The trouble with that approach is that the game goes on, with you or without you. I’m saddened/angered at the number of people who just decided they would bail out of the election process because their favorite purebred wasn’t running. I walk away from any political discussion with anyone who did that, I don’t see that they have any grounds to bitch about who won and who lost.
Romney was a flip-flopping liar. He was lying about half the things he “believed” in during the campaign.
Heck, even his supporters admit it.
I have zero intention of voting for someone I know is telling me bald-faced lies.
Being an independent conservative I am happy to vote for conservatives who run as Republicans, but I won’t vote for anything else.
That doesn’t mean conservative or right-leaning docs aren’t welcome at top-tier festivals. This year, Sundance will premiere Greg Whiteley’s “Mitt,” a behind-the-scenes look at Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, and last year, Robert Stone’s pro-nuclear power pic “Pandora’s Promise” and R.J. Cutler’s “The World According to Dick Cheney” both debuted in Park City.
“We are politically agnostic in the way that we look at films,” says Sundance senior programmer Caroline Libresco. “We never approach the programming process with any kind of pre-determined notion of what we want the films to say or the political point of view of the film. What we are looking for is great storytelling that explores complex issues and provokes thinking about those complex issues.”
Toronto programmer Thom Powers agrees, but adds he receives “very few” right-leaning docu submissions. “I actually get a lot more of what I describe as left-wing propaganda films.” Last year, Powers brought Errol Morris’ “The Unknown Known,” about former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to TIFF and says the atmosphere verged on contentious. “Audiences came with the expectation of wanting to see (Rumsfeld) pilloried and anything short of that happening in the film leaves them unsatisfied,” Powers says. “It’s unfortunate for the audience to set that kind of standard because they wind up missing the other things the films have to offer.”
But Whiteley says he isn’t worried about the Sundance rReception of “Mitt,” which was recently acquired by Netflix.
“I’m a bit more concerned about conservatives (seeing the film),” Whiteley says. “If you are somebody who was an ardent Mitt Romney supporter, maybe you are hoping this film demonstrates why he should have been president, but this film doesn’t go into that at all. I feel like Romney could have been a Democrat — it really wouldn’t change how the film plays.”
But will the fact that Whiteley is a member of the Mormon church hurt him in the same way religion hurt Steve Hoover’s doc “Blood Brother”? The film, about American Rocky Braat’s work on behalf of an AIDS-afflicted community in India, won both the Sundance audience and grand jury awards last year, but was later criticized by journalist Tom Roston, who implied that Hoover manipulated audiences by not revealing a personal tie with an evangelical church.
The film failed to garner a major distributor or a spot on the Academy’s shortlist despite glowing reviews and a tradition of Sundance winners going on to Oscar glory.
In an open letter on the film’s website, Hoover called the claims “troubling”: “Neither Rocky nor myself consider ourselves evangelicals. We are both Christians, but we have no interest in pushing intolerant political agendas or using legislation to enforce doctrine. Nor do I see filmmaking as a means to fill the pews or make converts. I had no secret agenda.”
In Libresco’s experience, the motivation to make docs tends to originate from the progressive side of the aisle.
“I’ve noticed that the large majority of (nonfiction films) tend to be galvanized and motivated by an interest in a complex view of the world and in perhaps disrupting the status quo.”