Posts tagged Sundance
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Sundance London 2012: “The House I Live In” – provocative documentary about America’s Drug War
The House I Live In
Directed by Eugene Jarecki
USA, 2012
The War On Drugs in America is proving to be an expensive yet ineffective effort from the US government. It seems that a significant portion of general public don’t realise it is happening yet despite that, drug trafficking is evident wherever you go.
The House I Live in won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary, as director Eugene Jarecki investigates this effects on drug trafficking and what has been done to control it, through numerous interviews with officials, prisoners and family members affected by drugs.
The film stems from a personal connection to Jarecki through Nannie Peters: the woman who took care of him when he was a baby, as her son tragically died from drugs. Rather than an insight with a more personal retrospective on what the filmmaker thought about drug trafficking and its social implications, the film tends to relate more to facts and figures ranging from the sharp increase in prisons being built each year to the significant percentage of African Americans that accommodate them.
The film also touches on a racism tangent that has led to an increase in drug related crimes. Looking at the footage charting from the early 19th Century from opium dens to illegal immigrants, the documentary emphasises how certain ethnic minorities have either played or currently play an influencial part in the distribution and use of drugs – which seems like a very unfair and racial discriminative point of view.
Sundance London 2012: “Chasing Ice” – a striking environmental documentary
Chasing Ice
Directed by Jeff Orlowski
2012, USA
Environmental documentaries tend to be more about numbers. Looking back to my first (and only) viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, it felt like a lecture. So, when Chasing Ice was listed as part of the Sundance London’s film programme, there were some doubts as to whether it can convey the message about climate change better than previous efforts.
Chasing Ice is a documentary focussing on the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), a project that captures time-lapse footage from certain glaciers, which periodically documents their physical state. The film follows renowned photographer and EIS founder James Bolag on his mission on to show how climate change is affecting glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, in parts such as Alaska, Greenland and Iceland.
The film itself started as two different projects until the director Jeff Orlowski decided to combine the two during his time as the EIS videographer. The documentary charts the life of the project, from creating the necessary equipment to continuously photograph glaciers for several months to Balog putting himself at physical risk. Balog and the team raise a bar in terms of lack of self preservation, such as abseiling down ice overhangs, but the results that the project have captured are staggering and need to be seen to be believed.
Sundance London 2012: ‘LUV’ compelling viewing with a great child-actor performance
LUV
Written by Sheldon Candis and Justin Wilson
Directed by Sheldon Candis
USA, 2012
Fans of the Baltimore crime drama The Wire will probably take to this coming-of-age drama like a duck to water. LUV follows a day with Woody, a young boy whose mother has left him, and his uncle Vincent, who has recently been released from prison. When trying to legitimately start his own business, Vincent finds out that he is unable to secure funds for his venture and has to resort to his criminal connections to proceed.
For its 94 minute running time, there is a lot to process in terms of character and plot development. The majority of the dialogue is very ‘street’, so it is sometimes hard to keep up with the developments if you aren’t familiar with the lingo, but what LUV doesn’t try and do is glamorize being a criminal like most crime dramas, nor does it confuse viewers with one too many plot twists. The cast focuses on a small number of central characters and the plot is straightforward, and it also doesn’t drift too far past the learning curve of protagonist Woody.
Michael Rainey Jr, who plays Woody, is outstanding, taking the weight of his uncle’s past with initial innocence but seeming wise enough on how the seedy criminal world works. Vincent (Grammy Award-winning musician Common) struggles to keep it real on the straight and narrow, while his collected façade fades quickly.
Sundance London 2012: ‘Liberal Arts’ Josh Radnor’s love letter to academia
Liberal Arts
Written by Josh Radnor
Directed by Josh Radnor
USA, 2012
How I Met Your Mother‘s Josh Radnor proved that he is more than just a funnyman with his 2010 directorial debut, happythankyoumoreplease. His second outing behind the camera takes him back to his old college days in this touching romantic dramedy.
Liberal Arts sees Jesse Fischer (Radnor) return to Kenyon College, Ohio to celebrate the retirement of Peter (Richard Jenkins), one of his favorite professors. Here, he meets sophomore student Zibby (Martha Marcy May Marlene‘s Elizabeth Olsen) and strikes up a relationship that opens his mind and life to more.
