This story comes from our partners at Paste Magazine.
Each year, the Sundance Film Festival kicks off the year of independent film, as cinephiles and star-gawkers alike descend on Park City, Utah for a week and a half of snow, uphill trudges, parties, workshops, and world premieres.
This year’s edition was a special one though, as longtime friend of Paste Magazine, Lisa Mazzotta, was the lead producer of a film, Daughters, that won the Audience award in the US Documentary section. Not only that, but she agreed to co-author our writeups of our favorite documentaries we saw at the fest. From brave explorations of the past to frightening glimpses of the future, here they are in alphabetical order:
“Black Box Diaries” - Shiori Ito, director
Women already face huge obstacles, emotional and otherwise, in deciding to report their sexual abuse and pursue justice against their attackers. Doing so when that attacker is connected at the highest political levels seems especially heroic. Doing so in a traditional society like Japan, where women’s suffering is often covered up, seems downright revolutionary. And recording a documentary about the process, often surreptitiously? Well, I don’t even know what to label that. Director and protagonist Shiori Ito is not only a strong advocate for women’s rights; she’s also a hell of an investigative reporter and a documentarian with a natural touch. Going on part of her journey with her is not an experience you’ll soon forget.
Credit: Courtesy of Sundance
Credit: Courtesy of Sundance
“Daughters” - Angela Patton and Natalie Rae, directors
What if there was a program for convicts that lowered recidivism rates to 5%? Would you be in favor of that? How about if it made life measurably better for dozens of little girls? The ‘Date with Dad’ program does exactly that for inmates and their daughters by reuniting them for a few hours, after a preparatory program, at a dance and luncheon in the prison. And if you think that program is remarkable, just wait until you see the documentary that chronicles the first such dance in a Washington, D.C. area prison. Patton, who founded the program, and Rae have created gorgeous, moving portraits of both the fathers and the daughters. The moment when the little girls walk down a hallway and see their dads is one I can’t even write about without tearing up. It’s absolutely transcendent. Mazzotta and her producing team took nine years to bring this story to the screen, and it was worth every moment.
Credit: Konrad Waldman
Credit: Konrad Waldman
“Eternal You” - Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, directors
Just because we can… should we? That’s the question that hangs over Eternal You, a documentary about several different companies exploring AI applications to bring dead loved ones back to “life.” The simulations, from texting to a full VR experience, do have an uncanny resemblance to actual interactions with the departed and doubtless as AI improves at an exponential rate, the resemblance will become closer and closer. But as we follow not only the creators of the technology, but the end users, it’s increasingly unclear whether the experience is helping or hurting the grief process. As technology continues on its inevitable advance, society will be facing innumerable questions like this one, none of them with easy answers. Films like this one can raise the questions, but it will take much more engagement than that to find any kind of answers.
Credit: Courtesy of Sundance
Credit: Courtesy of Sundance
“Gaucho Gaucho” - Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, directors
The newest documentary from the directing team behind The Truffle Hunters is a fascinating look into the world of Argentinian cowboys on the prairie, a world that seems several realities removed from our own. Some of the conversations feel a little staged, which can be a bit off-putting – I’m not sure these characters really sit around a table telling each other stories both people already know. But the characters are engaging, especially a father teaching his young son about the life and an older gaucho reaching the end of his days. And the cinematography – my God, the cinematography. It evokes not only the films of John Ford but also, even earlier, the photography of Edward Curtis and Ansel Adams. It’s the most beautifully shot film I’ve seen at Sundance in years.
Credit: Maria Gros Vatne
Credit: Maria Gros Vatne
“A New Kind of Wilderness” - Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, director
As quickly as this film brings a smile to your face in the first naturally beautiful family moments, it just as swiftly knocks the wind out from you in the next. I thought I was about to embark on a fun, family journey of exploration in the wild, but I was met with a deeply saddening story of love, loss and moving on without the ones you need and want most. There seems to be a trend in documentary filmmaking, where the lines between reality and narrative are blurred. There are many moments in this film that feel so well-thought-out and put together that you’d think it was fiction, but that only speaks to the skill and craft of Jacobsen. Beautifully intimate verité moments keep this story engaging throughout. Insightful, real and painfully raw with emotion, a single shot of the father Nik, brings you to the visceral place of what it feels like to lose the ones you love. We watch the dreams of this family turn into new adventures out of necessity to move forward from ultimate loss. This film reminds us of the unsurmountable strength in the family bond and the resiliency created through love. Kudos to all involved in this touching journey.
Credit: British Pathé
Credit: British Pathé
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’État” - Johan Grimonprez, director
This is one of the most astounding films I have seen in years, not just at Sundance, but anywhere. The style of storytelling reminds me a bit of how I’d describe New York, overstimulating all senses. With quick imagery, intriguing graphics laid out both like album titles and essay references, to the backdrop of eclectic and poetic jazz music, the film can be challenging to follow if you go to the bathroom or blink too long, and that is even before the content of the story is taken into account! But once you settle in, you will be taken on a journey through history that left me enraged, appalled, enlightened and at the same time, feeling quite helpless amongst the vast political power games. With a deep and multidimensional look at the history of the Congo in the 1960′s, the filmmakers interweave the various ways America’s jazz masters, like Louis Armstrong, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, were used as subterfuge for CIA machinations, namely the effort to overthrow the leader of the Congolese National Movement and first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. After watching a film like this, I can’t help but question the multitude of devices now that are tools for manipulation.
Credit: Christopher LaMarca
Credit: Christopher LaMarca
“Sugarcane” - Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, directors
Prepare yourself for gut-wrenching truths with this Sundance Premiere documentary. Growing up as a Canadian, the atrocities of the Catholic Church in the residential school system were taught to us, but Sugarcane takes these stories and places you face to face with them, with nowhere else to look. As it should. The film follows the story of co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat, who investigates his father’s birth, Ed Archie Noisecat, who was put into a garbage bag and abandoned when he was born at a residential school in William’s Lake, British Columbia. The intergenerational trauma and long-lasting effects of the abuse committed by the priests from the Catholic Church at St. Joseph’s Mission School are written on the faces of the subjects in the film and perhaps sewn through their DNA. The rape of young girls, boys and women, and the killing of babies and children is unfathomable, and what’s perhaps more unfathomable is how this could go on for over 100 years. The families and communities search for peace and justice; may this film be a step towards that for them, as we all learn of the brutality indigenous communities experienced across North America.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
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