Sundance Film Festival 2018 Talking Movies

the Sundance Film Festival,

draws to a close this weekend.

hello and welcome to our look back

at this year's Sundance film

Festival. Highlights from this 11

day independent film extravaganza.

Sundance belonged to women this year

with numerous films about them and

buy them. The meat to an times up

movement were major talking points.

-- me too. Also, the festival

premiere of a live which told the

history of the famous quartet and

more. And the Festival film Our New

President looks at how Russian

YouTube and TV channels covered deep

residential collection. Also, the

intense month long protest over the

Dakota access pipeline bully

examined in a documentary. All but

an more in this special Sundance

addition of Talking Movies.

An activist spirit was evident this

year. People came together to

protest sexual harassment and

assault of women in the film

industry. The -- me too movement

prompted much discussion. There was

an anniversary rally of the women's

march.

This is the year when we said

to rich, powerful men but you can

break our hearts but you can not

break hours a rates.

A women's right

lawyer fired up the crowd. So did

Jane Fonda. Sexual harassment had

been a problem in the world of

independent film as it has been

elsewhere.

There is no part of the

film industry that is not affected

by it. Everything has been very

under the rug for many years. I

guess we are going to be seeing how

widespread the problem is in the

coming years.

Sundance is the first

major film festival to take place

since the Harvey Weinstein story

broke. Some alleged assaults took

place at the festival. To address

the concerns, the Festival's code of

conduct had been updated.

Separately, as Steve -- safe space

environment had been set up for

women to discuss their concerns.

There was solidarity and support

from Star Wars.

There has been a

tectonic shift. Appeals like people

have really been listening to women

and everybody is saying things have

to change. There has been a lot of

hurt, a lot of suffering, a lot of

the silences, and I really don't

people are going to stand for it

anymore.

Carey Mulligan thought

there was a need to bring a code of

conduct into operation on film sets,

as has been the case with the play

she appeared in.

We all had to look

through the code of conduct, it

tells you what is expected in the

workplace, it tells you what to do

if someone steps outside of the code

of conduct. I think really solid

action plans like that will move us

forward.

Robert Redford's the

Sundance founder, struck a positive

note the press conference.

I'm

pretty encouraged right now as this

period of change is, it is bringing

forth more opportunity for women,

and more opportunity for women in

film to have their own voices heard.

Not to be forgotten whether films at

Sundance. There were more than 120

full-length features this year.

We

noticed the African-American male

experience was really prevalent.

Especially in our US traffic

competition. We observed also a lot

of really interesting, complex,

powerful women on screen, both in

the documentaries, and in the

narrative films.

Moving away from

films getting a lot of attention at

Sundance work virtual reality

installations, with one work which

enabled participants to have the

sensation of touching physical

objects by giving them by breaking

feedback. There was a virtual

reality world that could shed by

several people simultaneously. These

VR projects are ingenious but do

they belong at a film festival?

We

put someone inside of the goggles.

The person remembers it as something

that has happened to them. That is

why film-makers are showing interest

in PR and these converging

technologies around storytelling

cars it gives us more stalls -- more

tools to tell stories with.

Now,

let's move on and look at some other

Sundance films in greater detail.

Our New President was one of the

opening day attractions, it is a

compilation of Russian video

material, TV broadcast and YouTube

channels and looks at how it

portrayed the 20 16th US

presidential election. The film had

been put together by direct to Maxim

Pozdorovkin.

We wanted to try to

weave together a film made entirely

out of this information. When we

were initially gathering material,

we wanted every single statement in

the film to be false and the fact

that we could source Russian

television and make a film like

that, but basically doesn't have a

single true statement in it, that

tells something that is horrifying

and really worrying about the state

of media today in general.

The material collected denigrates

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and

places Donald Trump in a flattering

light.

Trump is described as

behaving like a petition Lord and

been very, post and Obama is seen as

indecent and man spreading his legs.

There is lots of kind of racial

connotations about Obama as well.

Sundance audiences responded well to

the film.

It was fantastic because

you really get a sense of what an

organisation that wants due

propaganda can achieve. It is an

incredibly powerful film. It shows

the crazy landscape they are in now,

in terms of media and the gander. We

are in a society where news media is

not being trusted anymore. This puts

us in a precarious as ocean and this

film shows us what happens when it

is at this extreme. I am really

hoping that people see this and

realise what is at stake.