Radnor places a heavy emphasis on quirk with his script and character. Jesse encapsulates the modern thinking man: intelligent, literary yet lonely and somewhat disillusioned with his life. The moment he returns to his old school to Ohio, there is a sense of jubilation and contentment – this is where his character comes out of its shell and you feel involved in his personal journey. Willing to try new things but remain emotionally stunted at times, Radnor plays Jesse with an awkwardness that you could even call cute.
Sundance London 2012: preview – shivering with anticipation!
The 26th-29th April sees the Sundance London Film and Music festival hit the O2 Arena, which sees the festival – renowned for its programme of independent film – take place in the UK for the first time in its 34-year history.
As a Sundance newbie, I am excited to attend the indie festival. I’ve always heard so many great things about it, especially as a lot of great films initially got noticed at previous Sundance fests (Napoleon Dynamite, Clerks, Reservoir Dogs).
Looking at the line-up, I expect the cream of the crop of forthcoming independent releases.
Here are the following that I’m keeping my eye on during the festival:
‘Sleepwalk with Me’, particularly funny for procrastinators waiting for disastrous events to push them into action
Sleepwalk With Me
Directed by Mike Birbiglia
Screenplay by Joe Birbiglia and Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia is now a successful comedian heard on NPR’s This American Life and seen on the Comedy Central but not so very long ago he was struggling personally with an eight year relationship he wasn’t exactly committing to coupled with a career that just wouldn’t take off. Sleepwalk with Me is about the long road to any sense of stability for him. Literally ignoring every piece of advice from the most important people in his life, he delays major decisions for what seem like pipe dreams. This is about a time in Birbiglia’s life where he was stuck in limbo- torn between what his ideal life might be like and existing in the middling reality that kept him clamouring for something better but just wasn’t pushing him hard enough to propel real action.
Money squelches dreams and character development in ‘Price Check’
Price Check
Written and directed by Michael Walker
2012, USA
Parker Posey is undeniably fun to watch as the mean and conniving Susan Felders in Price Check. Her one liners have real sting and lost to her is an awkward but amusing inability to actually connect to others without unabashed self-promotion. The problem is that she embodies the worst stereotypes of a woman in power out there. She is ball crushing yet sexually available, jealous of women with families and motivated purely by what power she can grab. It is hard to get past this and how her lust for money rubs off on everyone else to the point where they become even more empty and detestable versions of herself.
Sundance 2012: ‘Robot and Frank’ finds machinery can hold a mirror up to the connections we’ve lost with loved ones and ourselves
Robot and Frank
Directed by Jack Schreier
Screenplay by Christopher D. Ford
2012, USA
Director Jake Schreier’s Robot and Frank is a tale set sometime in the near future when robots will be at our beck and call for menial tasks or even to watch over the elderly as they become no longer fit to be on their own. Frank Langella (seasoned thespian and recently seen in The Box, Starting Out in the Evening) plays a man unable to let go of his glory years as a suave cat burglar. In and out of prison for most of his life, he was an absent father focused on short term gains from jewelry heists. Now his children (James Marsden, Liv Tyler) are grown and have become independent people with legitimate careers that carry them away from their estranged father. Deteriorating from old age, Frank’s isolating situation threatens to depress him into an early grave. The passive aggressive gift of a caretaker robot from his son inadvertently invigorates his sense of purpose and manages to reopen avenues of illegal opportunity for the veteran thief.
Trailer for the Sundance Hit ‘L’, a film from the writer of ‘Dogtooth’
A trailer has been released for L, a film directed by Greek filmmaker Babis Makridis and co-written by Dogtooth and Alps writer Efthimis Filippou – and shot by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, who also worked on Dogtooth. As we’ve been told, the film looks pretty bizarre, but the reviews coming of out of Sundance have been extremely positive.
Here’s the synopsis, via Twitch:
A man lives in his car. He’s 40 and separated from his wife and kids, who live in a different car. They meet in parking lots. A professional driver, the man delivers honey to a narcoleptic man and often dreams of his friend, who was killed when a hunter mistook him for a bear. Frequently late delivering honey, the man is fired, and his driving skills are questioned. Thrust into existential uncertainty, he abandons “car life” and joins a rogue motorbike gang.
