Documentaries

3 things to do for free in Denver this week, April 22-26

Whether you're broke after a weekend of partying or simply a frugal, responsible adult who likes to go out for free, there's plenty in Denver to do this week that won't cost a dime. Choose to learn about green energy at the annual Earth Day celebration, watch a series of free form short films, and/o ... More >>

Women + Film = Discussion

Three local film fests are lighting up screens in Denver and Boulder

Who Will Be the Next King of Kong?

Local filmmakers tackle zombie culture with Doc of the Dead

Denver has zombie walks, zombie proms, zombie races, zombie car washes and zombie fashion shows, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a pair of Denver filmmakers have launched an ambitious zombie documentary. Alexandre O. Philippe and Robert Muratore, the pair behind the Star Wars doc The People ... More >>

Bustin’ Loose

Horror docs will highlight film fest's Watching Hour program

The full lineup of the 2012 Starz Denver Film Fest won't be released until next week, but fans of the weird, dark and twisted elements of the festival's programming got a sneak peek Friday when the festival's Watching Hour lineup was revealed. This year's batch of late-night favorites includes the b ... More >>

DocuWest brings dancing trash trucks and the iron will of artist Ai Weiwei to Golden

The DocuWest Documentary Film Festival, a Westword Best of Denver recipient, will continue to champion nonfictional film when the tight little fest returns to the Foothills Art Center and other satellite locations tonight. Nearly forty films of varying lengths, many of them Colorado premieres, will ... More >>

Movie Mayhem

Architect's Office is a one-man avant-garde show

Colorado on Screen

Lasley Elementary gets a new salad bar as part of HBO's The Weight of the Nation

Lakewood mayor Bob Murphy stood in front of Lasley Elementary students today and talked about how the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff view obesity as a national security issue, since 27 percent of all applicants for the armed forces are too obese to serve. The rest of the festivities were more upbeat, bu ... More >>

Reader: Sand Creek Massacre is a piece of history that should not be ignored

Not enough history for you in History Colorado? Did you want more context in the exhibit devoted to the Sand Creek Massacre? That was one of the complaints in the New York Times piece on the new facility -- which echoed some of Michael Paglia's criticisms of History Colorado. There are ways to fill ... More >>

Q & A: Filmmaker Todd Cassetty's 5 Days in Denver recreates Re-create 68

Director/producer Todd Cassetty is used to working with pop sensations like Taylor Swift. He produced two Taylor Swift music videos and seven Taylor Swift TV specials -- most notably, her 2010 NBC Thanksgiving Special. More recently, though Cassetty has set his sights on a culture somewhat less pred ... More >>

The Columbine shootings continue to "inspire" Hollywood

Thirteen years and a hundred school shootings later, why is Hollywood still obsessed with this one?

Ten things to do for $10 this weekend, March 2-4, 2012

It looks like March is roaring in like a lion just in time for the weekend, but that doesn't mean there aren't a ton of things to do for fun. From Johnny Depp's classic bad-boy role in Cry-Baby to a whole slew of art openings, we've got plenty of interesting events to attend that won't maul your poc ... More >>

Saving Face and The Descendants link Colorado to Oscar wins

Colorado-based filmmaker Daniel Junge won an Oscar tonight for Saving Face, the short documentary film that follows a Pakistani plastic surgeon dedicated to performing reconstructive surgery on women who've been attacked with acid. Read an interview with Junge about Saving Face.

Daniel Junge on his Oscar nomination, Saving Face, and the Colorado film industry

​This isn't Daniel Junge's first trip to the Oscars. The Colorado-based filmmaker was nominated for an Academy Award in 2010 for his documentary The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner; this time he's nominated in the Documentary Short category for Saving Face, a film that follows a Pakist ... More >>

kART Across America: Michael Moore offers to help local documentarians

In December, we caught up with Andy Raney and Jeremy Make, the local co-creators of kART Across America, a documentary devoted to their 108-day trek across the United States in a fussy, broken-down golf kart named Christine. On Thursday, Michael Moore caught up with them -- on NPR. In a Talk of the ... More >>

2012 Women Film Voices Festival programming announced

"Last year, five percent of movies were made by women," says Karla Rodriguez of the Denver FilmCenter. Which is exactly why this second annual edition of Women Film Voices is imperative -- to shine a light on a corner of the film-making world that is often overlooked. The lineup for the festival, ... More >>

Hollywood, Colorado exhibit at the Boulder History Museum showcases films made here

Boulder History MuseumA still from the movie "The White Desert," filmed at Rollins Pass in 1925.​ Colorado is no Hollywood, but the state does have a rich film past, if not an active film present, as detailed in our cover story "The Reel West." Today, in an effort to jump-start the state's mov ... More >>

