"Going Clear" director Alex Gibney Curates Documentary Series for SundanceNow

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 09 December 2015 17:45

Written by Renzo Adler

Pina

Welcome to our strange new future of streaming services pitted against streaming services. SundanceNow, the streaming arm of the Sundance TV and Film Festival, is now offering a “ advertising-free boutique SVOD service” called SundanceNow Doc Club featuring documentaries curated by the likes of Ira Glass, Susan Sarandon and Anthony Bourdain. Now on feature are documentaries curated by Going Clear and Taxi to the Dark Side director Alex Gibney. Documentaries include the Talking Head’s concert film Stop Making Sense, the Cold War stock footage parade that is The Atomic Cafe, and examination of heiress turned heist-perp in Guerrilla- The Taking of Patty Hearst.

• The Atomic Cafe (1982)
  A dark comedy in the truest sense, Atomic Cafe examines the strange period of the early Cold War through newsreel, filmstrip, and educational footage on how to survive the coming nuclear holocaust in the American way.

• Deep Water (2006)
  Bodies and minds are tested to their absolute limits in this documentary on the first solo non-stop around the world boat race.

• Fela Kuti: Music is the Weapon (2013)
  Fela Kuti is one of the fathers of Afrobeat music and this documentary shot during his performances in 1982 looks at Kuti’s views on religion, politics, and the power of music.

• Five Broken Cameras (2012)
  A Palestinian farmer’s first-hand account of life and non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements. Gibney calls it “an inspiration for impecunious filmmakers looking to make an impact.“

• Guerrilla- The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004)
  Robert Stone's unprecedented account of the Symbionese Liberation Army and the mass media frenzy they sparked by their kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

• Hell & Back Again (2011)
  From his embed with US Marines Echo Company in Afghanistan, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis reveals the devastating impact a Taliban machine-gun bullet has on the life of 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris.

• Last Train Home (2010)
  Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year's holiday. This mass exodus is the world's largest human migration-an epic spectacle that reveals a country tragically caught between its rural past and industrial future. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades.
  
  

• Pina (2011)
  Wim Wender’s foray into dance and 3D, “...Pina is a transporting aesthetic experience, in which Wim Wenders manages to use 3D to create the sense of space needed to understand dance.”

• Sherman’s March (1985)
  A bizzare historical documentary turned into an examination of a crumbling relationship. Gibney says “I bring this film up over and over again as a tribute to first-person cinema. Ross McElwee was supposed to make a straightforward historical documentary about Sherman's March to the sea. Instead, on the eve of commencement of principal photography, McElwee breaks up with his girlfriend. In the opening shots of the film, we see him sweeping up in an empty NY loft and wondering what to do. The answer, it turns out, is to make a movie about finding a new girlfriend.”

• The Sorrow and the Pity (1972)
  A thorough (four hour!) expose of the Vichy government’s relationship with the Nazi occupation of France during WWII, The Sorrow helped influence Gibney to pursue documentary filmmaking.

• Stop Making Sense (1984)
• Somewhat manic, somewhat personal, this Talking Heads concert film was made during a three-day concert gig at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and was the first feature-length documentary effort of filmmaker Jonathan Demme. Gibney said “...I have personal connections to this film because I was in the audience at the Pantages Theater when this was shot. I can also remember getting really drunk with friends and dancing to this at my sister-in-law's apartment in Tokyo. But that's another story."

• The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line  is the fascinating, controversial true story of the arrest and conviction of Randall Adams for the murder of a Dallas policeman in 1976. Billed as "the first movie mystery to actually solve a murder," the film is credited with overturning the conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood, a crime for which Adams was sentenced to death

To learn more, go to: http://www.docclub.com/

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