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Show A-10 The Park Record Wed/Thurs/Fri, January 17-19, 2018 Doc explores life of activist Spy thriller takes a swing ‘On Her Shoulders’ tells story of burden of the spotlight Film depicts true story of ballplayer turned WWII spy CAROLYN WEBBER ANGELIQUE MCNAUGHTON The Park Record Nadia Murad is often quiet and pensive, but the world that she has been thrust into is not. After her escape from being a sex slave for the terrorist group ISIS, the 23-year-old earned fame through her sorrow. The Sundance documentary “On Her Shoulders” tells the story of Murad, who was a witness to the genocide of her home and community in northern Iraq in 2014. But the film is not simply about giving a voice to the young woman’s story. It peels back the curtains of the life of a reluctant activist. Alexandria Bombach, the director of the film, said that she wanted the film to reflect how it feels to be around Murad and observe the realities of her new life. “We wanted this world to feel almost like a memory,” she said, “because it’s not just one moment. This is a living memory for Nadia, and I think that’s what I wanted to get across.” Bombach said that the editing style, which includes elements such as overlapping voices, and the music helped create that mood. As the director, editor and almost everything else for the film, Bombach said that it was crazy to do all of the jobs, but it benefited her in the end. She said that it was easier to learn Murad’s story herself and explain it through film rather than convey her vision to someone else with words. “This is such an intimate film,” she said. “A lot of these emotions — I don’t know if I could have described them well enough to another editor.” She also liked having a small film crew, since she did not want to add to the paparazzi-esque scene that is near constant in Murad’s life, as reflected in the opening scene. In fact, seeing how taxing the The Park Record COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE | PHOTO BY RYOT FILMS Nadia Murad appears in “On Her Shoulders” by Alexandria Bombach, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. media was on Murad was difficult for Bombach. Before starting filming, all she had seen was Murad on the podium confidently telling her story. Then, Bombach saw how each interview took a piece of her. “This film more than any other film made me question everything about who I am as a person,” she said. “It was very hard every day to try and ask her to put a mic on. There were times when I wouldn’t even ask.” Murad mentions during the film that some questions journalists ask should not be asked, and Bombach said that she did not want Murad to associate her with those kinds of people. But at the same time, both Bombach and Murad knew that it was important to tell the story of the genocide of the Yazidi people in Iraq. Bombach, who is from New Mexico, said she loves finding and telling the true story behind storytellers, which she did in her first major documentary about Afghan photojournalists, “Frame by Frame,” in 2009. Now that she has the opportunity to share Murad’s story at the Sundance Film Festival, Bombach said she is “thrilled, honored and a little bit in disbelief.” She said that the title, “On Her Shoulders,” was used to not only show that Murad has a lot of weight on her shoulders, but have viewers think critically about why that weight is there. Unlike documentaries that are a call to action or about a social cause, there is little any single viewer can do because the problem involves major global issues. Instead, Bombach said, she wants viewers to enter the theater and just be with Murad. “When people leave, they realize it is a film about ourselves and where we are with empathy,” she said. “I want people to reflect on themselves versus thinking that they learned something specifically about Nadia or the Yazidis.” “On Her Shoulders,” an entry in the Sundance U.S. Documentary Film Competition, is scheduled to screen at the following times and locations: Saturday, Jan. 20, 12:30 p.m. at The Ray Sunday, Jan. 2, 3:00 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Library Theater Monday, Jan. 22, 11:30 a.m. at Redstone Cinema 7 Tuesday, Jan. 23, 6:00 p.m. at Sundance Mountain Resort, Provo Thursday, Jan. 25, 7:00 p.m. at Metropolitan Holiday Village 4 Cinemas Saturday, Jan. 27, 12:30 p.m. at The Ray In his Sundance Film Festival feature “The Catcher Was a Spy,” director Ben Lewin overcomes the challenging task of retelling the true story of enigmatic figure Moe Berg during World War II. “I think a lot of work went into rediscovering this mysterious man who morphed himself from a baseball player into a spy,” Lewin said in an interview from Santa Monica, California. “The Catcher Was a Spy” follows Berg’s tale as he transitions from major league ballplayer into a spy for the Office of Security Services, a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency. The film stars Paul Rudd, as Berg, as well as Jeff Daniels, Guy Pierce, Paul Giamatti and Sienna Miller. Berg, described as someone extremely intelligent who speaks nine languages, is recruited to stop German scientist Werner Heisenberg before he can build an atomic bomb for the Nazi regime, according to Sundance’s film program. The role required Rudd to interpret a character that was not easily understood, Lewin said. He added, “Even the expert in the field couldn’t really explain him.” The film is adapted from Nicholas Dawidoff’s 1994 biography of the same name. “That was the challenge: to bring some kind of tangible reality to a man that was not popularly described by anyone in words,” he said. “Moe Berg was man with a facade, and there is a subtle way of playing that role. There is also kind of crude way of playing a man with two faces, and he (Rudd) represented a really unexpected take. “I guess eventually we stopped tormenting ourselves in discovering who was this mystery man and allowed Paul (Rudd) to play the character that was naturally created,” he added. