After a documentary premieres, what happens to the people that are its focus? SundanceNow Doc Club offers Toh! four exclusive videos that will bring you up to speed on the subjects of acclaimed docs "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," "We're Not Broke," "Hot Coffee" and Oscar nominee "How to Survive a Plague," all of which contended for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in recent years. These director interviews are part of SundanceNow Doc Club's latest curation Fight the System, a slate of docs that dig into contemporary American issues and are now available to stream. "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" - Dir. Alison Klayman "Hot Coffee" - Dir. Susan Saladoff "How to Survive a Plague" - Dir. David France "We're Not Broke" - Dirs. Victoria Bruce, Karin Hayes...
- 11/12/2014
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
In recognition of the "trick" side of the Halloween tradition, Indiewire's latest curated selections for Hulu's Documentaries page highlights films that expose corruption, lies, and the manipulation of truth. Watch these and other docs now for free!Alex Gibney's "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," focuses on notorious DC conservative lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his central role in the 2006 corruption scandal that implicated powerful members of Congress.Gibney's also contributes another film to the list with his Oscar-nominated "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," exploring the rise and fall of the infamous corporation.Corporate malfeasance is also at the core of Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes' "We're Not Broke," an investigation into corporate tax shelters and the government collusion that allows profits to trump civil society.Vikram Gandhi's "Kumare" finds the filmmaker taking on the role of a fictional Indian guru to expose the absurdity of blind.
- 10/31/2013
- by Basil Tsiokos
- Indiewire
The Sundance Institute has 13 independent films available through a variety of platforms to rent, download or stream via the Institute’s Artist Services program. Titles include 2012 Sundance Film Festival films Detropia, I Am Not a Hipster, The Atomic States of America, and We’re Not Broke. For full details on where to access these films, please visit sundance.org/nowplaying. (The complete list of new titles available follows below.)
“With the proliferation of new digital outlets these days, Sundance Institute saw a real need to help filmmakers and producers easily access these platforms and to provide information on how best to navigate and take advantage of independent distribution,” said Keri Putnam, Executive Director, Sundance Institute. “ It's exciting to see these filmmakers charting their own path towards finding audiences.”
In addition, to making it easier for audiences to find Sundance Institute and Film Festival films all year long, this year’s online film guide and mobile app for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival includes a new feature from GoWatchIt.com which creates a universal ‘queue’ so fans can be notified as soon as films they are interested in become available in the marketplace. Sundance Institute has also installed GoWatchIt on the Now Playing page (www.sundance.org/nowplaying) for the titles accessing distribution through its Artist Services.
Look for the Artist Services films on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, Microsoft Xbox, Netflix, SnagFilms, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, Vudu and YouTube. Special bonus video content from the Institute’s archives is available for select titles. The Artist Services program provides Institute artists with exclusive opportunities for creative self-distribution, marketing and financing solutions for their work. New Video, a Cinedigm company, is the exclusive aggregation partner for distribution across all portals in the program. The Artist Services initiative is made possible by The Bertha Foundation. These deals were brokered via pro bono legal services generously provided by law firm O’Melveny & Myers, which has built the legal framework for the Artist Services program and participating filmmakers since its inception.
