Disability isn’t so bad — if you happen to be rich and famous. Such is the message of Clay Tweel’s documentary Gleason, which documents retired NFL linebacker Steve Gleason’s diagnosis with ALS and the ensuing decline in his physical health.
Sundance Film Festival
Israeli auteur Tali Shalom-Ezer discusses Princess
Princess is a sensitive, intimate film about 12-year-old Adar whose curiosity about sex gets confused when she receives sexual attention from her still loving step-father. Purchase the film on iTunes or watch it on Vimeo OnDemand.
H. directors Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia discuss their sci-fi film for the digital-age
Structured almost like a classical, Greek tragedy, H. explores mass hysteria. Co-directors Daniel Garcia and Rania Attieh discuss their filmmaking process.
The Lovers and the Despot lacks substance
The Lovers and the Despot tells what should be an interesting story without doing the work to create one. It recounts a bizarre slice of South Korean cinema history: in 1978, director Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, were kidnapped, separately, by Kim Jung-II from Hong Kong and held for eight years. Kim Jung-Il wanted swift improvements in the North Korean film industry, and this was his solution.
Notes on Blindness explores the soundscape
Documentarians Peter Middleton and James Spinney use segments of John M. Hull’s actual audio tape recordings to reconstruct his experience of going blind in this experimental non-fiction film.
Gerard Barrett on addiction and loneliness in Glassland
Irish writer-director Gerard Barrett’s second film, the sensitive and heartbreaking “Glassland” — about an almost grown boy, John (Jack Reynor) and the stress he faces when he’s forced to become his parent’s (Toni Collette) parent — premiered at Sundance last year. Barrett discusses how he got interested in the film, how he works with actors, and how he designed the aesthetic for the film.