July ushers in a wealth of high-profile docs that have garnered kudos on the festival circuit-both this year and in 2009. Winnebago Man, from Ben Steinbauer, is finally making its theatrical debut. The "Winnebago Man" in question--Jack Rebney, a pitch man and unwittingly star of a profanity-laced compilation video of outtakes from a commercial shoot--has achieved cult status, thanks to that video. Steinbauer sets out to find the man behind the outtakes, and when he achieves his goal, the journey begins-that labyrinthine relationship between filmmaker and subject, the filmmaker and his film, and the filmmaker and his audience.
Also coming this month is Brigitte Berman's Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, about the mogul behind Playboy Enterprises and the progressive crusader for civil and First Amendment rights behind the naughty purveyor of titillation.
Among the Sundance 2010 premieres to premiere this month include Tamra Davis' Jean-Michel Basquait: The Radiant Child, which opens July 21 at the Film Forum in New York City; Lucy Walker's Countdown to Zero, about the forgotten issue of nuclear weaponry; and Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath's award-winning Enemies of the People, in which Sambath persuades perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge-led genocide in Cambodia to speak on camera about their horrors.
Finally, from DocuWeeks 2009, Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's IDA Award-nominated Mugabe and the White African opens July 23 through First Run Features.
Opening: July 2
Venue: Cinema Village/New York City
Film: Only When I Dance
Dir.: Beadie Finzie
Distributor: Film Movement
http://www.onlywhenidance.com/
Only When I Dance is a classic narrative documentary following two young teenagers, Isabela and Irlan, as they strive to realize an extraordinary dream. One girl, one boy; both black and poor, and living in one of the most violent favelas on the outskirts of Rio. Irlan and Isabela both want to dance--to dance ballet--and their ambition is to leave Brazil to join one of the great companies in the North. For them, dance is the way out, an escape, and on stage, an ecstasy that is rarely found in their day-to-day lives. The question is, Can they make it? Only When I Dance follows these two gifted teenagers during a year that will make or break all their future dreams.
Opening: July 2--New York City; July 9--Los Angeles
Film: Great Directors
Dir.: Angela Ismailos
Distributor: Paladin
http://www.greatdirectorsfilm.com/
Great Directors, a celebration of films and filmmaking, starring ten of the world's most acclaimed, individualistic and provocative living directors, is a deeply personal look at the art of cinema and the artists who create it. The documentary features original in-depth conversation with world-class directors Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles. Extensively illuminated by clips and extensive archive materials from the subjects' work, the interviews reveal the distinctive personalities who created the timeless images that have long inspired filmmaker Angela Ismailos-and all of us. Intercutting among the filmmakers in a freely associative way, Ismailos explores each director's artistic evolution; the role of politics and history in their work; their feelings about other great directors who inspired them; and the agony and ecstasy of being an artist in a medium that is, paradoxically, also an industry.
Opening: July 2--New York City; July 23--Los Angeles
Venue: Big Cinemas/New York City; Laemmle's Music Hall/Los Angeles
Film: Beautiful Islands
Dir.: Tomoko Kana
Distributor: Eleven Arts
http://www.beautifulislandsthemovie.com/
This movie looks at three beautiful islands, shaken by climate change: Tuvalu, in the South Pacific; Venice, in Italy; and Shishmaref, in Alaska. The islands all have different climates and cultures, but the people all love their native lands. The film focuses on their daily lives. It portrays festivals that foster ties among the people, traditional crafts that have been passed on for generations, and peaceful lives by the water. These cultural traditions are disappearing because of climate change. When these people lose their homelands, they potentially lose their cultures and histories. Their lives in the midst of all the changes suggest where our future leads. Director Kana Tomoko purposely decided not to put any narration or music in this film, relying instead on the sounds of waters and winds and the images of children's smiles to remind of of what we stand to lose as climate change threatens our planet.
Opening: July 9--New York City; July 16-Los Angeles
Film: Winnebago Man
Dir.: Ben Steinbauer
Distributor: Kino International
http://winnebagoman.com/index.php
Jack Rebney is the most famous man you've never heard of -- an RV salesman whose hilarious, foul-mouthed outbursts circulated underground on VHS tapes in the '90s before turning into a full-blown Internet phenomenon in 2005. Today, the "Winnebago Man" has been seen by more than 20 million people worldwide, and is regarded as one of the first and funniest viral videos. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer goes in search of Rebney--and finds him living alone on a mountain top, unaware of his fame. Winnebago Man is a laugh-out-loud look at viral culture and an unexpectedly poignant tale of one man's response to unintended celebrity.
Opening: July 16
Venue: IFC Center/New York City
Film: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
Dirs.: Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea
Legendary French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot, director of the masterful thrillers, Diabolique and Wages of Fear, began work on what may have been his masterpiece, 1964's Inferno. But due to a number of a circumstances including conflicts with his actors, a nearly unlimited budget, and self-sabotage on Clouzot's part, the film collapsed only three weeks into production. Now, after almost 50 years, a documentary has been produced that weaves the previously shot footage with interviews with those involved with the production. --Eddie Wright/Twitch
Opening: July 16
Venue: Village East Cinema/New York City
Film: To Age or Not To Age
Dir.: Robert Kane Pappas
Distributor: Self-Distributed
http://www.toageornottoage.com/
Imagine a 120-year-old living like today's 50 year-olds. Is it possible? Yes, according to the scientists in Robert Kane Pappas' new film, To Age or Not to Age.
