SXSW documentary reporting
Becca Frankel 25 March 2008, 2:30 PM
I didn't make it out to South by South West festival, but I wish I had! It's a tritriptic festival affair, combining the original music gathering with film and interactive festivals.
Here's what Hank Sartin recommended documentary wise, as written in this Time Out article.
Among the docs, on which the fest has made its name, I caught two standouts, and neither involved Iraq (shocking, huh?). Dreams With Sharp Teeth
is a fairly conventional profile doc, but the subject makes the thing
pop; writer Harlan Ellison, famous for pushing the boundaries of
sci-fi, is a high-energy crank who is likely to verbally abuse the
audience and then try to sell them a copy of his book. (He did exactly
that in a Q&A after the film¿s first screening.) No word on
distribution as yet, but it¿ll be a shock if this doesn¿t show up
somewhere, even if it¿s only on cable.
But the standout stunner of my fest experience was Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.
Doc-maker Kurt Kuenne¿s friend Andrew Bagby was murdered by an angry
former girlfriend. When the police were closing in, she fled to Canada
and fought extradition long enough to give birth to Bagby¿s son. Kuenne
set out to make a film for that child about the father he would never
know. As anyone who¿s read Dance With the Devil knows, the
case changed even while Kuenne was filming, and he has made an
incredible film about grief and loss. Unlike most filmmakers dealing
with tragedy, Kuenne refuses to go slow and ponderous; the film often
ratchets up to a frenzied pace as Bagby¿s friends and family react to
each new twist. The audience was audibly sobbing at the end of the
screening, and you can expect the same thing if and when the film makes
it to Chicago.
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