The Great Invisible, the documentary on the gulf oil spill, won the 2014 SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, and we talk to director Margaret Brown about the stunning film that illuminates the lives of those affected by the disaster. With her history with people in the south (she directed The Order Of Myths), SXSW is the perfect backdrop to talk to her about her film. Featuring the trailer and clips from the film, it is another first look at a groundbreaking film on the world’s only all documentary talk show, BYOD.
Watch new episodes of BYOD live each week on Tuesdays at noon on TheLip.TV, or tune in for the archived replay starting here on the following Thursday.
ABOUT BYOD:
BYOD is hosted by Ondi Timoner, director of “DIG!,” “JOIN US” and “WE LIVE IN PUBLIC,” and has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice. Each week the show explores a different documentary filmmaker or aspect of filmmaking, with special guests and a live Q&A– diving deep into creative process and the business realities of producing and distributing films. Ondi shares her insider views, opinions, and personal stories, welcoming audience participation. BYOD aims to entertain, inform, and elevate documentaries in general by bringing attention to films and film makers that deserve exposure.
GUEST BIO:
THE GREAT INVISIBLE
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. It killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in American history. The explosion still haunts the lives of those most intimately affected, though the story has long ago faded from the front page. At once a fascinating corporate thriller, a heartbreaking human drama and a peek inside the walls of the secretive oil industry, “The Great Invisible” is the first documentary feature to go beyond the media coverage to examine the crisis in depth through the eyes of oil executives, survivors and Gulf Coast residents who experienced it first-hand and then were left to pick up the pieces while the world moved on.
Margaret Brown received the 2010 Peabody Award for her second documentary feature The Order of Myths, which also received the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards and was nominated for Best Documentary. Brown received the Cinematic Vision Award at the 2008 Silverdocs Film Festival, the 2008 Grierson Youth Jury Award in England, and was nominated for four Cinema Eyes awards including Best Documentary and Best Director. Brown’s first feature was the acclaimed documentary Be There to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received worldwide theatrical distribution.
EPISODE BREAKDOWN:
00:01 Welcome to BYOD, with Margaret Brown.
03:00 Firsthand on the rig.
05:50 Reasons for the spill.
09:00 Understanding the south.
09:50 Producing the film.
12:55 THE GREAT INVISIBLE, clip.
13:40 The effect of the spill on oysters.
16:35 THE GREAT INVISIBLE, Trailer.
ADD’L LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/thegreatinvisible
http://www.takepart.com/
https://www.facebook.com/takepart
https://twitter.com/takepart
