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Show A-11 The Park Record Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, January 21-24, 2017 Wrestler chokeholds media GEORGE BALLIS / COURTESY OF THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Dolores Huerta appears in “Dolores” by Peter Bratt, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Activist is subject of film EVE EDELHEIT / COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Gawker publisher Nick Denton reacts to reporters’ questions about the court’s $140 million judgment against him in the Sundance Documentary “NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press.” Doc about Gawker suit sees struggles for reporters NAN CHALAT NOAKER The Park Record Brian Knappenberger’s radar is keened tuned to emerging fractures in today’s media landscape. His 2012 Slamdance documentary “We Are Legion” introduced audiences to the little-known hacktivist group, Anonymous. The Guy Fawkes-masked gang of radicals had just begun to appear in headlines for its disruptive internet attacks on various corporations and government agencies. In 2014, Kappenberger showed up at Sundance with a film highlighting the precarious line between internet hacking and freedom of speech. “The Internet’s Own Boy” documented the life of Aaron Swartz, the young internet activist whose efforts to download a collection of academic journals at MIT put him in the U.S. Attorney General’s crosshairs. This year Knappenberger is back at Sundance with an equally compelling story, “NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Trials of a Free Press” and it couldn’t be more timely. The documentary ricochets between the pulp-nonfiction Hulk vs. Gawker lawsuit, the secret sale of a Nevada newspaper to a casino mogul and President-elect Donald Trump’s Trump’s vitriolic attacks on journalists during his campaign. Knappenberger said the storyline took several unexpected twists and turns. In 2012, the director was drawn to news reports about the Hulk Hogan versus Gawker lawsuit, which, aside from its tabloid appeal, Knappenberger saw as emblematic of the battle lines being drawn between free speech and privacy advocates. (The infamous website Gawker had posted a sex tape of the pro wrestler who responded with a curiously well-funded lawsuit.) At the same time Knappenberger was contemplating a film about Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley iconoclast and billionaire who started PayPal. The two subjects abruptly intersected when Terry Bollea (The Hulk) was granted a $140 million judgment against Gawker, its publisher Nick Denton and editor A.J. Daulerio, ultimately shutting down the website and bankrupting the two men. “I just thought it had some interesting First Amendment issues, and could be a decisive trial in that regard. Then, the verdict came in, which was a staggering number and two weeks later it was revealed the secret funder was Peter Thiel. That was so weird and so interesting. That is basically when we dove in,” said Kappenberger. But that’s wasn’t all. In July, Thiel took the stage at the Republican Convention to deliver a rousing speech in favor of Trump’s anti-establishment agenda. So Knappenberger’s crew began to weave footage of Trump’s increasingly raucous rallies into the story. Against footage from the Gawker trial, Knappenberger pasted a montage of Trump’s summer salvos against the press including his oft-repeated threats to relax libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists and their media outlets. “It just got deeper and deeper and deeper. We were just hanging on for the ride,” said Knappenberger. Audiences who jump on the “NOBODY SPEAK” rollercoaster at Sundance will likely come to agree with Knappenberger’s premise -- that the precedent set in the Gawker case, along with Trump’s incendiary anti-media antics have vast implications for the country’s entire media establishment, not just for one alreadycontroversial website. Along the way, Knappenberger also takes a side trip to illustrate a parallel between the Gawker trial and a wrenching story about the takeover of the Dolores Huerta steps into the spotlight for doc movies, the phone rang,” Bratt said. “The person on the other end was rock music icon Carlos Santana (Yup, that guy). In a mysterious and quietly urgent voice he whispered, ‘We need to make a documentary about sister Dolores, while she’s still with us.’” Having Santana onboard as executive producer no doubt lent the production a guiding light. It was, after all, an obvious labor of love to all concerned. Huerta’s long involvement with the farm workers’ union in labor struggles and boycotts had made her a heroine to many. While introducing another film with her a few years earlier, Bratt was amazed at the way she handled herself in front of a crowd. “She was at once calming and inciting,” he said. What with Chavez receiving almost all the credit for transforming the labor movement, somehow the equally responsible Huerta was left out of the narrative. Pervading patriarchies, both in the dominant and Latino cultures, will do that. Huerta, who is now in her 80s and only recently returned from marching in solidarity with the historic gathering of tribes at Standing Rock, has shown little sign of weakening in her longstanding fight against racial and labor injustice. For one who became one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century, these skirmishes are nothing more than speed bumps. Huerta, as well as Bratt and his brother Benjamin, have already been tapped by the organizers of Saturday’s “Women’s March on Main” here in Park City as both front-of-the-pack marchers and featured speakers at the end of the March rally. Taking place the day following the Trump inauguration, I wonder if Huerta’s speech will remain both calming and incit- ing, or veer more