Last year’s saw the former Charmed actress making her debut behind the camera with the short Dawn. Today, on the opening day of this year’s Park City fest, is now preparing to direct her first feature The Pines., it was announced. Shooting on the psychological thriller is scheduled to start in the fall in upstate New York. American Mystic’s director Alex Mar wrote the script for the pic. The Pines will be produced by and NYC-based Sundial Pictures. The Stefan Nowicki, Joey Carey and Morgan White company produced pics such as Jiro Dreams of Sushi and the 2013 drama Liars All. Founded at Sundance in 2013 by long time producers Abby Hobby and Anne Hubbell, Tangerine centers on films by female directors. Innovative Artists rep McGowan. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happySup Doc: A Documentary Film Podcast Part 2 of a 2-episode interview with Rodney Ascher. (Check out Part 1) You wake up in the middle of night, unable to move and see a shadow standing over your bed.

Is this a bad dream or something far more sinister? Was Kubrick’s The Shining more that just a scary movie? Director Rodney Ascher joins Paco Romane and George Chen on SUP DOC to talk about experiences with sleepwalking and sleep paralysis, among other topics. We learn about Rodney’s working process and influences, Stanley Kubrick’s museum exhibit, cinematic puzzles, and sifting through Andy Kaufman’s home recordings. Room 237 is a subjective documentary that explores the numerous theories about the hidden meanings within Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining (1980). The film may be over 30 years old but it continues to inspire debate, speculation, and mystery. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments. Together they’ll draw the audience into a new maze, one with endless detours and dead ends, many ways in, but no way out. The Nightmare is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Rodney Ascher.

The film had its world premiere on January 26, 2015 at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and focuses on the topic of sleep paralysis. Ascher chose his subject because it had happened to him in the past. The Nightmare was produced by the team behind The Pact, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and Academy Award® winning Undefeated, and it likewise debuted at Sundance where it was called The Scariest Movie of the decade” (Birth.movies.death) and “One of the scariest documentaries ever’ (Indiewire) before being released internationally. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “The one film to watch this week.” The film’s crew initially began approaching participants via “message groups, YouTube videos, and a half dozen books that had been written”, but found that participants began approaching them after the documentary’s premise was announced. The documentary focuses on eight people suffering from sleep paralysis, a phenomenon where people find themselves temporarily unable to move, speak, or react to anything while they are falling asleep or awakening.

Occasionally this paralysis will be accompanied by physical experiences or hallucinations that have the potential to terrify the individual. In the film, Ascher interviews each participant and then tries to re-create their experiences on film with professional actors. Rodney Ascher is a filmmaker whose feature debut, the ‘subjective documentary’ Room 237 premiered at Sundance in 2012 before screening at festivals around the world including Cannes, London, the Vienalle,  Sitges, Toronto, and New York. sushi grade fish pittsburgh paThe microbudgeted feature was rated by Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Glieberman as one the 5 best films of the year,  and Chuck Klosterman wrote “It obliterated my cranium.” where to get sushi grade fish calgaryAt Fantastic Fest he won the Best Director (documentary) award and the International Documentary Association gave him Best Editing honors.sushi grade salmon hamilton

His other projects include a GIF-based music video for the band Clipping (featuring Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs), a chapter of  the anthology film ABC’s of Death 2, editing Andy Kaufman’s posthumous (?) comedy album, Andy and His Grandmother, producing and editing Room 237 producer Tim Kirk’s The Terror of Frankenstein: Director’s Commentary, as well as countless short films including the infamous The S From Hell. sushi at home maki rice rollerHe lives in a fast-gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles with his talented wife, a beautiful cat, and a six year old boy with a special interest in the sinking of the Bismarck. (The Kubrick exhibition that we mention from LACMA is in San Francisco at the Contemporary Jewish Museum until Oct 30th!) Last Updated: December 12th Streaming video is the best thing that’s ever happened to documentaries. People who would never have paid for a ticket to a theatrical nonfiction film are now, thanks to Netflix’s robust selection, scarfing down the stuff by the barrel.

But where to start among the masses? Here’s a selection of 20 of the best documentaries on Netflix right now to get you going, conveniently organized by theme for easy bingeing. Related: The 20 Best Movies On Netflix Right Now, Ranked The Thin Blue Line (1988) Before Making a Murderer, before Serial, before The Jinx, there was Errol Morris’ landmark work of investigative cinema dredged up from the heart of Texas. The true crime story famously helped overturn the death row conviction of Randall Dale Adams, thanks in part to the director’s then-unheard-of habit of staging re-enactments of Adams’ alleged crime to see if they squared with available evidence. Its influence has been absorbed to the point where it’s virtually invisible, but The Thin Blue Line still manages several palpable shocks for newcomers to the Adams case. Once you watch it, read this excellent interview with Morris where he reflects on making the film. Add To Netflix Queue Calling Leslee Udwin’s searing account of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi medical student “true crime” is really a vast understatement — plus, the film isn’t about the investigation.

However, it is indeed necessary to view something this horrific as a crime, one perpetuated not just by the brutes on the bus but also by the culture of India itself against its vulnerable female population. At only an hour long, and also including an infuriating interview with one of the convicted men from prison, India’s Daughter packs in more righteous anger than is probably healthy. Watch it when your stomach is steeled enough. It seems as though we’re all now more aware than ever of how utterly screwed any of us can be in an instant if the system places us in its crosshairs for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not behaving in a way perceived to be “normal” in the immediate aftermath. Recent true crime documentaries like The Staircase, Making a Murderer and Serial have certainly played a part in illuminating this frightening and unfortunate slice of reality. We can now add Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn’s Amanda Knox to that list. Prepare to be terrified and infuriated as the filmmakers detail how an overzealous Italian prosecutor and a global tabloid press thirsty for a sensational story joined forces to wreck a young woman’s life, largely for their own benefit.