The 2012 Oscar-nominated short films offer something for everyone

The arty, spare Inni follows Iceland's Sigur Ros

Starz Denver Film Fest attendance, revenue up, Starz FilmCenter replacement search goes on

Tom Botelho.​Denver Film Society executive director Tom Botelho is still recovering from the just-concluded Starz Denver Film Festival; he's got a severe cold. But the word of mouth about the fest makes him feel better, and so do attendance and revenue figures, both of which appear to be up ov ... More >>

Director Larry Wessel on his documentary ICONOCLAST and his fallout with Boyd Rice

​When filmmaker Larry Wessel started working on ICONOCLAST, he didn't know it was going to turn into a six-year filming project. But then again, his subject, Boyd Rice, has been a wild and curious abstraction of a performer, whose work in music with the NON was a forerunner in noise and indust ... More >>

Michael Moore speaks at Occupy Denver to a crowd that leaves shortly after

Michael Moore.​Michael Moore was late. The man whose personality is as almost as big as his mouth, and for whom both eclipse his documentaries, was an hour late by the time he reached the unusually large crowd waiting for him at Occupy Denver. By the time he arrived, its size was at least six ... More >>

Get Your Indiana Jones on with Uncharted 3, or get your mad scientist geek on with The Geek Dad Book this week, in our new release picks for November 1, 2011

​Finally, November is here, and if the rent and bills are paid up, you may have a little extra cash to spend on miscellaneous nonsense. Thankfully, we have plenty of it, with the especially exciting The Geek Dad Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists providing a whole slew of fun experiments to do w ... More >>

Colorado music scene documentary underway

​In 2006, Diego Ramos started shooting a web-based documentary on the Colorado music scene, but he says it was a little ahead of its time. So last summer, Ramos, who's worked as director of photography on the Discovery Channel's Disappeared, started filming other local acts for another project ... More >>

Documenting Documentaries

Diggin’ On This

Director Michael Sládek gets candid about Con Artist

​Though it's largely been forgotten in the annals of crack-pottery and snake-oil salesmanship, the story of Mark Kostabi is one of the art world's weirdest and most head-slappingly dumb. A darling of the high-rolling '80s New York scene, Kostabi and his rise to fame and riches on the backs of ... More >>

Ska Brewing makes light of beer -- but not light beer -- in new video

​Craft beer has been the star of a recent documentary, a television series and a couple of Youtube videos over the past year, now another feature-length documentary is scheduled to be released this summer. Most of these efforts have been serious, noble -- sometimes overly so. Leave it to the ... More >>

Circle Jerks

Thursday, January 27,  Bluebird Theater, 303-830-8497.

Top 10 music documentaries currently streaming on Netflix

​Netflix's instant streaming service is quite possibly the most amazing service in the history of mankind. Combing through its offerings, however, is no easy task. Thankfully, we've spent an inordinate amount of time watching music documentaries (so you don't have to) and have narrowed down th ... More >>

Bob Febrache documentary needs your help

​Bob Frebrache's Absinthe Studios has been buzzing along for the better part of three decades, recording the likes of Ian Cooke, The Fluid, The Swayback, Frantix and many others. Now, friend and fellow sound engineer James McElwee wants to tell Bob's story in a new documentary -- but he needs ... More >>

The Power of Film

Tonight: William S. Burroughs rides again

The outlaw novelist is in. ​More than two decades ago, freelance writer Gregory Daurer thought it would be cool to track down William S. Burroughs at Naropa and hook him up to a brain machine. Audio excerpts of Daurer's interview with Burroughs surface in a new documentary on the outlaw novel ... More >>

Freakonomics: Not exactly the sum of its parts

Bucking the System

Soldiers in a barrel: Restrepo belongs to the soldiers in Afghanistan

Documentaries in the House

Moving Pictures: Behold, One-Eyed Doll, a rockumentary chronicling the trials and tribulations of a touring goth-punk band

Every once and a while we pretend like we want to learn things and watch documentaries, but only if they're available for free somewhere. Luckily, we just found a new one to watch, and this one involves a band we've never heard of (One-Eyed Doll), doing things we never figured bands did (they eat? ... More >>

Greg Friedler’s Bare Assets

Further Down the Road

Flick Pick

Rock, Paper

The documentary American Artifact highlights the history of rock poster art.

Film School

Fresh City Life explores the worlds of documentarian Warner Herzog.

'Tween Spirit

The Iron Age

Iron Ladies of Liberia takes an in-depth look at the country's new leader.

Bike Power