Watch This
THIS WEEK: STRANGE CULTURE on Sundance Channel!
(The winner of the Marlon Riggs prize)
12/11 @ 9:35pm EST/PST *
12/13 @ 12:35am EST/PST *
12/14 @ 10:35am EST/PST *
12/16 @ 3:35pm EST/PST *
* Central & Mountain Times vary by as much as 2 hours - Check local listings.
STRANGE CULTURE, selected to open both the 2007 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the documentary section of the Berlin International Film Festival, is directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson, and features Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, Chronicles of Narnia), Peter Coyote (E.T., Erin Brochovich), Thomas Jay Ryan (Henry Fool, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, My Dinner with Andre); Original score by The Residents.
STRANGE CULTURE details the surreal legal nightmare of artist and University at Buffalo professor Dr. Steven Kurtz. Dr. Kurtz was illegally detained and accused by the U.S. government of “bioterrorism” in 2004 after police became suspicious of common science materials used in his internationally exhibited art practice. He now awaits trial on charges of “mail fraud”—charges which carry the possibility of a 20-year jail term under the USA PATRIOT Act. Since the ongoing nature of the case prevents Dr. Kurtz from discussing its details, Hershman Leeson has enlisted actors to dramatize parts of the story, skillfully interweaving dialogue with news footage, animation, interviews, testimonials, and footage of Kurtz himself.
“Hershman Leeson is as interested in reinventing the doc form as she is in publicizing Kurtz’s case. The director not only breaks the fourth wall, she reduces it to plaster dust.” – Variety
“…alternatively teasing and terrifying… a near perfect alignment of subject and form.” – The New York Times
“…a brilliant and moving examination of fear and its manipulations.”
– The Nation
