Riding a Big Wave of Bull$#!% with Award-Winning Sundance Doc 'NUTS!'
A documentary isn't fiction, it's fact. Right? Director Penny Lane calls bull$#!% on that assumption in NUTS!, her outrageously entertaining documentary that just won a Special Jury Award for Editing at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary is about the life of Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius and/or ego-maniacal conman with a goat testicle impotence cure and a million watt radio station. Penny and writer Thom Stylinksi made a film that plays with documentary conventions and employs all kinds of cinematic chicanery -- including one "hilarious unreliable narrator." And did I mention goat nut jokes? They've got that too.
Here is the first part of our interview with Penny and Thom, where they talk about the relationship of con artists to film artists, different categories of lies, and important discussions that a film like NUTS! can prompt us to have as nonfiction filmmakers.
The choices we make in this film are very, very, very manipulative, in a way that I would never be comfortable making in any old documentary…This film is about bullshit, and teaching you something about bullshit. Like, what does it look like?
Watch the full trailer for NUTS! here:
Thank you, Penny and Thom!
Keep an eye out for the next part of our interview where Penny and Thom tell us more about the details of making the film. In the meantime, follow @Nutsthefilmon Twitter or Facebook to find out where you can see it next.
For more, see our complete coverage of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
No Film School's video and editorial coverage of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival is sponsored by Blackmagic Design.
