Veteran SXSW-goer Steven Abrams takes in what has become a monolithic, all-things cultural experience. Here he offers the film highlights from 2016, including documentaries about silence, disabilities, and going from YouTuber to star.
Last year Steven Abrams said that women “brought the substance” to SXSW. This year, in keynotes and panels, they continued to call for equality and change, citing independent storytelling as fertile ground for that change.
Over the past year, ever since the May release of the ACLU’s 15 page letter to the EEOC, there has…
Slave rebellion, a romance for the history books, and girls being their odd, tough selves combine for one potent antidote to Hollywood’s dearth of black lives on screen. Credit goes to Sundance 2016, according to staff writer Neil Kendricks, who says this festival “defiantly flies a multi-racial flag of true diversity.”
In its 10th year, Sundance’s New Frontier section abounded with cutting edge technology and immersive, VR experiences. Neil Kendricks and Maddy Kadish wore the headsets, goggles, and assorted cutting-edge tech in order to leave Park City momentarily behind and glimpse the future of storytelling.
What has been an absence of cinematic dialogue about gun access and violence in the United States was filled with both documentaries and fiction features at Sundance 2016. The Independent’s Maddy Kadish and Neil Kendricks debate the merits and emotional impact of several titles.
“Sometimes I’m watching what I’ve shot and I’m like, ‘I could have never written that dialogue.’ People are really good actors in documentary,” said Montreal-based filmmaker Jean-François Lesage about making his doc, A Summer Love. Lesage and four other filmmakers with work screening at the 2015 RIDM Film Festival sat down with The Independent’s Patrick Pearce to talk elements of film style.
Upon the digital restoration and US release of Jane B. by Agnès V. and Kung-Fu Master! the ever-iconic Agnès Varda tells The Independent: “A lot of people love my films but I don’t know if they are commercial. That’s why I always say, ‘I don’t have a career, I just made films.’ I am marginal and I am happy to be marginal because I’m very well known in these marginal circles of cinephiles.”
Director Radu Jude talks to The Independent about how his latest, Aferim!, may seem Shakespearian but actually uses language discovered in archival literary texts and other documents. And if you’re wondering where he’s headed next, it’s into an adaptation of work by novelist Max Blecher, sometimes called Romania’s Kafka.