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Nov
29
    

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

These films represent a broad section of new documentaries by American independent filmmakers. From examinations of the American political system and the country’s use of natural resources to explorations of cultural development and intimate portraits of legendary artists, these films represent a thematic and artistic variety. This year’s 16 films were selected from a record 953 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

The films screening in Documentary Competition are:

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER (Director and Screenwriter: Edet Belzberg)—Uncle Sam really wants you! A compelling exploration of army recruitment in the United States told through the story of Louisiana Sergeant, First Class Clay Usie, one of the most successful recruiters in the history of the U.S. Army. World Premiere

AMERICAN TEEN (Director and Screenwriter: Nanette Burstein)— This irreverent cinema vérité chronicles four seniors at an Indiana high school and yields a surprising snapshot of Midwestern life. World Premiere

BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* (Director: Christopher Bell; Screenwriters: Christopher Bell, Alexander Buono, Tamsin Rawady)—A filmmaker explores America’s win-at-all-cost culture by examining his two brothers’ steroids use…and his own. World Premiere

FIELDS OF FUEL (Director and Screenwriter: Josh Tickell)— America is addicted to oil and it is time for an intervention. Enter Josh Tickell, a man with a plan and a Veggie Van, who is taking on big oil, big government, and big soy to find solutions in places few people have looked. World Premiere

FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER (Director: Irena Salina)— Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. FLOW confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause. World Premiere

GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON (Director: Alex Gibney)—Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true “free lance,” goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor’s heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts. World Premiere

THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO (Director and Screenwriter: Lisa F. Jackson)— Jackson travels to remote villages in the war zones of the Congo to meet rape survivors, providing a piercing, intimate look into the struggle of their lives. World Premiere

I.O.U.S.A. (Director: Patrick Creadon)—Few are aware that America may be on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. explores the country’s shocking current fiscal condition and ways to avoid a national economic disaster. World Premiere

NERAKHOON (THE BETRAYAL) (Director: Ellen Kuras; Co-Director: Thavisouk Phrasavath; Screenwriters: Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath)— The epic story of a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Kuras has spent the last 23 years chronicling the family’s extraordinary journey in this deeply personal, poetic, and emotional film. World Premiere

THE ORDER OF MYTHS (Director: Margaret Brown) — In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated…and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether. World Premiere

PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE (Director and Screenwriter: Steven Sebring)— An intimate portrait of music icon Patti Smith that mirrors the essence of the artist herself. World Premiere

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED (Director: Marina Zenovich; Screenwriters: Marina Zenovich, Joe Bini, P.G. Morgan)— Marina Zenovich’s new documentary examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski’s sudden flight from the United States. World Premiere

SECRECY (Directors: Peter Galison, Robb Moss)— Amidst the American hunger for instantaneous news and up-to-date “facts,” this unflinching film uncovers the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. World Premiere

SLINGSHOT HIP HOP (Director: Jackie Reem Salloum)—The voice of a new generation rocks and rhymes as Palestinian rappers form alternative voices of resistance within the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. World Premiere

TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY FROM THE DEEP NORTH (Director: Katrina Browne; C0-Directors: Alla Kovgan, Jude Ray; Screenwriters: Katrina Browne, Alla Kovgan)—History finally gets rewritten as descendants of the largest slave-trading family in early America face their past, and present, as they explore their violent heritage across oceans and continents. World Premiere

TROUBLE THE WATER (Directors: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal)— An aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, armed with a video camera, show what survival is all about when they are trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, and seize a chance for a new beginning. World Premiere


 
Jan
28
    

Sundance Documentary Prizes

Grand Jury – Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

World Cinema – Enemies of Happiness

Audience Award – Hear and Now

Director – War/Dance

Documentary Special - No End in Sight

Editing – Nanking

World Cinema Special – Hot House


 
Jan
28
    

FLYING: CONFESSONS OF A FREE WOMAN – [Sundance Channel]IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON – [ThinkFilms (North American rights excluding TV, 2 million)]

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON -THE SHORT LIFE OF JOSE ANTONIO GUTIERREZ – [Atopia Distribution]

BANISHED (Director: Marco Williams) — This story of three U.S. towns which, in the early 20th century, forced their entire African American populations to leave, explores what — if anything — can be done to repair past racial injustice. World premiere.

CHASING GHOSTS  (Director: Lincoln Ruchti) — The 1982 Video Game World Champions share their philosophies on joysticks, groupies and life. World premiere.

