How to describe my past 10 days being a juror at the Sundance Film Festival? The 27 documentaries I saw at the festival offer their own metaphors. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC examines a group of artists living in an enclosed environment programmed by a Big Brother figure. AFGHAN STAR (pictured on left) follows a group of creative risk-takers putting everything on the line to compete for a long-shot chance at fame. BIG RIVER MAN chronicles a man promoting an ecological message by undergoing an endurance test that threatens to drive him insane. Sundance can resemble all those experiences.
Documentaries at the festival are divided into three categories. There are 16 films in the U.S. Documentary Competition; another 16 in the World Documentary Competition and, by my count, 9 docs playing out of competition. That total matches the 41 docs at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, where I serve as a programmer. I don’t know of anyone who manages to see them all. So each person’s account should be taken as a piece of a larger tapestry. An occasion like Sundance underscores the need I raised in my November essay WANTED: DOCUMENTARY CRITICS calling for more in-depth writing about the field.
The good news is that you can find thoughtful writing about Sundance docs if you know where to look. For starters, I would recommend Karina Longworth on THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, Scott Foundas on CRUDE, and James Rocchi on WE LIVE IN PUBLIC. It’s noteworthy that all three of those films are by veteran American directors – R.J. Cutler, Joe Berlinger and Ondi Timoner, respectively. It’s harder to find discussion of newcomers and especially international directors.
Twenty-three films later (Thom beat me by six films with a final count of 29), I somehow made it to the closing night festivities of the 25th annual Sundance Film Festival. Despite the onset of extreme fatigue, I steered clear of the infamous Sundance flu (that takes down so many of the regulars) and somehow survived with enthusiasm intact. I even asked Thom if we could stay one additional day to watch a few of the winning films that we’d missed along the way (the answer was no). Sitting in NY (which is absurdly colder than Park City, Utah), I am flooded with warm memories of the amazing people I met and the great films I saw.
Here are few snapshots from closing night:
The World Doc Jury with a few significant others.
L to R: Me (Thom’s wife), Hubert Sauper (director of DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE), Gillian Armstrong (Australian director of many films, including MY BRILLIANT CAREER, LITTLE WOMEN, CHARLOTTE GRAY), our very own Thom Powers, and editor John Pleffer (Gillian’s husband).
Inauguration day and spirits were running high at the Sundance Channel party. Here are some snapshots of the happy revelers:
Doug Pray (whose Sundance film ART & COPY I wrote about in my recent blog entry) with legendary Barbara Kopple (who joined STF last spring to screen MY GENERATION). I overheard him telling her how excited he was to finally meet her and how thrilled he was that she attended his screening.
L to R: STF guest-host Hugo Perez , director Rose Rosenblatt, film subject Shelby Knox, and director Marion Lipschutz
STF celebrated Obama’s inauguration day with a screening of THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX about a Texas teenager’s effort to reform her high school’s sex education.
Today Shelby Knox is a 23 year old. She appeared for the post screening Q&A with directors Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt. Still charismatic and never microphone shy, Shelby laid out in no uncertain terms her position on Lubbock’s conservative approach to sex-ed, “The people who were supposed to be supporting us, taking care of us, were playing politics with our lives.”
Lipschutz and Rosenblatt, who followed Knox on and off for four years of high school wanted an opposing viewpoint to balance the story. Their adversary came in the form of Reverend Ed Ainsworth, who founded an abstinence-until-marriage approach to sex education, called “True Love Waits”. On his own crusade to save teens from their sexual cravings, Rosenblatt said he was a “character” and “very willing to be in front of our cameras. A good catch in a small town weary of the media.”
Earlier in the day, Knox had attended the inauguration in Washington, DC then drove to New York to make the STF screening. The night was hosted by filmmaker Hugo Perez, filling in while STF Artistic Director Thom Powers is serving as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival.
In the last two days, I’ve seen several docs that are all about making a difference in your community. Here are a few highlights:
Kim Longinotto’s latest film ROUGH AUNTIES is the incredibly moving and inspiring story behind the people who run “Bobbi Bear”, a non-profit organization in Durban, South Africa that counsels sexually abused children and brings their abusers to justice. The film follows the staff as they conduct sessions with children and go on raids with authorities to arrest perpetrators. When the end-credits began to roll, I led the standing ovation. The Q&A featured two staff members from Bobbi Bear (pictured in photo with Longinotto) who flew all the way from Durban to attend the screening. At once heartbreaking and inspiring, this film made me want to go out and learn more about this organization. Here is what I found:
To donate: http://www.wmm.com/BobbiBear
To volunteer: http://www.RoughAunties.com/volunteer
To learn more: http://www.RoughAunties.com or http://www.BobbiBear.org.za
THE END OF THE LINE made me want to stop eating fish. Seriously. Based on the book by Charles Clover, THE END OF THE LINE explores the devastating effect that overfishing is having on fish stocks and the health of our oceans. Clover and other scientists predict that unless we make some significant changes, fish will be instinct by 2048. Accompanying the film was a useful wallet-sized leaflet from Seafood Watch that outlined which fish are okay to consume (e.g. sustainable like farmed rainbow trout) versus which ones are to be avoided at all costs (like blue fin tuna which is endangered with extinction).
How to describe my past 10 days being a juror at the Sundance Film Festival? The 27 documentaries I saw at the festival offer their own metaphors. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC examines a group of artists living in an enclosed environment programmed by a Big Brother figure. AFGHAN STAR (pictured on left) follows a group of creative risk-takers putting everything on the line to compete for a long-shot chance at fame. BIG RIVER MAN chronicles a man promoting an ecological message by undergoing an endurance test that threatens to drive him insane. Sundance can resemble all those experiences.
The World Doc Jury with a few significant others.
Doug Pray (whose Sundance film ART & COPY I wrote about in my 
L to R: STF guest-host Hugo Perez , director Rose Rosenblatt, film subject Shelby Knox, and director Marion Lipschutz
Kim Longinotto’s latest film 