Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Showing at Sundance: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg

Synopsis from the Sundance website:

This exposé chronicles the private dramas of irreverent, legendary comedian and pop icon Joan Rivers as she fights tooth and nail to keep her American dream alive. The film offers a rare glimpse of the comedic process and the crazy mixture of self-doubt and anger that often fuels it. A unique look inside America's obsession with fame and celebrity, Rivers's story is both an outrageously funny journey and brutally honest look at the ruthless entertainment industry, the trappings of success, and the ultimate vulnerability of the first queen of comedy.

Being able to break through Rivers’s self-made façade is a tribute to filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg. It is obvious the magic of this film is the inherent trust between filmmakers and subject. Shot over the course of a year, the film enlists a resilient cinema vérité style to craft a moving look at this iconic performer, stripping away her comedy masks and laying bare the truth of her life and inspiration.

The movie's (unfinished) website is here, or you can follow along on Facebook.

Stern and Sundberg:

The Imperialists Are Still Alive!

Showing at Sundance: The Imperialists Are Still Alive!, directed by Zeina Durra

Synopsis from the film's website:

A successful visual artist working in post-9/11 Manhattan, Asya lives the life of the hip and glamorous, replete with exclusive art parties, supermodels, and stretch limousines while she carefully follows the situation in the Middle East on television. Asya learns that her childhood friend, Faisal, has disappeared-the victim of a purported CIA abduction. That same night, she meets Javier, a sexy Mexican PhD student, and romance blossoms. Javier finds Asya's conspiracy theories overly paranoid-but nothing in Asya's world is as it seems. Asya's life is reflective of the themes of cultural fusion, and the complications and humor that arise simultaneously out of everyday life.

Zeina Durra's atmospheric debut feature is an alluring and intelligent look at the way the war on terror seeps into the texture of everyday American life. Gorgeous 16 mm grain imbues the film with an anachronistic feel that interestingly evokes times past. The Imperialists Are Still Alive! is an exceptional work and heralds the arrival of Durra as an exciting new directorial talent.

There is a trailer at the link above; here is more Durra:

In Theaters: Fish Tank

Opening in limited release this weekend: Fish Tank, directed by Andrea Arnold

The film's website is here.

My Perestroika

Showing at Sundance: My Perestroika, directed by Robin Hessman

Synopsis from the Sundance website:

The Bolshevik revolution, the cold war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union defined the history of the twentieth century. With such a past, what does it mean to be Russian today? Robin Hessman's lovingly crafted documentary, My Perestroika, adopts the idea of the “everyman story,” suggesting that the unheralded lives of the last generation of Soviets to grow up behind the iron curtain hold the key to understanding the contradictions of modern Russia from the inside out.

Crafted during five years of researching and shooting, and based on almost a decade of living in Russia in the 1990s, Hessman's film poetically interweaves an extraordinary trove of home movies, Soviet propaganda films, and intimate access to five schoolmates whose linked, but very different, histories offer a moving portrait of newly middle-class Russians living lives they could never have imagined when they were growing up.

The film's official site is here, and its Facebook page is here.No trailer on YouTube, but here is an interview with Robin Hessman.

The Runaways

Showing at Sundance: The Runaways, written and directed by Floria Sigismondi

Synopsis from the Sundance website:

Of all the bands to come out of the 1970s Los Angeles music scene, The Runaways are by far the most uniquely fascinating. This is partially due to their music but more so to the fact that they were teenage girls whose wild and reckless lifestyle was the stuff of legend.

Focusing on the duo of guitarist/vocalist Joan Jett and lead vocalist Cherie Currie as they navigate a rocky road of touring and record-label woes, the film chronicles the band's formation as well as their meteoric rise under the malevolent eye of an abusive manager.

Acclaimed video artist Floria Sigismondi directs from her own script, and her luscious camerawork captures every sweaty detail—from the filthy trailer where the women practice to the mosh pits of Tokyo. What really makes the film cook are the sizzling performances by Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Not to be missed, The Runaways is an ode to an era and a groundbreaking band.

Sweetgrass

Opening at the Film Forum this weekend: Sweetgrass, directed by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor

Synopsis from the film's website:

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.  The trailer looks amazing:

A Year Ago in Winter

Showing at the New York Museum of Modern Art: A Year Ago in Winter, directed by Caroline Link

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

Two very different people find out they have more in common than they imagined in this emotional drama from Germany. Elaine Richter (Corinna Harfouch) is a middle-aged woman who approaches artist Max Hollander (Josef Bierbichler) with an unusual commission – she'd like a dual portrait of her two children, but while 22-year-old Lili (Karoline Herfurth) will be able to model for him, her son Alexander (Cyril Sjostrom) died a year ago at the age of 19 and the artist will have to work from photos and videos. Max agrees to the assignment, but he discovers that Lili isn't very enthusiastic about posing for him at first, especially after she informs him that Alexander's death was a suicide. With time Lili and Max begin to bond and come to understand one another's emotional crises. Lili is a gifted dance student who has lost a major role after an argument with her teacher and mentor, and she's sought solace in her relationship with Aldo (Misel Maticevic), an artist whose controlling nature is strangling her freedom. Meanwhile, Max finds himself drawn to Lili just as he's trying to come to terms with having romantic and sexual feelings for another man for the first time. Im Winter Ein Jahr (aka A Year Ago In Winter) earned Caroline Link "Best Director" honors at the 2009 Bavarian Film Awards.