CRAZY LOVE (Director: Dan Klores) [Magnolia (North America excluding TV, mid six figures)] — An unsettling true story about an obsessive relationship between a married man and a beautiful, single 20-year-old woman, which began in 1957 and continues today. World premiere.

EVERYTHING’S COOL (Directors: Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold) — A group of self-appointed global warming messengers are on a high stakes quest to find the iconic image, proper language, and points of leverage to help the public go from embracing the urgency of the problem to creating the political will necessary to move to an alternative energy economy. World premiere.

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO (Director: Daniel Karslake) — Grounded by the stories of five conservative Christian families, the film explores how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to support its agenda of stigmatizing the gay community and eroding the separation between church and state. World premiere.

GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB (Director: Rory Kennedy) [HBO] — This inside look at the abuses that occurred at the infamous Iraqi prison in the fall of 2003 uses direct, personal narratives of perpetrators, witnesses, and victims to probe the effects of the abuses on all involved. World premiere.

GIRL 27 (Director: David Stenn) — When underage dancer Patricia Douglas is raped at a wild MGM stag party in 1937, she makes headlines and legal history, and then disappears. GIRL 27 follows author-screenwriter David Stenn as he investigates one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals. World premiere.

HEAR AND NOW (Director: Irene Taylor Brodsky) — Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky tells a deeply personal story about her deaf parents, and their radical decision — after 65 years of silence — to undergo cochlear implant surgery, a complex procedure that could give them the ability to hear. World premiere.

MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) (Director: Jason Kohn) — In Brazil, known as one of the world’s most corrupt and violent countries, MANDA BALA follows a politician who uses a frog farm to steal billions of dollars, a wealthy businessman who spends a small fortune bulletproofing his cars, and a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of mutilated kidnapping victims. World premiere.

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (Director: Amir Bar-Lev) [Sony Pictures Classic (Worldwide rights 1.85M?), A&E (Limited North American TV)] — A 4-year-old girl whose paintings are compared to Kandinsky, Pollock and even Picasso, has sold $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. Is she a genius of abstract expressionism, a tiny charlatan, or an exploited child whose parents have sold her out for the glare of the media and the lure of the almighty dollar? World premiere.

NANKING (Director: Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman) [Fortissimo (Undisclosed amount)] — A powerful and haunting depiction of the atrocities suffered by the Chinese at the hands of the invading Japanese army during “The Rape of Nanking”, one of the most tragic events of WWII. While more than 200,000 Chinese were murdered and ten of thousands raped, a handful of Westerners performed extraordinary acts of heroism, saving over 250,000 lives in the midst of the horror. World premiere.

NO END IN SIGHT (Director: Charles Ferguson) — A comprehensive examination of the Bush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq war and occupation. Featuring first-time interviews with key participants, the film creates a startlingly clear reconstruction of key decisions that led to the current state of affairs in this war-torn country. World premiere.

PROTAGONIST (Director: Jessica Yu) [IFC (theatrical), Netflix Red Envelope (video) low to mid six figures] — PROTAGONIST explores the organic relationship between human life and Euripidean dramatic structure by weaving together the stories of four men — a German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist, and a martial arts student. World premiere.

WAR DANCE (Director: Sean Fine, Andrea Nix Fine) — Devastated by the long civil war in Uganda, three young girls and their school in the Patongo refugee camp find hope as they make a historic journey to compete in their country’s national music and dance festival. World premiere.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI (Director: Steven Okazaki) — WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN offers a visceral, topical and moving portrait of the human cost of atomic warfare. World premiere.

ZOO (Director: Robinson Devor) — A humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely end after an unusual encounter with a horse. World premiere.


 
Jan
22
    

By Mary Milliken
Reuters
Sunday, January 21, 2007; 4:24 PM

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) – Documentary filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival thrive on eager audiences and the support of sages like festival founder Robert Redford.

But down in the real world after the high-altitude soiree ends, directors of even the best documentaries find it hard to keep breathing as commercial distribution opportunities are few and far between.

Sundance is the top U.S. gathering spot for movies made outside Hollywood, and for more than 20 years, it has championed the nonfiction genre. Redford’s main message to documentary makers this year was: don’t despair, “docs” will remain at the heart of Sundance, regardless of their market success.

To make that point, organizers chose for their opening-night film last week the documentary “Chicago 10,” about the trial of anti-war activists after the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

“By opening the festival with this film, we really are making a statement about the importance of documentaries,” Redford said at a news conference.

