While director Steve James is no stranger to Sundance, his return this month to the festival carries special significance for him—hearkening back to his past and at the same time showcasing his latest work. On the former score, to mark the 20th anniversary of his acclaimed Hoop Dreams—which won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in 1994—Sundance will present a restored version of the documentary which chronicled five years in the lives of two teenagers who hope to escape their inner city neighborhoods by parlaying their basketball skills into NBA careers.
This year’s Sundance Fest also marks the world premiere of James’ Life Itself, a feature documentary based on the memoirs of movie critic Roger Ebert.
“It sounds cliche but it’s a dream come true,” said James. “Sundance over a year ago—before last year’s festival—reached out to me to say they wanted to do a restoration of Hoop Dreams using advanced technology. Hoop Dreams originated on video back when there was no high-def video. They raised money for the restoration—the Motion Picture Academy and the UCLA Film Archive also got involved. They spent part of last year doing an incredible restoration. Meanwhile I was working on Life Itself. In the back of my mind, I thought wouldn’t it be cool if Hoop Dreams played at Sundance along with Life Itself. The two films have a special bond in that Roger and Gene [Siskel] on their TV show [At The Movies] were early champions of Hoop Dreams. Roger and Gene were instrumental in making Hoop Dreams a talked-about film,” recalled James. “They reviewed the film during the festival, telling their TV audience that the film couldn’t be seen anywhere but at Sundance. They said the film was deserving of wider distribution. Their show put Hoop Dreams in a different sphere in terms of awareness, getting people to seek out the film. Roger and Gene were champions throughout the year right through the theatrical release and beyond, into the awards season. Gene passed away in 1999 but Roger continued to be a great supporter of my work. On the eve of Sundance [2011], I remember Roger tweeting about The Interrupters. He had a huge following and helped generate interest in that film. No single person has come within a million miles of what Roger has done for my work over the years.”
James noted that Ebert played a supportive role in many directors’ careers, citing Martin Scorsese as an example. “Roger was the first critic to champion Marty after seeing his first feature, Who’s That Knocking At My Door. They formed a great friendship over the years. When we approached Scorsese about doing an interview for our film, we also asked him if he would consider being involved as an executive producer. He immediately agreed to both.”
Sadly, four months into the making of Life Itself, Ebert passed away at the age of 70. “Right before we started the film, Roger went to the hospital with a fractured hip. Essentially for the next four months he was home for only a total of two days,” recollected James. “Going into the project, my goal was to show how incredibly active Roger was despite all he had gone through medically over the years. That plan changed when he was hospitalized. I envisioned showing how vibrant he still was, attending screenings, events and throwing dinner parties. Ultimately, though, we were able to show just how vibrant he was—his spirit and sense of humor still came into play.”
James added that with Ebert’s book close to 500 pages, the film version inevitably had to leave a lot of the original content behind. “It was a real challenge to decide what to leave out. You can easily make a strong case for leaving in some of what we left out. I wasn’t making a miniseries, though. I was making a feature-length film that despite its omissions sought to show who Roger was personally and professionally, and why he mattered so much.”
Life Itself is James’ sixth film at Sundance—five of which are documentaries. The other, a narrative film titled Prefontaine (for runner Steve Prefontaine, portrayed by actor Jared Leto), debuted at Sundance in 1997. The remaining three James-directed documentaries to screen at Sundance were Stevie (nominated for the Grand Jury Prize) in 2003, Real Paradise in 2005 and The Interrupters in 2011.
The 20-year anniversary of Hoop Dreams also marks the same stretch of time for James at production house Nonfiction Unlimited, which represents him for commercials and branded content. He has brought his documentary and storytelling sensibilities to spots and branded fare over the years, including a dozen short films for Ford Trucks. His most recent ad project was a web short for Google featuring a young, aspiring filmmaker from Haiti who connects with the Ghetto Film School in the Bronx. Via a Google Hangout where groups can have video meetings, she plugs into a Ghetto Film School Master Class featuring director Lee Daniels whose credits include the lauded Precious and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. James went to Haiti to capture the young director’s story. “This is one of my favorite projects, if not the favorite that I’ve done at Nonfiction,” assessed James.
