![]() ![]() The documentary world is at a similar crossroads. Some of the film’s best-animated sequences evoke the wild cut-out collages of Martha Colburn, but the main appeal of “NUTS!” lies in its fascinating portrait of self-delusion and, in some ways, class struggle - of a poor outcast fighting against the establishment for recognition and acceptance. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric mogul who pioneered an alleged cure for impotence (using goat testicles) and launched the most powerful radio station in the world. Documentary Competition that comes from a different world is Penny Lane’s “NUTS!,” which tells the outrageous animated story of Dr. Maybe a large broadcaster will fund Greene’s next project, but at least for this year’s festival, he was still an outsider.Īnother film in the U.S. doc competition, but also because there was nothing else quite like it. An increasingly absorbing meditation on the strains of acting, the pain of suicide, and the responsibilities of representation, “Kate Plays Christine” was a stand-out in the U.S. Documentary Competition, it says a lot about where the festival and audiences are willing to go with a nonfiction film. (As she told Indiewire this year, “I’d like the conversation around nonfiction film to be as exciting as the form itself.”)Ī few years ago, Robert Greene’s stunning docu-fiction hybrid “Kate Plays Christine” would likely have been relegated to Sundance’s New Frontier sidebar (or not programmed at all). Ever since taking the job in late 2013, Sundance Documentary Film Program chief Tabitha Jackson has been beating the drum loudly for arty nonfiction cinema. ![]() Indeed, it was not coincidental that just days before the festival began that the Sundance Institute announced its first “Art of Nonfiction” Initiative to support inventive artistic practice in documentaries, along with the program’s first fellows, Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths”) Robert Greene (“Kate Plays Christine”) and Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq (“These Birds Walk”). But more equanimity within Sundance’s nonfiction marketplace would be good for emerging U.S.-based doc filmmakers - which the festival, admittedly, has been supporting. Poland or Afghanistan’s sweeping and cinematic portraits of aimless youths, respectively, “All These Sleepless Nights” and “The Land of the Enlightened”). And there’s already a robust selection of far-flung, adventurous films in the New Frontiers (i.e., the beautifully crafted “Notes on Blindness”) and World Documentary Competition sections (i.e. That’s probably not the answer, given there are already too many films vying for attention in Park City. Perhaps, as docs have grown in budget and importance, the festival will need to establish an analogous “NEXT” section (which currently exists only for lower budget dramatic features) for docs? “Next Nonfiction” isn’t a bad title. documentary programming? (How many “famous people” docs can one festival take?) If HBO had seven films at Sundance, that’s seven documentary slots that could have gone to films not funded by Time Warner. Judging by critical and audience reception, other docs from this crop such as “Jim,” “Normal Lear” and “Author: The JT Story” (which was acquired by Amazon for theatrical release) will go far.īut shouldn’t Sundance, which values independence and has gone to great lengths in recent years to scale-back crass commercialism in its dramatic selections, apply this same intense regard for indie-ness to its U.S. Pennabaker’s “Unlocking the Cage” may come from that now conventional tradition of “direct cinema,” but it’s still a compelling courtroom drama and revealing look at the law. Roger Ross Williams’ wonderful “Life, Animated,” for example, tells a surprisingly poignant and partly animated portrait of an autistic young man who learned to speak and function in society by learning about the world through animated Disney flicks. This is not to criticize any of these films, or even to say that they are old-fashioned or unexciting. ![]() documentary production, for better or for worse. Of course, this is largely a function of where the money is flowing into U.S. ‘Nimona’ Review: This Shapeshifting Queer Love Story Hates Authoritarianism in All Its Forms ![]()
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