Report from Sundance

DAS clients’ films Robot & Frank, The Imposter, Me@TheZoo and Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry are all enjoying successful premieres this week at The Sundance Film Festival. CDAS Partner Marc H. Simon is in Park City and reports enthusiastic receptions for all our clients’ films, and other exciting events and meetings.

Acclaimed by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and listed by the L.A. Times as a top pick at Sundance, writer/director Jake Schreier’s debut Robot & Frank is a dramatic comedy about Frank, an elderly man with declining memory, whose children concerned for his well-being buy him a caretaker robot with unexpected results. (The film has been picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide and Samuel Goldwyn Films).

Unfolding like a thriller, the documentary The Imposter tells the gripping story of a 13 year-old boy who disappears in 1994 and returns home almost four years later to tell a shocking account of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed but soon all is not what it seems.

The documentary Me@theZoo tells the fascinating post-modern tale of Chris Crocker, a video blogger from a small town in Tennessee and part of the first generation raised on the internet under constant self-surveillance. His YouTube declaration “Leave Britney Alone” which has been viewed hundreds of millions of times, catapulted Crocker to internet folk hero status overnight.

Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry offers an unprecedented look at artist and activist Ai WeiWei, known for his architecture, subversive art, and his calls for greater transparency on the part of the Chinese state. Director Alison Klayman chronicles the complexities of Ai’s life in this documentary beginning with his rise to prominence and his run-ins with China’s authorities. (Legal: Marc H. Simon for producer Adam Schlesinger).

(For Robot & Frank, Legal: Marc H. Simon for Park Pictures. For The Imposter, Legal: Susan H. Bodine for A&E, Producer/Financier. For Me@theZoo, Legal: Susan H. Bodine for Michael Stipe’s C-00 and Marc H. Simon for the producers. For Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry, Legal: Marc H. Simon for producer Adam Schlesinger).