Titles That Are Available:
The American Astronaut (Director and Screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Sundance Institute Screenwriter’s Lab Fellow Cory McAbee stars in his sci-fi feature film as an interplanetary trader. The film also stars 2012 Independent Spirit Award nominee James Ransone (Starlet, HBO’s Treme and The Wire) as Bodysuit. (2001 Sundance Film Festival)
The Atomic States of America (Directors: Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce) — Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce’s provocative documentary takes viewers on a journey to nuclear reactor communities across the country. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Budrus (Director: Julia Bachas) — Documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha’s award-winning 2009 documentary follows a Palestinian community organizer who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save the village of Budrus from destruction by Israel's Separation Barrier. Budrus was produced by Just Vision, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis working nonviolently to end the occupation and resolve the conflict. (2009 Sundance Documentary Film Grant)
Detropia (Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady) — Winner of the Best Documentary Editing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for Gotham and Cinema Eye awards, Detropiachronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive and make sense of what is happening to their city – once an industrial utopia, now on the brink of bankruptcy. (2012 Sundance Documentary Film Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival)
High School Record (Director and Screenwriter: Ben Wolfinsohn) — In Ben Wolfinsohn’s semi-improvised 2005 “mock doc,” four exceptionally awkward 17-year-olds struggle through their senior year as moments of humiliation and triumph are caught on tape in a documentary shot by fellow classmates at a performing arts high school. (2005 Sundance Film Festival)
I Am Not A Hipster (Director and Screenwriter: Destin Daniel Cretton) — Featuring music by indie electronic band, Canines, and a break-out performance by Dominic Bogart (Flash Forward), Cretton’s music-focused drama premiered at sold-out screenings at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. (2011 and 2012 Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Primer (Director and Screenwriter: Shane Carruth) — Shane Carruth’s cult classic won the Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Timed to the premiere of the director’s much-anticipated follow-up film, Upstream Color, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. (2004 Sundance Film Festival)
Pursuit of Loneliness (Director and Screenwriter: Laurence Thrush) — Award-winning director Laurence Thrush’s (Left Handed) 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere stars a cast of non-professional actors depicted in their own workplace roles. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
The Slaughter Rule (Directors: Alex Smith and Andrew Smith) — David Morse (Treme) and Ryan Gosling (Drive) star in Alex and Andrew Smith’s feature writing-directorial debut about a fatherless high-school quarterback. Nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award.. (2002 Sundance Film Festival)
Stingray Sam (Director and screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Cory McAbee’s 2009 follow up to The American Astronaut features writer-director McAbee as Stingray Sam and “Crugie” as The Quasar Kid, two space convicts in a series of episodic adventures narrated by David Hyde Pierce (Frasier). (2009 Sundance Film Festival)
to.get.her (Director and screenwriter: Erica Dunton) — Five teenage girls with a shared secret get together for a weekend of “no consequences” in this 2011 Sundance Film Festival premiere that won the Best of Next <=> Audience Award. Actress-model Jazzy De Lisser stars in a “mystery” written and directed by Erica Dunton (The 27 Club). (2011 Sundance Film Festival)
Wave Twisters (Directors: Eric Henry and Syd Garon) — Animators Syd Garon (Superheroes, Last Call at the Oasis) and Eric Henry’s “turntablism-based musical” won the 2001 Midnight Films Audience Award at the 2001 SXSW Film Festival. Scripted to a recording by “scratch” artist DJ Qbert, Wave Twisters follows a group of heroes traveling through inner-space on a quest to save the lost art of Hip Hop. (2001 Sundance Film Festival)
We're Not Broke (Directors: Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce) — A timely exposé on how the government has allowed U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes, and the growing wave of discontent that is has fostered. A 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere from the filmmakers of The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
“With the proliferation of new digital outlets these days, Sundance Institute saw a real need to help filmmakers and producers easily access these platforms and to provide information on how best to navigate and take advantage of independent distribution,” said Keri Putnam, Executive Director, Sundance Institute. “ It's exciting to see these filmmakers charting their own path towards finding audiences.”
In addition, to making it easier for audiences to find Sundance Institute and Film Festival films all year long, this year’s online film guide and mobile app for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival includes a new feature from GoWatchIt.com which creates a universal ‘queue’ so fans can be notified as soon as films they are interested in become available in the marketplace. Sundance Institute has also installed GoWatchIt on the Now Playing page (www.sundance.org/nowplaying) for the titles accessing distribution through its Artist Services.
Look for the Artist Services films on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, Microsoft Xbox, Netflix, SnagFilms, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, Vudu and YouTube. Special bonus video content from the Institute’s archives is available for select titles. The Artist Services program provides Institute artists with exclusive opportunities for creative self-distribution, marketing and financing solutions for their work. New Video, a Cinedigm company, is the exclusive aggregation partner for distribution across all portals in the program. The Artist Services initiative is made possible by The Bertha Foundation. These deals were brokered via pro bono legal services generously provided by law firm O’Melveny & Myers, which has built the legal framework for the Artist Services program and participating filmmakers since its inception.
