Regarding Susan Sontag
A film by Nancy Kates
2014 | 100 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 151153 |
SYNOPSIS
REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG is an intimate and nuanced investigation into the life of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century. Endlessly curious, passionate and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political and feminist icons of her generation. This beautifully constructed documentary tracks Sontag’s life through evocative experimental images, archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as well as her own words as read by Patricia Clarkson.
From her early infatuation with books to her first experience in a gay bar; from her early marriage to her 15-year relationship with legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz, REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG is a fascinating look at a towering cultural critic and writer whose works on photography, war, illness, and terrorism continue to resonate today. REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast nationwide on HBO.
PRESS
"Thorough, intimate, and well-rounded portrait…this well-crafted, informative, and visually appealing biography is recommended to Sontag fans and students of American arts and culture."
"Compelling… and “Perceptive…"
"Using interviews from people who were close to her, as well as archival footage and interviews, the film brings Sontag to life on the screen."
"Nancy D. Kates’s profile does well by the early years, critical texts and novels, but gets even further into the writer’s evolving private persona: unsatisfied, unbowed, unapologetic."
"That director Nancy Kates manages to hit so many important pivot points in Sontag’s life and career in a cinematically engaging way feels like a small miracle."
"Serious-minded and aesthetically ambitious…does justice to a hard-to-pigeonhole intellectual."
"In Nancy D. Kates' demonstrative documentary, Sontag's highly eloquent and confrontational voice is resurrected, allowing the audience to explore the life of a writer who defied the patriarchal dominance of academia and went on to define her own unique form of social criticism."
“… a fascinating, moving, and often gorgeous entry into the canon of works produced about Sontag since her death..."
"REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG… stood out for the complexity of its portrayal of a difficult character... striking for its nuance, its communication of overlapping meanings."
"REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG is an engaging documentary that presents a complicated, detailed portrait… Archival footage is remarkably excavated and assembled..."
"Fascinating for the details of Sontag’s life as well as for insights into avant-garde mid-twentieth-century lifestyles, this beautifully shot program will intrigue fans of literature and feminism."
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Tribeca Film Festival, Winner Special Jury Prize
- FOCAL International Award, Best Use of Archival Footage in an Arts Program
- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
- Hawaii International Film Festival
- Boston Jewish Film Festival
- San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
- Vermont International Film Festival
- Seattle International Film Festival
- Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival
- Outfest
- Sheffield Doc/Fest
- Frameline
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Nancy Kates
Nancy Kates produced and directed the feature-length HBO documentary REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG, which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Mention. It has since screened at over 130 film festivals in 35 countries, and received several honors, including a FOCAL International Award. REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG received major funding from the NEA, the NEH, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and Sundance. Ms. Magazine named the film one of 2014’s top ten feminist films, while critics called it "compelling" and "perceptive" (NY Times); "a stunning portrait" (Ally Derks, IDFA); and "mesmerizing, thoughtful, provocative" (Times Herald Record), praising its "boldly evocative impressionist strokes" (SF Chronicle). Kates produced and directed BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN, with Bennett Singer. The film premiered in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and on the PBS series "POV," winning more than 25 awards worldwide. Critics described it as "a potent piece of historical rediscovery" (LA Times); "beautifully crafted" (Boston Globe); "powerful and startling" (The Advocate); and "poignant"(TIME). Kates studied documentary film at Stanford; her master’s thesis, THEIR OWN VIETNAM, received the 1995 Student Academy Award. In 2014, she was included in the OUT 100, the magazine’s list of intriguing LGBT Americans. (03/19)
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PROFILED
Profiled knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latino youth murdered by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims—Eric Garner, Michael Brown—are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.
Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latino people in this country. Moving interviews with victims’ family members are juxtaposed with sharply etched analyses by evolutionary biologist, Joseph L.Graves, Jr, (The Race Myth) and civil rights lawyer, Chauniqua D. Young, (Center for Constitutional Rights, Stop and Frisk lawsuit). PROFILED gives us a window on one of the burning issues of our time.
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Ovarian Psycos
Riding at night through streets deemed dangerous in Eastside Los Angeles, the Ovarian Psycos use their bicycles to confront the violence in their lives. At the helm of the crew is founder Xela de la X, a single mother and poet M.C. dedicated to recruiting an unapologetic, misfit crew of women of color. The film intimately chronicles Xela as she struggles to strike a balance between her activism and nine year old daughter Yoli; street artist Andi who is estranged from her family and journeys to become a leader within the crew; and bright eyed recruit Evie, who despite poverty, and the concerns of her protective Salvadoran mother, discovers a newfound confidence.
The film Ovarian Psycos rides along with the Ova’s, exploring the impact of the group’s activism, born of feminist ideals, Indigenous understanding and an urban/hood mentality, on neighborhood women and communities as they confront injustice, racism, and violence, and take back their streets one ride at a time.
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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