Eye For Film >> Festivals >> Sundance >> 2020 >> US Documentary Competition
View other Sundance Film Festival Films by strand: Documentary Premieres, Kids, Midnight, Next, Premieres, Spotlight, US Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets and A Thousand Cuts
Be Water
(Country: US, UK; Year: 2020; Director: Bao Nguyen)
World premiere
In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross; Stars: Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker, Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker)
In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, it's last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. A document of real people, in an unreal situation, facing an uncertain future: America at the end of 2016.
World premiere
Boys State
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss)
In an unusual experiment, a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas join together to build a representative government from the ground up.
World premiere
Coded Bias (Code For Bias)
(Country: US, China, UK; Year: 2020; Director: Shalini Kantayya; Writer: Shalini Kantayya; Stars: Joy Buolamwini, Silkie Carlo, Jenny Jones, Tranae Moran, Kc Solaris, Mark Zuckerberg, Joy Buolamwini, Silkie Carlo, Jenny Jones, Tranae Moran, Kc Solaris, Mark Zuckerberg)
Considering the racial bias issues of AI and facial recognition.
World premiere
The Cost Of Silence
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Mark Manning)
World premiere
An industry insider exposes the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and uncovers systemic corruption between government and industry to silence the victims of a growing public health disaster. Stakes could not be higher as the Trump administration races to open the entire US coastline to offshore drilling.
The Fight and Dick Johnson Is Dead
Crip Camp
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham)
Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.
World premiere
Dick Johnson Is Dead
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Kirsten Johnson; Writer: Nels Bangerter, Kirsten Johnson)
With this inventive portrait, a cameraperson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilising moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humour, she celebrates Dr Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
World premiere
Feels Good Man
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Arthur Jones; Writer: Giorgio Angelini, Matt Furie, Arthur Jones, Aaron Wickenden)
When indie comic character Pepe the Frog becomes an unwitting icon of hate, his creator, artist Matt Furie, fights to bring Pepe back from the darkness and navigate America's cultural divide.
World premiere
The Fight
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegmanm Eli B Despres)
Inside the ACLU, a team of scrappy lawyers battle Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties.
World premiere
Mucho Mucho Amor
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Cristina Costantini, Kareem Tabsch; Stars: Walter Mercado, Raul de Molina, Nydia Caro, Willy Acosta, Betty Benet Mercado, Ivonne Benet Mercado, Walter Mercado, Raul de Molina, Nydia Caro, Willy Acosta, Betty Benet Mercado, Ivonne Benet Mercado)
World premiere
Once the world's most famous astrologers, Walter Mercado seeks to resurrect a forgotten legacy. Raised in the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, Walter grew up to become a gender non-conforming, cape-wearing psychic whose televised horoscopes reached 120 million Latinx viewers a day for 30 years before he mysteriously disappeared.
Welcome To Chechnya and Time
Spaceship Earth
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Matt Wolf)
World premiere
In 1991 a group of countercultural visionaries built an enormous replica of earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2. When eight “biospherians” lived sealed inside, they faced ecological calamities and cult accusations. Their epic adventure is a cautionary tale but also a testament to the power of small groups reimagining the world.
A Thousand Cuts
(Country: US, Philippines; Year: 2020; Director: Ramona S Diaz)
Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fuelled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press - and her freedom - on the line in defense of truth and democracy.
World premiere
Time
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Garrett Bradley)
Fox Rich fights for her husband’s release from jail, after he is sentenced to 60 years of incarceration for a bank robbery, a crime she also served time for in the Nineties.
World premiere
Us Kids
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Kim A Snyder)
World premiere
Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyse a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilised youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story.
Welcome To Chechnya
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: David France)
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic.
World premiere
Feels Good Man and Coded Bias
Whirlybird
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Matt Yoka)
World premiere
Soaring above the chaotic spectacle of Eighties and Nineties Los Angeles, a young couple revolutionised breaking news with their brazen helicopter reporting. Culled from this news duo’s sprawling video archive is a poignant LA story of a family in turbulence hovering over a city unhinged.
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
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