toward one or the other. Bratt, in response to a question during the phone interview that posed the proposition that women were undervalued in general and maybe even more so once they assumed positions of leadership, agreed wholeheartedly. “Yes, most definitely, that is an accurate statement,” he said. He also spoke excitedly about the sheer amount of archival footage they discovered that makes the case for Huerta having been a prime influence on the movement and not just a supporting player. “It’s all there in the archives: what she accomplished and how she was nudged out of the very union she helped create,” Bratt said. As to what he would like filmgoers to take away from “Dolores,” his first documentary feature, his response was still all about Huerta herself. “Before her, Latino and Native voices really didn’t matter much,” he said. “But once she demonstrated the power of organized voices, the narrative began to change. “I hope it inspires. This is not the end of the story. We will stand up. We will move forward. The film has been an incredible journey. One, which, at the end of the day, I feel will be my proudest moment for myself, my family, and my community.” journalism. right after watching Trump’s “It is one of the more first chaotic press conference wrenching and powerful stories as president-elect. “There is you will ever hear about jour- no doubt. But I think we have nalism,” said Knappenberger. a chance to build something On Election Day, Knappen- out of that wreckage. I think berger said the mood at his as documentary filmmakers we studio was bleak. With his film have to define a new direction, in still getting the final touch- a direction that matters.” es for its Sundance premiere, For his fellow filmmakers at Knappenberger’s worries were Sundance, Knappenberger addalready coming to fruition. ed, “It is not enough to attack “I do think it is going to be a Trump. We have to tell stories train wreck. I think we are go- that define a vision of the future. ing to see some awful things We must do both things and I come out FelicityGardner_8th_Sofa_121716.pdf of the Trump admin- think we have to do them5:48 better 1 12/15/16 PM istration,” Knappenberger said than we have ever done them.” “NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Trials of a Free Press,” an entry in the Sundance Documentary Film Competition, will screen at the following times and locations: By JAY MEEHAN The Park Record TYLER CURTIS / COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Brian Knappenberger, director of NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Las Vegas Review-Journal by the billionaire Sheldon Adelson. The detour, perhaps the most impactful part of the film, recounts Adelson’s secretive purchase of the newspaper and his attempts to silence reporters’ criticism of his global business network. “It echoed the things that both Thiel and Adelson were doing. They are both working in that same vein where very, very rich, very powerful individuals could silence critics, could silence voices they disagreed with,” said Knappenberger. In the film, Knappenberger singles out LVRJ columnist John L. Smith as a role model for all journalists. In 2016, Smith turned down a $200,000 offer from an Adelson intermediary to help pay for his daughter’s medical bills in exchange for recanting some of his reporting about Adelson. He refused. “Hearing that story, it really hit home. If you are a parent, you understand the depth of that choice. It was a horrible thing he was asked to do and ultimately he does the right thing both for his daughter, his career and the larger cause: for Talk to us. No inflated numbers, egos or unrealistic promises. Just results. Our dynamic team possesses unrivaled market knowledge, Filmmaker Peter Bratt was thoroughly enjoying the moment. In a recent telephone conversation with The Park Record, while discussing the irrepressible labor leader and feminist Dolores Huerta, he just couldn’t help himself. It’s totally understandable. The subject of Bratt’s film, “Dolores,” currently screening in the U. S. Documentary competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, will do that to you. Huerta, the iconic cofounder, with Caesar Chavez, of the first farm workers’ union and a movement leader by nature, often lends herself to ironic anecdotes. This particular one had to do with how, during filming, Huerta continually attempted to steer the narrative away from herself and toward the ongoing fight for justice in all its shapes and sizes. The forces to keep the film on track, however, were formidable. From the beginning, the filmmaking team had been carefully assembled and they were all on the same page. This project would be about Huerta and any relevant sidebars would just flow out of that. Although her input would be invaluable, she, herself, would remain the subject. Bratt recounts the chronology this way: “One day, just like in the “Dolores” is in Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Competition program and will screen at the following times: • Saturday, Jan. 21, 6 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Library Center Theatre • Sunday, Jan. 22, 3 p.m. at Redstone Cinema 7 • Wednesday, Jan. 25, 3 p.m. at Yarrow Hotel Theatre • Saturday, Jan. 28, 9 a.m. at the Yarrow Hotel Theatre • Tuesday, Jan. 24, 3 p.m. at the Library Center Theater • 11:30 Wednesday, Jan. 25 , 11:30 a.m. at THE MARC • Thursday, Jan. 26, 6 p.m. at the Salt Lake Library Theater • Friday Jan. 27, 4 p.m. at Redstone Cinema 2 • Saturday, Jan. 28, noon at the Library Center Theater FELICITY GARDNER INTERIOR DESIGN 435-640-4174 · felicity@gardnergroup.co · FelicityGardnerInteriorDesign.com a collaborative spirit and zest for life in the Wasatch Mountains. Cathy RiChaRds NaNCy dalaska EPIC WASATCH TEAM w w w. 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