Monday, December 28, 2009

Sundance 2010

The Sundance Film Festival is nearly upon us, which means that we will soon be introduced to a slew of world-class independent documentary films. Here are some titles that caught my eye.

16 films in the
U.S. Doc Competition were selected from 862 submissions. Among them:
  • 12th & Delaware – A look at a single intersection in Fort Pierce, Florida that houses an abortion clinic on one side and a pro-life group on the other.
  • Casino Jack & The United States of Money – An examination of the world of lobbyist Jack Abramoff that sounds like the real life version of Thank You For Smoking.
  • Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child – A depiction of the graffiti artist and underground icon.
  • Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work – This biopic that looks underneath the caricature of Rivers is sure to please the masses (also - nice work on the pun title).
  • Restrepo – The filmmakers integrate themselves with the Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley in this intense and unprecedented observation of the front lines of war.

13 Films were selected for the World Cinema Doc Competiton. Among them:

  • Sins of My Father – After infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar was murdered in 1993, his son, Juan Escobar, redefined his identity and moved to Buenos Aires to escape his father’s legacy.
  • Fix ME – Filmmaker Andoni is searching for serenity while living in a land plagued by war: the Palestinian city of Ramallah, located 6 miles north of Jerusalem.
  • Secrets of the Tribe – In the 1960s, anthropologists flooded the Amazon to study the Yanomami Indians, a tribe untouched by the modern world. Decades later, both the content and the very ethics of their research is still hotly debated.

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival takes place from January 21 to 31, 2010 in Park City, Utah.

Trivial Tidbits:

  • The festival was originally called the Utah/US Film Festival when it began in Salt Lake City in 1978.
  • In 1991, it was renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after chairperson Robert Redford's character The Sundance Kid from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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