Under the Gun at Sundance
Film: Sundance Film Festival
Director Stephanie Soechtig and producer Katie Couric take aim at the rhetoric of fear and the politics of paranoia surrounding firearm regulation in the U.S.
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UT — The explosive topic of gun control isn’t just at the heart of two documentaries here at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s an issue that’s seeped into the very fabric of the Sundance vibe. For the first time ever, attendees must undergo a security check before entering a theatre. Bags are screened, coats must be unzipped and open — and they aren’t just checking for recording devices. According to organizers, the festival didn’t receive any specific threat to mandate the new policy. It’s just a new measure to keep up with the new American reality, where mass shootings are almost commonplace and ordinary citizens are at risk of a violent death at the hands of a gun-toting stranger. It’s a fact that haunts and conflicts the ...
Feeling Blue in a Red State
Blow a kiss? Fire a gun? Bonding with your neighbor can be a blast, but not always in the best way writes one veteran scribe who went for a walk and stared down the barrel of an ugly reality in her own backyard
By Carla McClain
A beautiful part of the world this is - rural southern Arizona only a couple dozen miles from the border with Mexico. Big sky, big mountains embracing a valley of rolling grasslands and evergreen oak trees. A land of quiet, peace and tranquility. Usually. Walking home from an evening trek with my dogs, high on the solitude of nature only, our reverie was shattered by gunshots - one, two, three, four - a terrifying sound that triggers fight-or-flight in the primitive brainstem, much like the rattle of our venomous snakes when you get too close. I whirled around, to see the distant figure of a man up on a hill, his arm raised, his weapon aimed….at us. Having no time to flee and no way to fight, I screamed, a demented howl of sheer terror. The dogs, as ...