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Paul Rudd stars in the true story of major league ballplayer Moe Berg who turns into a spy during World War II in the Sundance Film Festival feature “The Catcher Was a Spy. The film only provides a glimpse into the life of Berg, Lewin said, adding, “It doesn’t pretend to tell his whole life or be a Wikipedia view of him.” As a filmmaker, the goal with a biopic is to recapture the most important journey the character took, and Lewin said heinstantly realized that the film is a regular World War II spy thriller. It represents an area he is particularly interested in portraying. But, Berg is the most “untypical spy that you could imagine,” he said. “That really was the writer’s approach to the overall subject and our approach, as well,” Lewin said. Casting for the film was a “very serendipitous process,” Lewin said. As he learned more about Rudd, he realized he was the right actor to play the unexpected personality of Berg. Daniels and Pearce play seasoned spies and Giamatti a Dutch physicist. Miller plays Berg’s love interest. Lewin said he hopes to provide the audience with a sense of discovery and desire to want to know more about the unique character of Berg. He said the film also surprisingly has a renewed relevance because of the current political climate surrounding nuclear weapons. “This story is about the origins of the atomic bombs and the beginnings of the nuclear age,” he said. “When you look at the film in relation to what is going on in with North Korea, you think there is a sort of relevance to this story right now that maybe we didn’t anticipate. I think, hopefully, there is an underlying anti-war message in the movie. “ “The Catcher Was a Spy” is the director’s second film to appear at the Sundance Film Festival. His film “The Sessions,” starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, premiered in 2012. It won an Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for ensemble acting. A D o “The Catcher Was a Spy” is being screened in the Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres category. It will be shown: Friday, Jan. 19, 8:30 p.m. at the Park City Municipal Athletic and Recreation Center Wednesday, Jan. 24, 6:30 p.m. at the Eccles Theatre in Park City Thursday, Jan. 25, 9 a.m. at the Eccles Theatre in Park City Saturday, Jan. 27, 5:30 p.m. at the Park City Municipal Athletic and Recreation Center Sunday, Jan. 28, 6:15 p.m. at The Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City look at 2016 campaign Skaters kick down barriers New Doc‘Our New In ‘Skate Kitchen,’ women prove they belong President’ shows Russia perspective JAY MEEHAN BEN RAMSEY The Park Record The Park Record In “Skate Kitchen,” director Crystal Moselle blurs the line between documentary and narrative cinema. Best known for her documentary “The Wolf Pack,” the New York-based director found a real group of women skaters and transformed their lives into an amalgam of real and scripted events through her new film, which is set to screen during the Sundance Film Festival. With the exception of Jaden Smith the actors are all skaters playing the roles they live out on a daily basis, over a scaffolding of scripted events that circulate around the theme of youth — its freedoms and challenges — as they try and break into a scene typically dominated by men. Like most of her projects, Moselle said “Skate Kitchen” came to her. “I met the girls on the subway, and I just thought one of the girls, Nina, had a voice that silences the room,” she said. “They were talking about being skaters in NYC, how intimidating it can be, and I thought there was something there.” Originally, Moselle shot a short film about the girls called “That One Day,” and its success at the Venice Film Festival inspired her to push deeper into the subject. After spending time making “That One Day,” she said she was already familiar with the skating scene and the plan to create a film grew organically and collaboratively between her and the people she filmed. But she needed to act fast to capture the moment the skaters were living through – pushing new territory and growing into adulthood. “From 17 to 19, there’s a big shift, and you have to capture it in that moment or the magic goes away,” she said. “I worked vigorously on creating a script last year and everything (fell into place).” The script did require the use COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Members of The Skate Kitchen skateboarding club cling to a fence overlooking their enigmatic playground: New York City. The movie, based on the crew’s name, takes events from the skaters’ lives and constructs them into a feature film, which explores themes of youth and gender in skate culture. of one actor. As a skater, Smith was on a very short list of actors who Moselle felt would be able to convincingly blend into the film. That was important because in the skating community being a poser is both easily recognized and intensely disparaged. In the film, Nina Moran, one of the film’s supporting cast members and a “Skate Kitchen” skater, sardonically self-identifies as a poser at one point in the film to illustrate two bystanders’ sexism when they excitedly ask her if she can ollie — the baseline trick in skateboarding. It’s also a central part of what makes the “Skate Kitchen” crew’s real journey into new skating territory such a big deal, both on and off film. Any crew coming into a new park or area runs the possibility of being called posers, but the “Skate Kitchen” crew also contended