Sundance Film Festival 2015 Documentary Preview

The Sundance Film Festival 2015 officially kicks off next week in Park City, Utah. In advance of the highly anticipated event, we examine some of the top documentary contenders with festival programmers David Courier and Hussain Currimbhoy.

The process involved whittling down a field of more than 2,000 submissions for Sundance’s documentary category, “We elevate documentaries and treat them like first-class citizens.”

“I probably watched 500 myself,” David confessed. Speaking about his mass viewing of the great variety of films submitted, Hussain called the process “a delicious, painful, emotionally twisting experience,” although in the end quite glorious.

Out of this year’s festival lineup of 120 feature films, 45 are documentaries – the most Sundance has ever had. David said the festival films fare way better than the studio system in terms of producing women directors, 18 of whom directed documentaries in the competition.

Among the Sundance doc contenders previewed is Western – directed by brothers Bill and Turner Ross – which David said is loaded with vérité. It portrays timeless American figures in the grip of unforgiving change,” in the towns of Eagle Pass, Texas, Piedras Negras, Mexico.

Another film receiving festival buzz is the culinary doc City of Gold, directed by Laura Gabbert. The film follows Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold, who casts his light on a vibrant and growing cultural movement “in which he plays the dual roles of high-low priest and culinary geographer of his beloved Los Angeles.”

Alex Gibney’s religious offering Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief follows eight former members of the Church of Scientology who all got out and tell their stories. “He’s a brave man – few people dare go there,” David said about the ambitious filmmaking venture.

The Hunting Ground is a film by Kirby Dick about rape and sexual abuse on college campuses, which is described as “a startling exposé of rape crimes on U.S. campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and brutal social toll.”

In Racing Extinction, by Academy Award-winner Louie Psihoyos) —Louie Psihoyos compiles never-before-seen images that expose issues surrounding endangered species and mass extinction.

Bryan Carberry’s Finders Keepers tells the story of recovering addict and amputee John Wood, who finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg. The fight is with entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it is now his rightful property.

The Wolfpack, by Crystal Moselle, follows six bright teenage brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in a Manhattan housing project, with all they know of the outside world gleaned from the movies they watch obsessively.

In Most Likely to Succeed, director Greg Whiteley explores through students, teachers and parents “the collision of innovation with our nation’s obsolete education system.”

Director Jean Carlomusto brings author, activist, and playwright Larry Kramer to life in Larry Kramer in Love & Anger, which profiles this important, yet controversial figures in contemporary gay America.

Watch the full episode for previews for more on the best films Sundance has to offer, and to learn about the premier independent festival’s selection process.