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Sundance Film Festival · 2015

Sundance Film Festival 2015

World Cinema Documentary Competition

View the photo gallery from this strand here.

Programme

12 films · 4 reviews

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The Amina Profile (A Gay Girl In Damascus)

Review preview for The Amina Profile

Director Sophie Deraspe, probably best-known for 2009 drama Vital Signs, brings a strong sense of the cinematic to what, on paper, looks like a poor candidate for it.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The story of a love affair that turned into a mystery after a Syrian blogger was kidnapped.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2015; Director: Sophie Deraspe)

Full review

World premiere.

Censored Voices

One week after the 1967 Six-Day War, renowned author Amos Oz and editor Avraham Shapira recorded intimate conversations with soldiers returning from the battlefield. The Israeli army censored the recordings, allowing only a fragment of the conversations to be published. Censored Voices reveals these recordings for the first time.

(Country: Israel, Germany; Year: 2015; Director: Mor Loushy; Writer: Mor Loushy)

World premiere.

The Chinese Mayor

Mayor Geng Yanbo is determined to transform the coal-mining center of Datong, in China’s Shanxi province, into a tourism haven showcasing clean energy. In order to achieve that, however, he has to relocate 500,000 residences to make way for the restoration of the ancient city.

(Country: China; Year: 2015; Director: Hao Zhou)

World premiere.

Chuck Norris Vs Communism

Review preview for Chuck Norris Vs Communism

The essence of documentary, well demonstrated, find an interesting subject and tell the story well. This is it, this is the stuff.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
The true story of how Romanians discovered the world through bootleg VHS.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Ilinca Calugareanu; Writer: Ilinca Calugareanu) , Official site

Full review

World premiere.

Dark Horse

The true story of a group of friends from a working men's club who decide to take on the elite "sport of kings" and breed themselves a racehorse.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Louise Osmond)

World premiere.

Dreamcatcher

Review preview for Dreamcatcher

Unflinching but uplifting, Longinotto's film shows how even one person, if they put their minds to it, can make an enormous difference.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Documentary, showing how a former teenage prostitute is helping other women to find a better life.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2015; Director: Kim Longinotto; Writer: Kim Longinotto)

Full review See: Kim Loginotto and Brenda Myers-Powell talk about documentary Dreamcatcher

World premiere.

How To Change The World

In 1971, a group of friends sails into a nuclear test zone, and their protest captures the world’s imagination. Using rare, archival footage that brings their extraordinary world to life, How to Change the World is the story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement.

(Country: UK, Canada; Year: 2015; Director: Jerry Rothwell; Writer: Jerry Rothwell)

World premiere. Day One Film.

Pervert Park

Pervert Park follows the everyday lives of sex offenders in a Florida trailer park as they struggle to reintegrate into society, and try to understand who they are and how to break the cycle of sex crimes being committed.

(Country: US, Denmark, Sweden; Year: 2014; Director: Frida Barkfors, Lasse Barkfors; Writer: Frida Barkfors, Lasse Barkfors)

International premiere.

The Russian Woodpecker

A Ukrainian victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovers a dark secret and must decide whether to risk his life by revealing it, amid growing clouds of revolution and war.

(Country: US, UK, Ukraine; Year: 2014; Director: Chad Gracia; Writer: Chad Gracia)

World premiere.

Sembene!

In 1952, Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese dockworker and fifth-grade dropout, began dreaming an impossible dream: to become the storyteller for a new Africa. This true story celebrates how the “father of African cinema,” against enormous odds, fought a monumental, 50-year-long battle to give Africans a voice.

(Country: US, Senegal; Year: 2015; Director: Samba Gadjigo, Jason Silverman)

World premiere.

The Visit (The Visit: An Alien Encounter)

“This film documents an event that has never taken place…” With unprecedented access to the United Nations' Office for Outer Space Affairs, leading space scientists and space agencies, The Visit explores humans' first encounter with alien intelligent life and thereby humanity itself. "Our scenario begins with the arrival. Your arrival."

(Country: Finland, Denmark; Year: 2015; Director: Michael Madsen; Writer: Michael Madsen)

World premiere.