All the

ongoing talk of Russian meddling in

the US election gave Our New

President a lot of currency at

Sundance. It earned positive reviews

but there were some do tractors who

felt the documentary lacks context

and structure.

The film Burden based on a true

story tells of a white supremacist,

a member of the two clubs and who

underwent a transformation. He

leaves the clan only to be taken in

by an African-American minister. It

is a Sundance film with fine

performances.

I'm a Klansman.

Burden

is set in South Carolina in the

1990s. Mike Burden is a Klansman, he

espouses their racist beliefs, but

things change when he meets Judy.

He

ended up falling in love with the

single mother named Judy that made

him have to face the decision to

stay in love or stay in the clan.

Then he also meets the Reverend

played by Forest Whitaker who shows

him an immense amount of hospitality

and warmth and takes him in and

becomes a redemption story and a

story about love and acceptance and

accepting who you are in the midst

of a very sort of kind of chaotic

scenario.

The African-American

minister who takes him under his

wing has a history of organising

against the clan. He extends himself

to Mike Burden because he believes

he has two practice what he

preaches.

Mike is a test for the

Reverend, a test of all the things

he has ever believed in. We get a

chance to see him go through that,

we get a chance to see him say, to

his son, if I don't do this, I will

never be able to switch again. If I

don't try to commit, try to find a

solution and believe that love is

the answer, I will never be able to

live by what I believe, I will never

be able to believe -- be the example

in my community. To the world.

This

story of a black minister saving a

white supremacist isn't fiction, it

is based on a true story.

I heard

about it in a blurb in a newspaper

20 years ago. I got in my car and I

drove down to South Carolina. It is

a wild redemptions Rory. It is

insane and crazy but it is the fact

that extremes can change, the

validity change and so when I read

this will be, I'm besieged what the

story could be, I realised that if

we can understand these people, we

can gain empathy for them, and

empathy is the beginning of change.

You get to see a man really

transition in front of your eyes

because of being introduced to a

better future and a better

understanding of how life and love

can be.

The kind of racism found in

South Carolina in the 1990s hasn't

disappeared. Groups that espoused

isolationism and hatred have done an

under the things that arise

communities.

The movie has a lot of

relevancy. To try to see if there is

a solution, what is the path for us

to be able to come together as a

people.

With Burden at Sundance, the

main audience for reward wasn't the

film itself but the acting,

particularly Arik Headland, who

really shines in his role. His

performance in Burden augurs well

for his future. Among the women

profiled this year are Jane Fonda,

Rocco Joan Jett and Roos against

Berg. At age 84, Rhys has become

something of a pop icon. She is

referred to as the notorious

Abhijit. The candidate white for --

right for profiling.

The Yiddish

word for grandmother.

In the

documentary, a more intimate life is

portrayed.

Do you have fake sugar?

There should be some someplace.

Not

only is Ruth Bader Ginsberg the

doting grandmother, but she has a

tremendous legal legacy.

How could

you not want to make a documentary

about Ruth Bader Ginsberg? She has

become in recent years this mega

celebrity free, like a rock star. A

lot of people that are her biggest

fans are really know her history,

don't know everything that she has

accomplished, don't understand the

obstacles she was up against when

she was a young lawyer, when women

might presuppose to be lawyers, and

we wanted to tell the whole story.

She agreed to teach a course... The

film-makers take the story by

November past and the resident. They

look back and Ruth Bader Ginsberg's

life, student life, her legal

career, and her current activities.

I telling them something they

haven't heard before? Are they paid

attention pretty much when people

think about the women's rights

movement in the 70s with the

so-called women's lib movement, Ruth

Bader Ginsberg played just a week

role getting rights for American

women in that era.

She was just

doing it little more quietly, more

strategically, not in the streets

but in the courts, but as you will

see in the film, she won a string of

victories that really started us

down the road towards equal rights

for women and men under law.

Overall, this documentary is an

illuminating and flattering portrait

of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and

inspiring account of a woman who has

led a very full life, both

professionally and personally.

I ask

no favour for myself. All I ask is

of our brethren is that they take

defeat of our necks.

It made

international headlines in 2016,

test over Dakota access pipeline in

North Dakota. Many Native American

tribes had concerns over this oil

pipeline. One was that it would leak

and pollute ground water. The

intense long process was the subject

of a Sundance film.

I welcome you to

our treaty territory and I thank you

all for being here.

