 2012.
In the lead-up to Sundance, I got to wondering how its documentary awards correlate to box office success. I looked at winners from the past 10 years in the categories of grand jury prize and audience award for both US and World competitions; and drew theatrical sales data from Box Office Mojo.
My question: how many grossed over $1 million at the box office?
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BLACKFISH, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.
[Note: this post has been updated with a new date & place for Sundance panel on Jan 22]
Home movies normally aren’t intended for wide audiences. But that changes if you happen to record an Orca whale attacking its trainer. In the documentary Blackfish, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite mounts a devastating investigation into the practices of aquatic amusement parks by drawing upon numerous pieces of riveting footage shot with different intentions. Today, documentary makers increasingly employ “found footage” from multiple sources – amateur video, surveillance cameras, training tapes and more. The increased usage raises a number of questions: How do filmmakers track down non-traditional sources? What rights are needed to use found footage? How are archives coping with the exponential growth of material?
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