Festival Predictions

2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Alex Gibney’s Finding Fela!

Published on November 19, 2013

Pop quiz. When was the last time that Alex Gibney did not bring a film to the annual snowflake friendly fest? Even in years where he hasn’t presented a film, it feels as if he has been a mainstay bringing docu items such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, CASINO JACK and the United States of Money, Magic Trip and We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. Mentions of the project date back to 2012 and knowing Gibney’s breakneck work ethic, Finding Fela! is probably the next after his Lance Armstrong portrait. Since Park City’s Main Street music events are sometimes directly tied to a music-docu quota, this would certainly be a must have for the fest.

Gist: A look at the life and music of Nigerian singer Fela Kuti, in his own words, this looks “at him in the past and the attempt to recreate his magic in the present as a way of finding the essence of what made him tick, and why we care about him so much still so many years afterwards.”

Production Co./Producers: Gibney & Jack Gulick

Prediction: Documentary Premieres section

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).