Joe Berlinger
WHITEY: United States of America v. James J. Bulger is the sixth documentary that director Joe Berlinger has premiered at Sundance. The first dates back to 1992 when the Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky-directed Brother’s Keeper won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. In ‘96, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, also helmed by Berlinger and Sinofsky, earned a Grand Jury Prize nom as did Berlinger’s Crude in 2009. In between Paradise Lost and Crude came Metallica: Some Kind of Monster at Sundance in 2004. Fast forward to 2012 and Berlinger’s Under African Skies made its first splash.
“As I’ve seen Park City and Sundance grow—and the industry change—over those two decades, at its core the festival has remained the same. Sundance remains a place that wants to give a voice to independent filmmakers who want to tell challenging stories that might not otherwise find a home,” affirmed Berlinger who noted that this year some 1,700-plus documentaries were submitted for Sundance consideration, from which 38 were selected. “It’s become increasingly competitive. To be selected is quite an honor and the festival kicks off your film in such a way that people pay attention to it. To have that happen six times for my films has had a profound, definitive impact on my career. It made me into a well-known filmmaker. It helped build my reputation which has led to other opportunities—including in commercials and branded content. When different clients hear that I’ve had multiple films debut at Sundance, they pay attention and are drawn to that. To get the call last November that WHITEY was selected for Sundance was every bit as exciting when I got my first call years ago from Sundance for Brother’s Keeper.”
WHITEY tells the tale of gangster James “Whitey” Bulger and his relationship with the FBI and Department of Justice which allowed him to reign over a criminal empire in Boston for decades. The documentary chronicles his recent sensational trial, using it as a springboard to explore allegations of corruption within the highest levels of law enforcement.
As for what drew him to Bulger’s story, Berlinger at first quipped. “My films seem to be about music or murder—I’ve jokingly said that on occasion. I do a lot of crime films. The fact that this guy was at the top of the Boston underworld for 25 years and not even charged with a misdemeanor intrigued me. He was finally indicted, fled and was on the lam for 16 years. He was hiding in plain sight, living in Santa Monica where they finally got him. I was fascinated by how a guy like that operates. How does he get away with all that crime? It’s an interesting crime story but a more important, universal tale of government corruption and complicity that hadn’t been told before.”
A major challenge posed by this documentary, said Berlinger, “was that unlike Paradise Lost or Brother’s Keeper which were also trial-based films, I had no access to the courtroom for the trial of Bulger. Federal trials cannot be filmed. I solved that by working harder than ever—getting access to virtually all the players—gangsters, journalists, prosecutors, lawyers from all sides of the story which helped me bring the trial sequences to life.”
Those trial sequences represented “a stylistic departure for me,” continued Berlinger. “Normally I’m a cinema verite documentary filmmaker. This time around, a new artful level, a unique approach was necessitated. The recreated trial sequences have a different voice and feel. Most of the film is a traditional Berlinger verite documentary. But the 20 minutes of the film with the recreated trial sequences are visually quite stunning with different camera perspectives and a graphic overlay approach.”
Berlinger spent the second half of 2013 focused on WHITEY. The first half saw the director primarily engaged in his alluded to branded content endeavors. He has been repped since 2001 for commercials and branded fare by @radical.media. Among the projects Berlinger helmed during the first six months of 2013 were: web film profiles of a dozen small businesses for American Express via Wieden+Kennedy (from which were culled a couple of :30 spots); an internal communications project for Bank of America which turned out so well that the shorts—out of Hill Holliday, Boston—gained mainstream exposure on the B of A website; and a client-direct piece of branded content for Business Week originally planned as a short film featuring U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson reflecting on the five year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the ensuing financial crisis. The Paulson interview exceeded expectations as did the depth and scope of the material dug out for the project, causing it to morph into a full-fledged feature-length documentary—Hank: Five Years From The Brink—which was acquired by Netflix for distribution.