“Chicago 10″ director Brett Morgen, who mixed original animation with archival television footage, glowed in the aura of Redford.

“He is an icon for me as a documentary filmmaker for what he has done for my generation,” Morgen said.

Sundance 2007, which ends January 28, has 16 U.S.-made documentaries and 16 foreign docs competing for awards in two separate categories.

Among the U.S. entries are two about the war in Iraq, “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” and “No End in Sight,” and one about homosexuality in religion, “For the Bible Tells Me So.” One quirky entry is “Crazy Love” about a tragic romance played out in New York tabloids 50 years ago.

Foreign entries include Britain’s “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten,” about the front man of 1970s punk band The Clash, and Mexico’s “Bajo Juarez, the city devouring its daughters,” about crimes against women on the U.S. border.

Read full article from Reuters at WashintonPost.com


 
Jan
21
    

 

By Nicole Sperling and Gregg Goldstein

PARK CITY, Utah (Hollywood Reporter) – Magnolia Pictures has nailed a deal for North American rights to “Crazy Love,” a happily-ever-after documentary about a spurned lover and the woman he married years after he hired thugs to blind her.

In the first theatrical deal of the Sundance Film Festival, which began Thursday, Magnolia bought domestic rights Saturday for mid-six figures.

Director Dan Klores, a New York publicist, said he remembered reading contemporary reports about Linda and Burt Pugach: In 1959, the jealous attorney had lye thrown in Linda’s face because he thought he was losing her to another man. But it wasn’t until Klores read a New York Times story about the couple who got married as soon as Burt was released in 1974 that he decided to pursue the project. The Pugaches traveled to Sundance to help promote the picture.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter


 
Jan
20
    

PARK CITY, Utah — The talking heads in some documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival are not just real people recollecting real events.

Some are actors, recruited by the directors to help put human faces and voices to events lost in time, for which the filmmakers would have had to rely on static old photographs or artist sketches accompanied by narration to relate a story for which no video record exists.

The opening-night film Thursday at the 11-day festival, “Chicago 10,” uses a voice cast including Nick Nolte, Roy Scheider, Mark Ruffalo, Jeffrey Wright, Liev Schreiber and Hank Azaria for clever animated sequences that recreate the bedlam of the trial of anti-war demonstrators accused of inciting violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

“Nanking,” a study of the brutal Japanese occupation of the Chinese city in 1937, employs powerful performances by Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and others reciting from letters, journals and other accounts of people who lived through the invasion.

“Strange Culture” features Tilda Swinton, Thomas Jay Ryan and other actors in dramatized segments of events that led to the arrest of a University of Buffalo professor on suspicion of bioterrorism.

“Chicago 10″ director Brett Morgen had endless archival footage of street protests and defendants such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman discussing the events in public. What he lacked was a way to incorporate the trial, until he came across a comment from Rubin that the courtroom saga was a cartoon show.

Read the full AP story.


 
Jan
14
    

Associated Press
Sun Jan 14, 7:00 AM ET

Desperate for tickets to see your favorite stars at their Sundance Film Festival premiere? EBay may be the answer — or not.

Sundance officials say they are scanning the online auction site and cracking down on ticket sales. Reselling tickets online is prohibited.

The festival gives locals a shot at purchasing tickets before they go on sale nationally. More than 2,460 Utah residents were selected at random for a chance to buy up to 20 tickets each at the locals-only sale last weekend.

Two tickets to the first screening of “Waitress,” staring Keri Russell, sold for $385 on Saturday afternoon. About half an hour later, a second pair of “Waitress” tickets went for $255.

Sundance officials warn that tickets resold online can be remotely deactivated before the film’s showing.

“We’ve contacted those sellers and informed them of our policy and what actions we are taking,” said Patrick Hubley, festival spokesman. “I wouldn’t advise people to buy tickets off of eBay or any other site,” except for the official Sundance site, he said.

It appeared some of the 293 entries under a search for “Sundance tickets” on Saturday were trying to get around the prohibition. Several sellers were giving away “free” tickets with the “purchase” of festival venue instructions or a film guide, which are given to ticket holders.

Several venue instructions and film guides were selling for around $80 Saturday afternoon. A film guide with two “free” tickets to “Waitress” was going for $227 in an auction ending Sunday afternoon.

The Sundance Film Festival begins Thursday and runs through Jan. 28, with film screenings in Park City, Ogden, Sundance and Salt Lake City.


