Eye For Film >> Festivals >> SXSW >> 2023 >> Documentary Spotlight
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The Arc Of Oblivion and A Disturbance In The Force
The Arc Of Oblivion
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Ian Cheney)
Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield - to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara - to illuminate the strange world of archives, record keeping, and memory.
Art For Everybody
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Miranda Yousef)
Thomas Kinkade, the most successful artist of his time, was beloved and despised for his paintings of cosy cottages. He rose to fame in the Nineties, marketing himself to evangelicals, and against the art establishment. Yet beneath his pristine image were demons that would drive him to alcoholism, scandal, and death from an overdose in 2012. Then his dark paintings emerged.
Being Mary Tyler Moore
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: James Adolphus; Stars: Mary Tyler Moore, James L Brooks, Rob Reiner, Treva Silverman, Beverly Sanders, S Robert Levine, MD, John Tinker, Ronda Rich Tinker, Ed Asner, Jim Burrows, Bill Persky)
An intimate mosaic of Mary Tyler Moore's 60 year career in show business.
Black Barbie: A Documentary
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Lagueria Davis; Writer: Lagueria Davis; Stars: Beulah Mae Mitchell, Kitty Black Perkins, Stacey McBride-Irby, Ashley Blaine-Featherson Jenkins, Gabourey Sidibe, Julissa Calderon)
The story behind the first Black Barbie.
Citizen Sleuth
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Chris Kasick; Stars: Emily Nestor)
An examination of the ethics of the true crime genre and how the power of narrative can affect truth and communities.
Satan Wants You and Last Stop Larrimah
Confessions Of A Good Samaritan
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Penny Lane)
The filmmaker's decision to give one of her kidneys to a stranger turns into a personal quest to understand the nature of altruism.
A Disturbance In The Force
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Jeremy Coon, Steve Kozak; Stars: Seth Green, Kevin Smith, Paul Scheer, Taran Killam, Bonnie Burton, Weird Al Yankovic, Bruce Vilanch, Gilbert Gottfried, Donny Osmond, Miki Herman)
The story behind the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, which was watched by 13 million people but never re-aired and is considered one of the worst shows to ever air on TV.
Great Photo, Lovely Life
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Amanda Mustard, Rachel Beth Anderson; Writer: Amanda Mustard, Rachel Beth Anderson, Tyler H Walk, Josef Beeby; Stars: Amanda Mustard)
A photojournalist returns home to Pennsylvania to investigate the sexual abuse crimes committed by her grandfather. Her family’s archive unravels a world of secrets through interviews, photographs and home movies.
The Herricanes
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Olivia Kuan; Stars: Jen Welter, Collette V Smith, Annise Parker, Dan Pastorini, Phoebe Schecter, Linda Carpenter, Vivan Acosta)
The Houston Herricanes were a part of the first women's full tackle football league in the 1970s. Despite adversity and hardship, they fielded a team purely for the love of the game.
The Lady Bird Diaries
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Dawn Porter)
An all-archival documentary film about Lady Bird Johnson, one of the most influential and least understood US First Ladies.
Last Stop Larrimah
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Thomas Tancred)
It was December 16th, 2017 in the remote Australian Outback town of Larrimah when Paddy Moriarty and his dog Kellie left the local pub and vanished, never to be seen again. As the investigation unfolds, a portrait is painted of this curious town and its 11 eccentric residents, but what ultimately matters is everything that happened before that fateful day.
The New Americans: Gaming A Revolution
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Ondi Timoner; Writer: Ondi Timoner; Stars: Jaime Rogozinski , Jordan Belfort, Anthony Scaramucci, Raoul Pal, Joby Weeks, Joel Perez, Blayne Macauley, Mitchell Hennessy, Taylor Price, ProTheDoge)
A wild meme-driven ride to meet the founders of Reddit and WallStreetBets, crypto fanatics, bored housewives, and TikTok-ers turned millionaire traders, in order to investigate the never-before-made connection between the Gamestop squeeze and the Jan 6th Insurrection.
Periodical
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Lina Lyte Plioplyte; Stars: Anusha Singh, Madeleine Morales, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Watts, Anna Konkle, Dr Tosha Rogers, Jennifer Conti, Randi Epstein, Krystyna Hutchinson, Corinne Fisher)
The marvel and mystery of the menstrual cycle, from the first period to the last.
Satan Wants You
(Country: Canada; Year: 2023; Director: Sean Horlor, Steve J Adams; Writer: Sean Horlor, Steve J Adams; Stars: Sarah Marshall, Debbie Nathan, Elizabeth Loftus, Ken Lanning, Blanche Barton, Charles Ennis, Jeffrey S Victor)
The story of how the Satanic Panic of the 1980s was ignited by Michelle Remembers, a lurid memoir by psychiatrist Larry Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith.
This World Is Not My Own
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Petter Ringbom, Marquise Stillwell; Writer: Ruchi Mital, Petter Ringbom; Stars: Uzo Aduba, Amy Warren)
For most of her life, Nellie Mae Rowe made art in obscurity in her home outside of Atlanta. Six years before her death, a wealthy gallerist introduced her work to the art world. In sets which reimagine Nellie’s home, actress Uzo Aduba, embodies an animated 3D character based on Nellie’s likeness. Her recorded dialogue, movements, and song make Nellie come to life.
Who I Am Not
(Country: Romania, Canada, Germany, South Africa, US; Year: 2023; Director: Tunde Skovran; Writer: Tunde Skovran, Andrei Zincã)
Born with typically male and female attributes within one single body, a beauty queen and a male-presenting activist break the intersex taboo through a personal and intimate exploration of truth, faith, and belonging.
Wild Life
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin; Stars: Kristine Tompkins, Rick Ridgeway, Jimmy Chin, Claudio Alvarado, Michelle Bachelet , Dago Guzman, Edgar Boyles, Timmy O’Neill, Yvon Chouinard, Susie Tompkins Buell)
The story of conservationist Kris Tompkins and an epic, decades-spanning love story as wild as the landscapes she dedicated her life to protecting.
You Can Call Me Bill
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Alexandre O Philippe; Writer: Alexandre O Philippe; Stars: William Shatner)
A documentary portrait of William Shatner.
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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