Titles That Are Available:
The American Astronaut (Director and Screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Sundance Institute Screenwriter’s Lab Fellow Cory McAbee stars in his sci-fi feature film as an interplanetary trader. The film also stars 2012 Independent Spirit Award nominee James Ransone (Starlet, HBO’s Treme and The Wire) as Bodysuit. (2001 Sundance Film Festival)
The Atomic States of America (Directors: Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce) — Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce’s provocative documentary takes viewers on a journey to nuclear reactor communities across the country. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Budrus (Director: Julia Bachas) — Documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha’s award-winning 2009 documentary follows a Palestinian community organizer who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save the village of Budrus from destruction by Israel's Separation Barrier. Budrus was produced by Just Vision, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis working nonviolently to end the occupation and resolve the conflict. (2009 Sundance Documentary Film Grant)
Detropia (Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady) — Winner of the Best Documentary Editing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for Gotham and Cinema Eye awards, Detropiachronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive and make sense of what is happening to their city – once an industrial utopia, now on the brink of bankruptcy. (2012 Sundance Documentary Film Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival)
High School Record (Director and Screenwriter: Ben Wolfinsohn) — In Ben Wolfinsohn’s semi-improvised 2005 “mock doc,” four exceptionally awkward 17-year-olds struggle through their senior year as moments of humiliation and triumph are caught on tape in a documentary shot by fellow classmates at a performing arts high school. (2005 Sundance Film Festival)
I Am Not A Hipster (Director and Screenwriter: Destin Daniel Cretton) — Featuring music by indie electronic band, Canines, and a break-out performance by Dominic Bogart (Flash Forward), Cretton’s music-focused drama premiered at sold-out screenings at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. (2011 and 2012 Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Primer (Director and Screenwriter: Shane Carruth) — Shane Carruth’s cult classic won the Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Timed to the premiere of the director’s much-anticipated follow-up film, Upstream Color, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. (2004 Sundance Film Festival)
Pursuit of Loneliness (Director and Screenwriter: Laurence Thrush) — Award-winning director Laurence Thrush’s (Left Handed) 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere stars a cast of non-professional actors depicted in their own workplace roles. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
The Slaughter Rule (Directors: Alex Smith and Andrew Smith) — David Morse (Treme) and Ryan Gosling (Drive) star in Alex and Andrew Smith’s feature writing-directorial debut about a fatherless high-school quarterback. Nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award.. (2002 Sundance Film Festival)
Stingray Sam (Director and screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Cory McAbee’s 2009 follow up to The American Astronaut features writer-director McAbee as Stingray Sam and “Crugie” as The Quasar Kid, two space convicts in a series of episodic adventures narrated by David Hyde Pierce (Frasier). (2009 Sundance Film Festival)
to.get.her (Director and screenwriter: Erica Dunton) — Five teenage girls with a shared secret get together for a weekend of “no consequences” in this 2011 Sundance Film Festival premiere that won the Best of Next <=> Audience Award. Actress-model Jazzy De Lisser stars in a “mystery” written and directed by Erica Dunton (The 27 Club). (2011 Sundance Film Festival)
Wave Twisters (Directors: Eric Henry and Syd Garon) — Animators Syd Garon (Superheroes, Last Call at the Oasis) and Eric Henry’s “turntablism-based musical” won the 2001 Midnight Films Audience Award at the 2001 SXSW Film Festival. Scripted to a recording by “scratch” artist DJ Qbert, Wave Twisters follows a group of heroes traveling through inner-space on a quest to save the lost art of Hip Hop. (2001 Sundance Film Festival)
We're Not Broke (Directors: Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce) — A timely exposé on how the government has allowed U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes, and the growing wave of discontent that is has fostered. A 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere from the filmmakers of The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- 1/18/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
These great documentary films have a simple lesson: effective political protest needs good organisation and smart messaging
So, late last year, I said – to some controversy here – that the violent crackdown against the Occupy movement in the United States represented the first salvos of a civil war initiated by political and allied economic elites against protesters in a nascent movement whose still-not-fully articulated agenda would represent a threat to their unmediated and untransparent hold on profits. And a civil war it has indeed turned out to be.
