What’s Up Doc?: Park City Premieres From Pennebaker/ Hegedus, Herzog & Greene Help Bring In The New Year

Having started this doc tracking project back in the summer of 2014, its been incredibly fascinating to see the development of these films and observer how filmmakers approach and engage audiences. For the most part, non-fiction filmmaking doesn’t ride the waves of celebrity statuses, and thus there is much less information floating around to keep track of progress and it’s not unusual to be completely caught off-guard when films seem to spring from the ether, born fully formed from nothing, like Michael Moore’s TIFF debuted Where To Invade Next or Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (see still above), which was recently revealed to be among the many stellar looking films making up this year’s Sundance documentary line-up. I’ve been keeping close tabs on Herzog’s volcano project, Into The Inferno, and half expected to see it appear at Sundance or possibly Cannes, but the arrival of a completely unannounced doc on the internet’s revolutionary effects on society by the Bavarian master of cinematic existential crisis is something to be celebrated.

Robert Cannan and Ross Adam’s The Lovers and The Despot

In addition to Herzog’s surprise appearance at Sundance is a whole host of less surprising, but no less exciting titles in DA Pennebaker & Chris Hagedus’ long gestating primate doc, Unlocking The Cage, Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine, which centers around the television host Christine Chubbuck whom committed suicide on air back in 1974 (and looks to interestingly pair well with Antonio Campos’ fictional treatment, Christine), as well as Robert Cannan and Ross Adam’s North Korean nightmare, The Lovers and the Despot (see still above), which first started to attract attention after being selected for development at the 2011 IDFA Forum. Other Sundance premieres that have climbed the ranks and found themselves near the top include The Settlers by Shimon Dotan, whom won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance back in 2007 for his feature Hot House, Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack’s Kickstarted Maya Angelo doc Maya Angelou And Still I Rise, and the reproductive rights focused Trapped by Dawn Porter, whose Gideon’s Army premiered at the festival back in 2013.

Those who, like me, spent their holidays transfixed to their television, enraged by Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi’s wildly popular Making a Murderer serial would do well to take note of Jamie Meltzer’s True Conviction, which centers around “a new detective agency in Dallas, Texas, started by three exonerated men, with decades in prison served between them.” Formally titled Freedom Fighters, the film moved into post production back in August and since its retitling received a sleek new website and a substantial new preview (see above), where the filmmakers let it slip that “the film will start playing festivals in early 2016.” Considering its Texan roots, I would be highly surprised if it didn’t make the SXSW cut.

From Gigantic Studios, the production unit that’s recently pumped out festival favorites like Joe Berlinger’s Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible, and Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman’s E-Team, comes Joshua Zeman’s 52: The Search for the Loneliest Whale in the World. The project, which “explores the phenomenon of the famed 52-Hertz whale’s tragic plight and sheds light on its connection to the growing epidemic of loneliness in our interconnected world,” received a Catapult Grant for production back in 2013 and subsequently mounted a successful Kickstarter campaign to secure additional funding. It seems the production is nearing completion, with a newly released trailer (see above) and the launch of a health awareness initiative in The Lonely Whale Foundation just last month.

As mentioned previously, for those attached to any of the docs mentioned below — please feel free to share any updates on the status of your projects. I can be reached at jordan [at] ioncinema dot com. Here is our most anticipated Top 100 docs in the pipeline.

Legend:

⭑ New to Chart
⬄ No Change
⬆ Position Increase
⬇ Position Drop