Sundance 2012: ‘The End of Love’ asks how lives and dreams fall through the cracks
The End Of Love
Directed by Mark Webber
Screenplay by Mark Webber
2012, USA
In The End of Love director and actor Mark Webber creates a reality steeped in grief. At the center of the story is Mark (played by Webber) who has become a full time dad in the face of his girlfriend’s untimely death. His love and affection for his son, played by Webber’s real life toddler feels genuine. This is a film that is improvised but has the feel of a written script in that the dialogue is often very compact, funny and poignant. Perhaps there isn’t anything that could be written for a child of this age that wouldn’t feel forced or counterfeit. Webber and son’s back and force wavers between love and frustration. The character has no one to share this burden or joy with.
It’s the desperation that stems out of this that nearly causes a breakdown every time he tries to intimately encounter women. In a local woman (Jocelin Donahue) who runs an indoor playground for small children, he finds a friend but is obviously looking rather intensely at her as a potential new partner and mother for his son. It is captivating, refreshing and at the same time distressing to witness this man’s want for immediate connection and commitment. His is in over his head so deeply that the overall atmosphere of the story gives the impression that whatever time he has with other adults as seen with friends and potential lovers, must be lived to the fullest.
Sundance 2012: ‘West of Memphis’ heartwrenching and triumphant, but no victory lap
You might think you know the story of the West Memphis Three as it was covered extensively by the press and the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy throughout the last 18 years. Then comes along West of Memphis which brings to the table a closer, more intensely personal reading of the infamous tragedy that devastated so many lives but brought to light how political ambition, pride and ego can so easily corrupt the United States justice system.
Director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) encapsulates and condenses the length of the case by first presenting the facts which were previously the most widely known about the case. In 1993, three little boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The bodies appeared to be hogtied, tortured and their privates mutilated in what was believed to be a satanic ritual. Three local teenagers who were branded by their community as outsiders were arrested and convicted. It was a closed case that the documentary Paradise Lost cast doubt on. At two and a half hours long the film never feels overly long or rushed It does recap much of the material from Paradise but does so swiftly and deftly.
New poster for Rodrigo Cortes’ RED LIGHTS
(Source: aledipa)
#Sundance2012 Fishing With Nets - must see short
At age 25, Cutter Hodierne is headed to Sundance with his short film Fishing Without Nets, where it will have its world premiere Thursday night at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre. The 17-minute film is a fictional drama about an impoverished Somali fisherman who is lured into working with a group of pirates. The short film has already began garnering interest in Hollywood and a feature-length version is said to start shooting as early as the summer. Here’s the trailer.
Click to watch the trailer
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance2012 - films to look out for - #Wrong
French filmmaker Quentin Dupiex, aka electro artist Mr. Oizo, is back after making quite an impression with his psychic-killer-tire movie Rubber back in 2010. He has crafted a follow-up that may seem a little more down-to-earth but promises to be just as equally bizarre as his previous film. The Sundance catalogue promises another rule-breaking piece of cinema, so those who didn’t like Rubber may want to avoid Wrong. Also worth noting: the soundtrack comes courtesy of Dupieux collaborating with French fuzzpop band Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family.
Synopsis: Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others: a pizza-delivering nymphomaniac, a jogging-addict neighbor in search of completeness, an opportunistic French Mexican gardener, and an off-kilter pet detective. In his journey to find Paul, Dolph may lose something even more vital—his mind.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance - films to look out for Filly Brown
Regional Mexican superstar Jenni Rivera’s first film, Filly Brown, is heading to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. dramatic competition. Directed by Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos, the film follows an aspiring hip-hop artist (Gina Rodriguez) coming to grips with the fact that her mother (Rivera) is in prison. Propelled by an exceptional cast, and fused with a fierce hip-hop score, Filly Brown promises to have everyone talking, especially about the performance from Gina Rodriguez. Seven years ago, Hustle & Flow premiered at Sundance, and ended up winning an Oscar and made a career for director Craig Brewer. Can Philly Brown follow in its footsteps?
Synopsis: “Majo” Tonorio, a.k.a. Filly Brown, is a raw, young Los Angeles hip-hop artist who spits from the heart. When a sleazy record producer offers her a crack at rap stardom, Majo faces some daunting choices. With an incarcerated mother, a record contract could be the ticket out for her struggling family. But taking the deal means selling out her talent and the true friends who helped her to the cusp of success.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
