The 2009 Sundance Film Festival, set in Park City, UT from January 15-25, premieres 32 documentary films in two categories of competition: 16 are by American filmmakers, 16 are from World Cinema. Subjects include current events, political analysis, environmental issues, cultural trends and portraits of iconic artists. The American films were selected from a record-breaking 953 submissions; there were 620 international submissions. Look for these films in theatres, on TV or DVD in about a year, or at other festivals in the interim.
The Glass House chronicles the daily lives of marginalized Iranian women who frequent a day center opened by Iranian expatriot Marjaneh Halati to help them overcome their sense of dispair and support their hopes for a more integrated and positive role in society.
Prompted by his daughter Lola's troubled question, "Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?,” comedian Chris Rock set out to find out just who (and what cultural precepts) put that notion in Lola's mind. Followed by director Jeff Stilson’s camera, Rock presents an enlightening and very funny expose about African American hair culture.
Ironically named for the flower bred to commemorate the 46th birthday of Kim Jong II, North Korea's extremely repressive dictator, Kimjongilia reveals horrific stories told by survivors of the totalitarian regime's vast and secreted prison camps.
Introducing us to the power bases of the contemporary global financial establishment, filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer reveals the degree to which and ruthless ways in which public policy is used to deliver immense wealth from the public coffers into private hands--at the expense of the common good.
A documentary foray into the world of Nollywood--the nickname given to Nigeria’s thriving homegrown movie industry, which is the world's fastest-growing national cinema, surpassed only by America's Hollywood and India's Bollywood.
Chung-ryoul Lee's cinematic meditation on the bond between an aging Korean farmer and his ever faithful and hard working ox proves to be a profound revelation about the cycle of life.
Filmmaker Michel Orion Scott follows a Texas couple who travel to remote Mongolia, desperately seeking the shamanistic healing of their son's autism.
When Academy Award–winning actor Morgan Freeman first offered to pay for the first-ever racially integrated senior prom at Mississippi's Charleston High School, he was turned down. That was in 1997. In 2008, his offer was accepted. In following students, teachers and the community as they prepare for the big day when this traditional rite of passage will make history, Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman exposes the current state of race relations in a rural Mississippi Delta town.
Filmmaker Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian filmmaker living in Sweden, supported Khomeini's revolution against the shah, but fled Iran when Khomeini's regime proved even more repressive than the shah's. Seeking answers to questions she had about her youth, Persson Sarvestani began working on a documentary about the Shah's widow, Farrah. She found, however, that she has more in common with the former queen than she'd expected. The documentary traces the development of the relationship between the two exiled women, and challenges each to reexamine her own preconceptions, ideologies and subjectivity.
Still photographer Mary Ann Smothers Bruni's first documentary exposes the ongoing practice of 'honor killing' in Kurdistan, where from 1991 to the present approximately 12,000 women, mostly between 13 and 18 years old, have been slaughtered by their relatives, most often men who show neither foriveness nor remorse, because they're perceived to have brought dishonor to their families--often because they'd been the victim of rape. The film advocates strongly for human rights.