Amir Bar-Lev
Director Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary storytelling has made its mark at Sundance over the years, starting with My Kid Could Paint That in 2007 and The Tillman Story in 2010, both nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. This month Bar-Lev comes back to Sundance with Happy Valley, the story of children who were victimized by Jerry Sandusky, a key and trusted member of the legendary Pen State college football program.
“What drew me to this story was, I believe, what made this story of international interest: not so much Sandusky’s sociopathic behavior but more the moral questions about the folks around Sandusky,” related Bar-Lev. “Each of us is aware, to some degree, of crimes or injustice occurring in our midst. And none of us is Superman, out pulling cats out of trees for old ladies on our way to taking on arch criminals. So I think the story of a town which may or may not have had some sense, heard some rumors, that all was not right with one of its most revered citizens, is actually a great moral fable.”
Happy Valley was commissioned by A&E Films which financed The Tillman Story and partially financed My Kid Could Paint That. “I have a great relationship with those folks [at A&E], and in this case they came to me direct after producer Jonathan Koch at Asylum Entertainment brought this story to them.”
As for returning to Sundance, Bar-Lev said that the fest “has always been good to me and a great place to launch a film.”
Getting the film ready for Sundance was a challenge. “It so happened that we got a very important interview very late into the edit, so the last three months have been an exercise in putting my crew and myself into near total, round the clock work,” noted Bar-Lev. “We had three editors, a composer, graphics, grading, sound editing and mix all happening simultaneously. I got a taste of what it’s like to be an emergency doctor during a mass casualty situation. And from here forward everything will feel like a cake walk.”
This month’s exposure at Sundance continues a mini-festival run for Bar-Lev whose 12.12.12 for executive producer Paul McCartney premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September. 12.12.12 documented the Hurricane Sandy relief concert featuring performances by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.
Shortly after the 2013 Toronto Fest, Bar-Lev signed with production house Chelsea for commercials and branded content. He had previously been handled in the ad arena by RSA Films where he directed Re:Generation Music Project, a branded entertainment project which debuted at the 2012 South by Southwest Festival. Made in association with the Grammys and sponsored by Hyundai Veloster, Re:Generation follows five noted DJs–DJ Premier, electronic duo The Crystal Method, Pretty Lights of dub-step fame, Grammy winner Skrillex and producer Mark Ronson–as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music.
Regarding how his branded shorter form fare has impacted his documentaries, Bar-Lev observed, “In both disciplines [spots and features] I’m going for efficient storytelling, strong characters, and what I consider compelling ambiguities. But I can say that working on commercial endeavors the attention to detail is very gratifying; I’ve aspired to bring that level of consideration to my documentary work. I try never to be “ a fly on the wall;” just there to document what transpires and intercede as little as possible. For me the director’s role is heightening reality and drawing story out of my characters and settings. To do that you can’t be afraid to work with your subjects almost as though they are actors, to art direct settings, and to create scenarios from which good narrative will naturally develop.”
Adam Wingard
Director Adam Wingard is hardly new to Sundance but this time around breaks new ground in that The Guest is the first film wholly directed by him to be selected for the festival. Twice before he was one of several directors contributing segments to “found footage” horror compilation films V/H/S and V/H/S 2 which debuted at Sundance in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
This time around, Wingard’s The Guest earned inclusion in the Park City At Midnight program. Screenwriter Simon Barrett’s tale centers on a soldier on leave who befriends the family of a fallen comrade. He soon becomes a threat to everyone around him when it’s revealed he’s not who he says he is.
Barrett had been kicking around and tinkering with the script for a couple of years, according to Wingard, but it didn’t quite come together. Wingard related that after he again watched the original Terminator and Halloween movies, “something clicked. Bringing the late 1970s/early ‘80s vibe of those movies into play, combining Simon’s storyline with that feel gave it another dimension—more of a fun-action dynamic element.”
Making the grade at Sundance is special for Wingard. “When you’re growing up in the middle of nowhere, Alabama, the only real film festival you hear about is Sundance. From that perspective, it’s good because I can tell my parents about Sundance and they know what I’m talking about.”