Over the weekend, 2,000 citizens marched in support of Occupy Oakland – and were met by flash grenades and, some witnesses assert, rubber bullets. The Los Angeles Police Department is engaging in training exercises with the Us military. At a parallel march in support, in New York City, a new apparition – large groups of masked men – joined the protesters, which is, globally, a sign that...
So, late last year, I said – to some controversy here – that the violent crackdown against the Occupy movement in the United States represented the first salvos of a civil war initiated by political and allied economic elites against protesters in a nascent movement whose still-not-fully articulated agenda would represent a threat to their unmediated and untransparent hold on profits. And a civil war it has indeed turned out to be.
Over the weekend, 2,000 citizens marched in support of Occupy Oakland – and were met by flash grenades and, some witnesses assert, rubber bullets. The Los Angeles Police Department is engaging in training exercises with the Us military. At a parallel march in support, in New York City, a new apparition – large groups of masked men – joined the protesters, which is, globally, a sign that...
- 1/31/2012
- by Naomi Wolf
- The Guardian - Film News
Hellion
Today's the day Sundance 2012 opens and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir pretty well sums up why those who've written the festival off completely might want to reconsider:
If Robert Redford's annual celebration of independent film is no longer the cutting-edge cultural phenomenon it appeared to be in the 1990s, it also isn't the wretched-excess Sundance of the early 2000s, when the overly precious downtown of Park City, Utah, was bedecked with 'gifting lounges' that attracted all kinds of entertainment and sports celebrities who had no plausible connection to the independent-film business. Current festival director John Cooper took the reins from longtime director Geoff Gilmore (a charismatic and polarizing figure) two and a half years ago, just as the national economy was going south. Whether by coincidence, strategy or an inevitable consequence of structural change, Cooper's first two festivals have felt leaner and more focused on actual films and filmmakers — and...
Today's the day Sundance 2012 opens and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir pretty well sums up why those who've written the festival off completely might want to reconsider:
If Robert Redford's annual celebration of independent film is no longer the cutting-edge cultural phenomenon it appeared to be in the 1990s, it also isn't the wretched-excess Sundance of the early 2000s, when the overly precious downtown of Park City, Utah, was bedecked with 'gifting lounges' that attracted all kinds of entertainment and sports celebrities who had no plausible connection to the independent-film business. Current festival director John Cooper took the reins from longtime director Geoff Gilmore (a charismatic and polarizing figure) two and a half years ago, just as the national economy was going south. Whether by coincidence, strategy or an inevitable consequence of structural change, Cooper's first two festivals have felt leaner and more focused on actual films and filmmakers — and...
- 1/20/2012
- MUBI
For your perusing pleasure: Here's all 55 of our Meet the Filmmaker interviews for Sundance 2012, now accessible through one handy location. Us Dramatic Competition "For Ellen" - So Yong Kim "Hello I Must Be Going" - Todd Louiso "Smashed" - James Ponsoldt "Nobody Walks" - Ry-Russo-Young "The First Time" - Jon Kasdan "The End of Love" - Mark Webber "Middle of Nowhere" - Ava DuVernay "Filly Brown" - Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos "Keep the Lights On" - Ira Sachs "Luv" - Sheldon Candis "The Comedy" - Rick Alverson "Save the Date" - Michael Mohan "The Surrogate" - Ben Lewin "Beasts of the Southern Wild" - Benh Zeitlin Us Documentary Competition Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present "We're Not Broke" - Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce ...
- 1/19/2012
- Indiewire
"We're Not Broke" (competing in the U.S. Documentary Program) is a documentary from New York filmmakers Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce, who initially wondered if anyone would ever want to watch a movie about corporate income tax. They've been filmmaking partners for almost a decade. Hayes says filmmaking is in her blood, whereas Bruce says she goes into each project "kicking and screaming." They want to make a feature about a U.S. postal inspector who helped bring down the Sicilian mafia in the early 1900s. What's it about? "We're Not Broke" is a documentary film that tells the story of how U.S. corporations dodge hundreds of billions of dollars in income tax. Co-directors Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce say: "When we first began production for our film, the topic seemed so obscure, we wondered how we'd get anyone interested in actually seeing a film about corporate income tax and offshore tax havens.
- 1/4/2012
- Indiewire
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.