The scientists featured in To Age or Not to Age have found the means to postpone
and possibly mitigate diseases tied to aging, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes. Genes that control aging, among them SIRT2/SIRT1 genes, when altered, may, as a side effect increase our lifespans.
While To Age or Not to Age profiles the science of aging, it also addresses some of the moral, religious, practical and economic implications of increased lifespan. Who will have access to the medicine? Who will benefit from the breakthroughs? Will the price of these compounds make this a drug for the elites?
There already exists a potentially catastrophic problem with overpopulation. What happens if we live even longer? What does that mean for societal structures, family, marriage, social security?
If we can postpone aging, should we? Or are we arrogantly challenging the laws of nature? Where does evolution fit in?
Opening: July 21
Venue: Film Forum/New York City
Film: Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Dir.: Tamra Davis
Distributor: ArtHouse Films
http://jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com/
Centered on a rare interview that director and friend Tamra Davis shot with Basquiat over 20 years ago, this definitive documentary chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of the young artist. In the crime-ridden New York City of the 1970s, he covers the city with the graffiti tag SAMO. In 1981 he puts paint on
canvas for the first time, and by 1983 he is an artist with "rock star status." He achieves critical and commercial success, though he is constantly confronted by racism from his peers. In 1985 he and Andy Warhol become close friends and painting collaborators, but they part ways and Warhol dies suddenly in 1987. Basquiat's heroin addiction worsens, and he dies of an overdose in 1988 at the age of 27. The artist was 25 years old at the height of his career, and today his canvases sell for more than $1 million. With compassion and psychological insight, Tamra Davis details the mysteries that surround this charismatic young man, an artist of enormous talent whose fortunes mirrored the rollercoaster quality of the downtown scene he seemed to embody.
Featuring interviews with Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Tony Shafrazi, Fab 5 Freddy, Jeffrey Deitch, Glenn O'Brien, Maripol, Kai Eric, Nicholas Taylor, Fred Hoffmann, Michael Holman,
Diego Cortez, Annina Nosei, Suzanne Mallouk, Rene Ricard, Kenny Scharf, among many others.
Opening: July 23
Film: Countdown to Zero
Dir.: Lucy Walker
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures/Participant Media
http://www.participantmedia.com/films/coming_soon/countdown_to_zero.php
Countdown to Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: Nine nations possess nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy or a simple accident. Written and directed by acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker (Devil's Playground; Blindsight), the film features an array of important international statesmen, including Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair. Countdown to Zero makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal today. The film was produced by Academy Award winner and 2009 nominee Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds, An Inconvenient Truth) and developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, together with World Security Institute.
Opening: July 23--New York City; August 13--Los Angeles
Venue: Cinema Village/New York City; Laemmle Music Hall/Los Angeles
Film: Mugabe and the White African
Dirs.: Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson
Distributor: First Run Features
http://www.mugabeandthewhiteafrican.com/
http://firstrunfeatures.com/mugabeandthewhiteafrican.html
Selected as one of the 15 feature documentaries on the short list for Oscar consideration, Mugabe and the White African is an intimate account of one family's astonishing bravery as they fight to protect their property, their livelihood and their country.
Family patriarch Mike Campbell is one of the few white farmers left in Zimbabwe since President Robert Mugabe began his violent land-seizure program in 2000. Since then the country has descended into chaos, the economy brought to its knees by the reallocation of formerly white-owned farms to Mugabe cronies, who have no knowledge, experience or interest in farming. In 2008, after years of intimidation and threats to his family and farm, Campbell decides to take action. Unable to call upon the protection of any Zimbabwean authorities, he challenges Mugabe before an international court, charging him and his government with racial discrimination and human rights violations.
Opening: July 30--New York City; August 6--Los Angeles
Venue: Quad Cinema/New York City; Laemmle Music Hall/Los Angeles
Film: Enemies of the People
Dirs.: Rob Lemkin, Thet Sambath
Distributor: International Film Circuit
http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/
The Khmer Rouge ran what is regarded as one of the twentieth century's most brutal regimes. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now.
In Enemies of the People, the men and women who perpetrated the massacres--from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party's ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two--break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before heard or seen.
Unprecedented access from top to bottom of the Khmer Rouge has been achieved through a decade
of work by one of Cambodia's best investigative journalists, Thet Sambath.
Sambath is on a personal quest: he lost his own family in the Killing Fields. The film is his journey to discover not how but why they died. In doing so, he hears and understands for the first time the real story of his country's tragedy.
After years of visits and trust-building, Sambath finally persuades Brother Number Two to admit (again, for the first time) in detail how he and Pol Pot (the two supreme powers in the Khmer Rouge state) decided to kill party members whom they considered "Enemies of the People."
Sambath's remarkable work goes even one stage further: over the years he befriends a network of killers in the provinces who implemented the kill policy. For the first time, we see how orders created on an abstract political level translate into foul murder in the rice fields and forests of the Cambodian plain. Sambath's work represents a watershed both in Cambodian historiography and in the country's quest for closure on one of the world's darkest episodes.
Opening: July 30
Film: Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
Dir.: Brigitte Berman
Distributor: Phase 4 Films
http://www.phase4films.com/detail.aspx?projectId=23e17797-a8b5-49a6-a3e5-9d0b007d9d0d
An intimate look at the outspoken, flamboyant founder of the Playboy empire. With humor and insight, the film captures Hefner's fierce battles with the government, the religious right and militant feminists. Rare footage and compelling interviews with a remarkable Who's Who of 20th Century American pop culture, present a brilliant and entertaining snapshot of the life of an extraordinary man and the controversies that surrounded him.