Festival Predictions

2015 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s Unlocking the Cage

Published on November 14, 2014

A documentary film that will do more for the animal ethics, protection and liberation debate than Project Nim, The Cove and every other doc that has preceded it, it’s almost unfathomable that gods of the docu field in Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker even needed a Kickstarter supported campaign especially after more than four decades of working ahead of the curve. Unlocking the Cage added some additional coin via the 2013 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund and now the only question that remains is: how much longer do the pair remain with their protagonist (the passionate and compassionate lawyer Steve Wise) and the story before they break away from it? Round number twelve might be happening as we speak.

Gist: Follows attorney Steve Wise’s fight to give animals personhood rights and break down the legal wall separating them from humans.

Production Co./Producers: Rosadel Varela. Executive Producer: Frazer Pennebaker,

Prediction: U.S. Documentary Competition or Non-Comp Documentary Premieres

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international)

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Related Topics:2015 Sundance Film Festival Predictions, Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker, top-stories, Unlocking the Cage

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).