Lucy Lawless-directed documentary on Kiwi camerawoman to debut at Sundance Film Festival
Friday, 19 January 2024
Kiwi actor Lucy Lawless’ directorial debut will have its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Never Look Away is a documentary on ground-breaking New Zealand-born camerawoman Margaret Moth, whose fearlessness in capturing footage of the world’s conflict zones came at great personal cost.
Competing in the World Documentary Competition at the festival, Never Look Away will have its first screening on Friday afternoon (New Zealand time). It is one of 83 feature-length films which will unspool at the famous annual festival in Utah’s Park City over the next 11 days.
Speaking on Wednesday morning via Zoom, Lawless said she was fully invested in the project from the moment she first received an email from one of Moth’s friends, Joe Duran, in 2022.
“I thought, ‘I cannot let somebody do this project, I will find the money, I find the producers – and we will tell this story’.
“I [then] kind of freaked out that I had thrown my hat in the ring, because I had never done this [direct] before – I’m completely unqualified. And yet, not even two years later, here we are premiering at Sundance.”
While admitting that she “blundered” her way though, Lawless said she knew Moth’s tale had to include “the dark and light of human nature”.
“Nobody wants a hagiography. Nobody can relate to a saint.”
And as Never Look Away demonstrates, Moth certainly had her demons and eccentricities.
“She would eat nothing but grapes and cheese and beer for months on end,” Lawless said of just one of her quirks.
While still unsure of when New Zealand audiences will get to see the film, Lawless hoped that those at Sundance will come away thinking, “if she [Moth] did so much when so much was taken away from her, who am I not to be magnificent in my own life?”
“Hopefully, they’ll be inspired by her to be better, faster, stronger.”
Celebrating 40 years of existence in 2024, the Robert Redford-founded Sundance festival has helped launch a range of Kiwi films, including Rain, Boy, Eagle vs Shark, What We Do in the Shadows, Slow West, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Coming Home in the Dark.
New Zealand also has an entry among the 53 short films being showcased – Vea Mafile’o’s Lea Tupu’anga / Mother Tongue, a story about a young speech therapist, disconnected from her Tongan heritage, who must communicate, or risk her patient’s life.
After looking through this year’s line-up, Stuff to Watch has come up with a list of 10 titles we’re picking to go on to even greater things.
And So It Begins
In a year when more than four billion people around the globe are eligible to have their say in electing their leaders, the director of the multi-award-winning A Thousand Cuts, Ramona Diaz, is back with another deep-dive into the sometimes disturbing world of Filipino politics.
Rodrigo Duterte’s oppressive regime may have ended, but as Diaz’s timely and resonant story details, the country was divided between lurching towards more freedoms or greater autocracy.
Devo
Wham!, Branson and Bad Vegan director Chris Smith turns his attention to the 1970s American new wave band, best known for their wildly popular tune Whip It.
Formed in response to the 1970 killing of Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard, they merged punk with electronica, as they helped introduce sometimes bemused audiences to the social theory of “de-evolution”.
Eternal You
New Zealand’s Soul Machines are among the handful of global AI companies featured in this fascinating (and a little frightening) documentary which investigates the nascent industry of creating avatars that allow relatives to “talk” with their “dearly departed” from beyond the grave.
As well as showcasing a variety of different approaches, directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck (The Cleaners) also interview experts on ethics and the psychological and physiological toll that making the technology more widely available might have.
Krazy House
Nick Frost and Alicia Silverstone team up for this wild-looking, Amsterdam-shot horror-comedy about a deeply religious man who has to come to his family’s rescue when he discovers the Russian contractors working on his house are actually wanted criminals.
The film marks the English-language debut of devilish Dutch directors Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil.
Little Death
Acclaimed music video director (he’s best known for working with Jack Harlow and Doja Cat) Jack Begert’s debut combines the dark comedy of a screenwriter’s mid-life identity crises and a crime-drama which focuses on a pair of taco truck entrepreneurs searching for their next opioid fix.
The equally eclectic cast features David Schwimmer, Talia Ryder, Jena Malone and Gaby Hoffmann.
Love Me
Already an award-winner, thanks to picking up the Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize as the best tale that focuses on science or technology as a theme, Sam and Andy Zuchero’s debut brings together Kristen Stewart and recent Emmy winner Steven Yeun.
The sci-fi romance focuses on the relationship between “a satellite and a buoy” in a post-apocalyptic world.
The Moogai
From the producers of the much-loved The Babadook and last year’s hit Aussie horror Talk to Me, comes another thought-provoking and chilling antipodean tale.
What should be the joyous time of welcoming her second child into the world, becomes a nightmare for one mother (Shari Sebbens), as she starts seeing a malevolent spirit she is convinced is trying to take her baby.
Sasquatch Sunset
Bigfoot genre fans rejoice. David and Nathan Zellner’s (Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter) action-comedy claims to capture the daily life of a sasquatch family with “a level of detail and rigour that is simply unforgettable”.
The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg and Daisy Jones and Six’s Riley Keogh star.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Documentary which sees film-makers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui explore the life-changing impact of two pivotal moments in the beloved actor’s career: being cast in 1978's Superman and becoming paralysed in 1995.
As well as never-before-seen home movie footage and extraordinary personal archive material, it also features reflections from Reeve’s family and close confidantes.
Winner
Hot on the heels of 2021 documentary United States vs. Reality Winner and 2023’s acclaimed drama Reality comes this third-stab at retelling of the unconventional whistleblower’s arrest and prosecution after exposing Russia’s hacking of the 2016 American elections.
Writer-director Susanna Fogel’s (Cat Person, A Small Light) impressively assembled acting ensemble includes Emilia Jones, Connie Britton and Zach Galifianakis.
The 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival runs from January 19 to 29 (New Zealand time). For more information, see festival@sundance.org