 
Jan
14
    

For $1.99 each starting January 21.  In the past a large number of shorts were available on the Sundance Festival web site for free after the festival was over.  So whether this is a step forward or back is in question.


 
Nov
29
    

BANISHED (Director: Marco Williams) — This story of three U.S. towns which, in the early 20th century, forced their entire African American populations to leave, explores what — if anything — can be done to repair past racial injustice. World premiere.

CHASING GHOSTS  (Director: Lincoln Ruchti) — The 1982 Video Game World Champions share their philosophies on joysticks, groupies and life. World premiere.

CRAZY LOVE (Director: Dan Klores) — An unsettling true story about an obsessive relationship between a married man and a beautiful, single 20-year-old woman, which began in 1957 and continues today. World premiere.

EVERYTHING’S COOL (Directors: Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold) — A group of self-appointed global warming messengers are on a high stakes quest to find the iconic image, proper language, and points of leverage to help the public go from embracing the urgency of the problem to creating the political will necessary to move to an alternative energy economy. World premiere.

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO (Director: Daniel Karslake) — Grounded by the stories of five conservative Christian families, the film explores how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to support its agenda of stigmatizing the gay community and eroding the separation between church and state. World premiere.

GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB (Director: Rory Kennedy) — This inside look at the abuses that occurred at the infamous Iraqi prison in the fall of 2003 uses direct, personal narratives of perpetrators, witnesses, and victims to probe the effects of the abuses on all involved. World premiere.

GIRL 27 (Director: David Stenn) — When underage dancer Patricia Douglas is raped at a wild MGM stag party in 1937, she makes headlines and legal history, and then disappears. GIRL 27 follows author-screenwriter David Stenn as he investigates one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals. World premiere.

HEAR AND NOW (Director: Irene Taylor Brodsky) — Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky tells a deeply personal story about her deaf parents, and their radical decision — after 65 years of silence — to undergo cochlear implant surgery, a complex procedure that could give them the ability to hear. World premiere.

MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) (Director: Jason Kohn) — In Brazil, known as one of the world’s most corrupt and violent countries, MANDA BALA follows a politician who uses a frog farm to steal billions of dollars, a wealthy businessman who spends a small fortune bulletproofing his cars, and a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of mutilated kidnapping victims. World premiere.

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (Director: Amir Bar-Lev) — A 4-year-old girl whose paintings are compared to Kandinsky, Pollock and even Picasso, has sold $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. Is she a genius of abstract expressionism, a tiny charlatan, or an exploited child whose parents have sold her out for the glare of the media and the lure of the almighty dollar? World premiere.

NANKING (Director: Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman) — A powerful and haunting depiction of the atrocities suffered by the Chinese at the hands of the invading Japanese army during “The Rape of Nanking”, one of the most tragic events of WWII. While more than 200,000 Chinese were murdered and ten of thousands raped, a handful of Westerners performed extraordinary acts of heroism, saving over 250,000 lives in the midst of the horror. World premiere.

NO END IN SIGHT (Director: Charles Ferguson) — A comprehensive examination of the Bush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq war and occupation. Featuring first-time interviews with key participants, the film creates a startlingly clear reconstruction of key decisions that led to the current state of affairs in this war-torn country. World premiere.

PROTAGONIST (Director: Jessica Yu) — PROTAGONIST explores the organic relationship between human life and Euripidean dramatic structure by weaving together the stories of four men — a German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist, and a martial arts student. World premiere.

WAR DANCE (Director: Sean Fine, Andrea Nix Fine) — Devastated by the long civil war in Uganda, three young girls and their school in the Patongo refugee camp find hope as they make a historic journey to compete in their country’s national music and dance festival. World premiere.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI (Director: Steven Okazaki) — WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN offers a visceral, topical and moving portrait of the human cost of atomic warfare. World premiere.

ZOO (Director: Robinson Devor) — A humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely end after an unusual encounter with a horse. World premiere.


 
Aug
02
    

The Sundance Institute Documentary Fund recently announced its first round of grants for 2006 with 14 feature-length documentary films receiving a total of $605,000. Dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice, civil liberties, and exploring critical issues of our time, the Fund was established at Sundance Institute in 2002 with a gift from the Open Society Institute and is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation. The Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grants are announced twice a year and since its inception at the Institute, the Fund has disbursed almost $4 million to 113 projects.

Click here for the full Cinema Minima article by Cyndia Greening. (Found via AltFG)