Liam Lacey in the Globe and Mail:
A sworn enemy of Hollywood formulas, the Sundance Film Festival, in its 13th year, seems to have worked out its own recipe for getting attention: If you want to get people worked up, you can’t beat the combination of incendiary politics and twisted sex.
First, the politics. Chicago 10, a movie about one of the more inflammatory trials in American history, the 1968 conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven, will open the 13th Sundance Film Festival tonight. Created by Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture), the film uses music, animation, contemporary actors and archival footage to look back at the anti-war protesters accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the Democratic Party convention.
The film marks just the second time the festival has opened with a documentary. Festival director Geoff Gilmore describes Chicago 10 as a film that “pushes the boundaries of many of the traditional aspects of documentary filmmaking” in recalling a significant moment in the American counterculture.
The festival will also be pushing boundaries in another way, with sexually transgressive films that seem bound to raise protests…
More here.