Shooting wrapped on The Guest on Aug. 23, 2013, the same date that Wingard’s horror film You’re Next opened in U.S. theaters. Since then, Wingard has been immersed in post for The Guest which goes into Sundance looking for distribution. “We’re betting on ourselves, that we get the right crowd reaction,” said Wingard, “and generate the interest needed to gain wide exposure for the film.”
Wingard, Barrett and producer Keith Calder are among those on the core team behind both You’re Next and The Guest. Calder also played a role in bringing Wingard into the commercialmaking/branded content arena. Back in 2012, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock teamed his production company Warrior Poets with Calder’s Snoot Entertainment and spot production veteran Shannon Lords to create commercial production house Warpaint. Spurlock is on War Paint’s directorial roster along with several others, including Wingard.
“Keith was excited about the kind of style I have and how it would translate into commercials,” recollected Wingard. “He arranged to have Morgan call me when I was at the SXSW Festival for one of the VHS movies. We talked and Morgan signed off on my being at Warpaint.”
Wingard’s short-form discipline experience includes music videos. He observed that video work and commercials afford him the opportunity “to try new, big ambitious things” which can only add to “your understanding of complicated conceptual and stylistic choices—and how to deploy those choices fluidly and almost casually to best support the narrative. One discipline informs another.”
Alex Ross Perry
With just his third feature—Listen Up Philip—director Alex Ross Perry has landed his first film at Sundance, part of the festival’s NEXT program. Listen Up Philip is also Perry’s highest profile film and first featuring well known actors with Jason Schwartzman in the title role of a young curmudgeon novelist, Elizabeth Moss as his photographer girlfriend, and Jonathan Pryce as his mentor/idol.
“It’s my ‘New York’ movie,” said Perry of the self-described “idiosyncratic comedy,” which he also wrote, balancing quick-witted dialogue and the at times painful, personal truths of the characters.
In some respects sparking the story was the success of Perry’s second film, The Color Wheel, which was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards. “The Color Wheel started slowly but ended up exceeding expectations of what it would do for my life, building momentum for my career. But the longer you are on that movie train, the further away from the station I became. You go to world class festivals, screening the film for people in different cities and countries and then you stop and think, ‘Wait a minute. I haven’t seen a friend in New York in nine weeks because I’m home for two days at a time between festivals. The faster the train is going, the harder it is to get off it. Someone’s life changes objectively for the better yet the result is that it’s changing for the worse. You lose touch with friends, relationships can suffer. This planted ideas in my head which led to Listen Up Philip.”
The inclusion of Listen Up Philip in the Sundance lineup means much to Perry. “My first two films [Impolex and The Color Wheel] followed untraditional, longer winding paths to their ultimate life. For my third film to be ushered right into the front door—to an institution that means everything to everyone around the world feels incredibly strange. At times you feel you’ll never get to Sundance and then it happens randomly on your third try. It says that maybe I’m doing something right, sticking to my beliefs, staying with an offbeat idiosyncratic approach to making films.”
That path has seen Perry go from “making a film with friends and a crew of six to now [with Listen Up Philip] a crew of 50 and some well-known actors. Yet while this is bigger than anything I’ve done before, you have to remember what kind of filmmaker you want to be.”
And towards that end, he sprinkled lesser known colleagues into the mix, performing in scenes opposite Schwartzman, Moss, Pryce and Krysten Ritter. Perry also brought in other members of his filmmaking family, including cinematographer Sean Price Williams and editor Robert Greene, part of a circle of friends who at one time all worked together at the same video rental store. Williams has shot all three of Perry’s feature films. Greene is a director, writer and editor. “These are people who know me,” said Perry. “If I veer off track in the editing room, Robert will let me know.”
Among the production companies involved in Listen Up Philip was Washington Square Films. “It became clear we needed a New York voice on the production side,” said Perry, noting that he felt an affinity for the people at WSF, describing them as being “exactly the New York production relationship we needed.”
