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Category Archive for: ‘South by Southwest’

John Milius, Roller Derby and Kid Golfers Are Subjects in New Documentary Trailers

on March 11,2013 in , ,

This week’s trailer showcase highlights a couple documentaries currently screening at SXSW plus my current favorite film of the year. Watch them all below.   Milius Another movie-related documentary, this one is about screenwriter and director John Milius, who was Oscar-nominated for co-scripting Apocalypse Now. He also wrote the first two Dirty Harry films and directed the original versions of …

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SXSW ’13 Interview: ‘The Punk Syndrome’ Directors Jukka Karkkainen and J-P Passi

on March 5,2013 in , ,

  The 2013 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival begins this Friday, and I’ve already had a chance to see one of the films screening, a Finnish documentary titled The Punk Syndrome. It’s about a punk rock group called Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day, which consists of four developmentally challenged men, as they rise in popularity. Named over and over in MusicFilmWeb’s …

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Interview: ‘The Sheik and I’ Director Caveh Zahedi on Hypocrisy, Performing for the Camera, the Falsity of Documentary and More

on December 7,2012 in ,

This interview was originally published on June 7, 2012. It is being re-posted now that the film is in theaters and on VOD. Last month I posted the first part of my interview with Caveh Zahedi, director of the very controversial documentary The Sheik and I (see my review at Movies.com). In that installment I focused on the film’s controversy …

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Interview: Caveh Zahedi on the Controversy of ‘The Sheik and I’

on December 7,2012 in ,

This interview was originally published on May 1, 2012. It is being re-posted today because The Sheik and I is now in theaters and on VOD. One of my favorite documentaries of the 2012 South by Southwest Film Festival was Caveh Zahedi’s The Sheik and I, a highly reflexive satire about the filmmaker’s invitation to make a subversive film in …

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SXSW 2012 Dispatch #3: "We Are Legion," "Beauty is Embarrassing" and More

on March 17,2012 in

In a list of the best documentaries of the 2000s, I named Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus’ Al Franken: And God Spoke as the greatest political doc of the decade. It’s a film that follows the humorist, then long away from becoming a U.S. Senator, in the 2004 election year, and for me it perfectly represents a problem for the …

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SXSW 2012 Dispatch #2: The Very Controversial "The Sheik and I"

on March 14,2012 in

There was a moment when I actually thought the theater could blow up. I guess this makes The Sheik and I the scariest film of SXSW, though it will probably go down primarily as the most controversial. Following the premiere screening Sunday night, the Q&A discussion got so heated that I again feared for the safety of people in the …

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