with ridicule as a vector of sexism, as skaters assume they cannot shred because they’re women and are therefore posers, or dismiss their abilities regardless. The film chronicles, among other thing, how the crew advances into these gendered areas, and Moselle hopes viewers are inspired by the crew’s pioneering attitude. “I think that it’s always interesting to see people changing the game, so to speak,” she said. “I hope that it inspires not only women but men to do things they are traditionally not supposed to do. Like girls don’t skateboard – we’re changing that narrative.” By adding the scripted parts, Moselle hopes to create something true and momentous without abandoning the beauty that planning and multiple takes bring to the table. Think of it like new journalism for movies. “I think that it’s like you’re getting to see realism in a new way, a cinematic way,” she said. Through collaborations with skaters, she used real events — fights at the skate park, discussions about periods — to reconstruct their world on the screen. And if it’s not real enough for some viewers, they can check out the roots of the film, and find the skaters from the screen shredding in real time on their Instagram, contributing to the handle TheSkateKitchen. “Skate Kitchen” an entry in the Sundance Film Festival’s Next program, is scheduled to screen at the following times and locations: Sunday, Jan. 21, 9:30 p.m. at the Park City Library Monday, Jan. 22, 8:15 a.m. at The Egyptian Theatre Wednesday, Jan. 24, 10 p.m. at Redstone 2 Friday, Jan. 26, 9 p.m. at Temple Har Shalom Saturday, Jan. 27, 3 p.m. at the Tower Theatre “Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves.” –Phillip K. Dick If you thought consuming television news during the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle was a dizzying ride, you should have seen it from the Russian side. Well, prepare yourself for a visit to the Mother Ship, a vessel running on “gullible gas,” one of the higher octane’s of the time. Filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin, whose films include “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer,” which walked away with the 2013 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize, has, in 2018, brought us as dizzying a cinematic roller coaster ride as you could imagine. “Our New President,” an opening day selection screening in the “World Cinema Documentary Competition,” keeps up the pressure on the old cranial lobes, let me tell you. You can see where Fox News learned their wellhoned “piling-on” technique. Take RT (Russia Today), Vesti and NTV, for example, state-run news outlets in Putin’s Russia. Over-and-over, against a continually looping video backdrop of Hillary Clinton tripping, coughing, gagging, and maniacally laughing in 4-second snippets, the dark spell is cast. Evolving out of the often visited fake news story that ever since an encounter with a mummy in its glass tomb during the late ‘90s, Hillary has been plagued by physical and psychological maladies from chronic-fatigue syndrome and fainting spells, to even committing sexual abuse and murder, the murky shadow is cast. Hard to believe? Not if you’re a news consumer whose lack of sources has them, Kubrick-like, figuratively restrained in a chair with eyes propped open while COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE A film still from “Our New President” by Maxim Pozdorovkin, an official selection of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. being pounded by the same story over and over until their brain is mush. Just one example out of many propagated by Putin’s fake news arm and endorsed by their American cronies at Fox. Lucky for us, we have a gifted filmmaker in Maxim Pozdorovkin to artfully and satirically craft Trump’s election and first year in office entirely through the lens of Russian propaganda. Taking us from the horrifying to the hilarious, “Our New President” demonstrates the current inability of the human mind to pare wheat from chaff. In his “Director’s Statement,” Pozdorovkin tells how when a film editor returned to their office in New York following a trip to Russia with a story that the motherland was “very excited about Trump,” he recognized a pattern he first came across while shooting the “Pussy Riot” film. “To understand the sentiment we began collecting material about the American election produced by Russian television, a weapon often use by Vladimir Putin to manipulate public opinion,” Pozdorovkin added. “While making ‘Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer,’ I had firsthand experience of how the Kremlin used television to stifle dissent by demonizing the opposition.” Having been there and seen that, he goes on to tell that “we gathered a massive archive of disinformation. In the process, we uncovered a galaxy of plausibly ‘newsy’ sites and YouTube channels that existed solely to re-circulate Russian propaganda. Much of the re-circulated material was create by English language network Russia Today.” Pozdorovkin goes on to say that “the main idea of this film is to tell the story of the American election entirely through falsehoods perpetrated by the Kremlin – to use the news in order to weave an entirely fictional story.” Buy the ticket, take the ride. Oh, that’s right, you’re already on board. Then just hang on until, hopefully, Americans “right” the ship. “Our New President,” an entry in the Sundance World Cinema Documentary Competition, is scheduled to screen at the following times and locations: Thursday, Jan. 18, 6:30 p.m. at the Egyptian Theater Friday, Jan. 19, 9 a.m. at The Temple Friday, Jan. 19, 6 p.m. at the Sundance Resort, Provo Saturday, Jan. 20, 11:59 p.m. at The Broadway Thursday, Jan. 25, 9:30 p.m. at The Ray Friday, Jan. 26, 3 p.m. at The Temple |