The film shows

protesters stopping or delaying the

work of the company building the

pipeline. They locked themselves to

agreement and blocked roads, all to

preserve what they argue is sacred

land which is lawfully standing

here. They were arrested and met

with tear gas. The director

collected a lot of material. A big

challenge was gaining access to film

the protesters on the front line who

are known as water protectors,

so-called because they defend the

main water source. The protesters

were under 24-hour surveillance by

police. The director had to earn

their trust.

These people didn't

want cameras following them around,

because of a had footage of them

doing something and the police the

footage, there would be evidence

against them. Another part of it was

that they didn't want to be seen

with the camera following them

everywhere. Respect have to be

earned. Helping build are caves and

getting tear-gassed a couple dozen

times, and missed several times,

after a while, I was able to get the

footage needed to tell the story

properly.

The documentary shows the

final moments of the battle of

standing Rock in which the water

protectors were pushed off their

campsite and watched as it was

destroyed. In the Steve of North

Dakota, there were economic and if

it's. $40 million of revenue in the

first month. Some view this as

positive.

There was a positive

aspect. Indigenous people have been

feeling the brunt of free source

extraction in our territory since

the beginning of colonisation. We

are the ones that have lost

millions, billions, trillions, if

you put an economic value on our

territory. We the ones sacrificing

everything for this.

Though the

outcome of this demonstration can be

seen as a loss for the water

protectors, the director, as well as

the activists feel this film can

direct change in the Native American

community and how they are

perceived.

We have had to continue

to talk about who we are and people

have this outlook about Native

Americans, I want this film to show

them, this is us. And we are

standing up. I have a little money

to my name but this water is

priceless to me, and I'm going to

fight for it.

Thousands of people

come throughout the country for this

one moment and although one to do is

step up.

My intention increasing

this film and reason it to the world

was to inspire the next generation

of activists. Hope early this film

can inspire the next generation

after us to build upon what we did.

The director sees Sundance is a

great home for the film and created

it with helping him in his

endeavours with the project.

Sundance is strong on documentaries

and this year there was a live

documentary, the director provided

narration and the famed Kronos

Quartet performed. The aim of this

endeavour was above other things to

tell the story of the quartet.

This

is sunny up on the screen. This is

us playing down there.

And the many

documentaries, a thousand thoughts

could be seen as an expanded Cinema

experience.

It is all the elements

of the film but it happened live so

that our images up on the screen,

and I am onstage narrating, and

there is a band, music group

performing a live soundtrack. 1000

Thoughts is a portrait of the band.

It gets a bigger idea of time and

the ephemeral nature of music and

life, the power and resilience of

the human spirit.

The

internationally recognised quartet

was founding 40 use ago in San

Francisco and the film brings many

artists who have won point

collaborative with the quartet.

They

have collaborated with tonnes of

people over the years, from Terry

Riley, Laurie Anderson, lots of

younger people. I think it has given

them a lot of energy and inspiration

over the years, to keep working,

different people getting new energy.

On-screen, the audience sees footage

of Sam Green going through the

quartet of Mac fast archive. The

direct to believe that this engages

the audience, especially with Sam

Green as a storyteller.

Here is

another quote that I like. This one

from Robert Cross. In three words, I

can suck up -- sum up everything I

have learned about life.

It goes on.

I liked that Sam is a character. I

saw one of its shows, I really liked

him as a character. It is in effect,

device, if you will, that I know

works in documentary. It is

discovery, so when I found this out

and then I found that out and then I

found that out. It is very generous

to our audience because they go a

journey with you.

As Sundance

audiences are much from the event,

they were very impressed.

I think it

is really call, a lot more

interactive, and you get to feel the

presence of the artists that are

there, and the emotion they bring to

the peace, really cool.

Unbelievably

special, life affirming, there are

no words.

When we think of a string

quartet, we usually think of elderly

gentleman in black tie and tails but

that is not what this quartet is

about.

You can't want this on etch

clicks or YouTube, you have to be

there and you have to be present.

War and more, all of our devices and

the way we consume culture is

pushing us to be alone, and I think

in the world today, being with other

people, being in a room with

strangers and having a collective

experience is important and actually

profound.

Well, that brings this

special Sundance edition of Talking

Movies to a close. We hope you have

enjoyed the show. You can reach us

online. And you can find us on

Facebook, too. From me, Tom Brooks

and the rest of the Talking Movies

production crew, it is goodbye.