Andrea James

News

Sundance 2020: Coded Bias, Whirlybird, Be Water

by Brian Tallerico

January 27, 2020 

Married couple Marika Gerrard and Bob Tur were on the forefront of a breaking form of news journalism in Los Angeles when Tur bought a helicopter and started flying over the city of angels. Gerrard and Tur were front and center for major news events seen around the world, including the L.A. riots and the O.J. Simpson Bronco Chase, which they chronicled most memorably. That footage of the white Bronco slowly moving down the freeway that everyone in the world has seen? Tur and Gerrard shot it. 

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–https://www.rogerebert.com/sundance/sundance-2020-coded-bias-whirlybird-be-water

By Andrea James | January 28, 2020 | Film and media news, Whirlybird |

Sundance 2020 reviews: Day 4

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Scott Renshaw on January 27, 2020

The central subject is the founders of L.A. News Service, a breaking news operation that began by chasing police scanner calls at street level in the 1980s, before taking to the skies with helicopter footage that became iconic for capturing events like the post-Rodney-King-verdict riots and the O.J. Simpson slow-speed chase.

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https://www.cityweekly.net/BuzzBlog/archives/2020/01/27/sundance-2020-reviews-day-4

By Andrea James | January 28, 2020 | Film and media news, Whirlybird |

Sundance Review: Whirlybird Explores the Adrenaline-Fueled Aerial News Game

Matt Cipolla

January 28, 2020

It’s curious to see something like Whirlybird in a time when traditional television use is 1.) on the decline and 2.) retroactively looked as a precursor to today’s voyeurism. Director Matt Yoka frames the archive footage almost as a precursor to salacious reality TV trash. And there’s a lot of the footage, given how obsessively Bob documented his personal life. (He would have been a great dad vlogger.) Thankfully, Yoka doesn’t just use it just for the sake of humanizing his subjects; he plants the seed, then watches it rot.

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–https://thefilmstage.com/sundance-review-whirlybird-explores-the-adrenaline-fueled-aerial-news-game/

By Andrea James | January 28, 2020 | Events and Appearances, Film and media news, Whirlybird |

Sundance 2020 Review: The Sky’s the Limit in Matt Yoka’s Profound “Whirlybird”

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JANUARY 26, 2020 11:15 PM

by STEPHEN SAITO

As Tur relates this fascinating personal epiphany, “Whirlybird” is bound to leave one about television news gathering as well, as both Zoey and Marika consider throughout the years how they’ve become desensitized to extreme situations and their role in sensationalizing them to attract viewers. 

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–http://moveablefest.com/matt-yoka-whirlybird/

By Andrea James | January 26, 2020 | Film and media news, Reviews, Whirlybird |

The LGBTQ Films of Sundance 2020

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by Daniel Reynolds

Many of the year’s best films — LGBTQ or otherwise — gain momentum at the Sundance Film Festival, the annual cinematic gathering in Park City, Utah. This year’s queer offerings are the strongest yet. Below, see the productions that showcase the stories and lives of the LGBTQ community, which may go on to change the world through commercial and critical success. 

Whirlybird / U.S.A.

Soaring above the chaotic spectacle of ’80s and ’90s Los Angeles, a young couple revolutionized breaking news with their brazen helicopter reporting. Culled from this news duo’s sprawling video archive is a poignant L.A. story of a family in turbulence hovering over a city unhinged.

Director: Matt Yoka, Producers: Diane Becker, Matt Yoka; World Premiere

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https://www.advocate.com/film/2020/1/24/sundance-2020-lgbtq-films

By Andrea James | January 25, 2020 | Film and media news, Whirlybird |

Director Matt Yoka, Whirlybird on The Sundance Reel

By BARB BRETZ & LESLIE THATCHER

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In this segment of The Sundance Reel, Leslie Thatcher and Barbara Bretz talk to the director of Whirlybird, Matt Yoka, U.S. Documentary Competion entry in the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. #kpcwsundancereel #Whirlybird #kpcwlistenlikealocal #sundance2020

https://www.kpcw.org/post/january-24-2020-director-matt-yoka-whirlybird#stream/0

By Andrea James | January 25, 2020 | Whirlybird |

Sundance ’20: Senior programmer David Courier on this year’s ones to watch

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By Daniele Alcinii

January 22, 2020

Were there any emerging documentary filmmakers whose work stood out to you?

There are also a couple of standouts in the U.S. Doc Competition: Whirlybird is the first feature from Matt Yoka. That film is a period piece about a news team that would helicopter around Los Angeles. That one knocked our socks off. 

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–https://realscreen.com/2020/01/22/sundance-20-senior-programmer-david-courier-on-this-years-ones-to-watch/

By Andrea James | January 23, 2020 | Film and media news, Reviews, Stuff to check out, Uncategorized, Whirlybird |

Sundance 2020: The LGBTQ Films We Can’t Wait to See in Park City

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By Jude Dry -January 22, 2020

Here are the most exciting stories, documentaries and short films going to Sundance this year.

“WhirlyBird”

Matt Yoka’s documentary “Whirlybird” focuses on the life of transgender helicopter pilot and reporter Zoe Tur. Tur is a pioneer in helicopter reporting and has recorded more than 10,000 flight hours for news events in Los Angeles from the 1992 riots to the O.J. ranged. Simpson Ford Bronco chase from 1994. The film tells the story of Tur’s gender change and at the same time captures the identity and evolution of Los Angeles, seen from Tur’s unique sky viewpoint. The film combines intimate interviews with Tur and people they know with some of the most fascinating aerial photography of Los Angeles that has been videotaped.

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–https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sundance-lgbt-films-gay-lesbian-queer-2020-1202204796/

By Andrea James | January 23, 2020 | Film and media news, Reviews, Whirlybird |

‘Whirlybird’ shows a filmmaker swinging for the fences at Sundance

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Entertainment | January 23, 2020

JAY MEEHAN

With adrenaline driving the narrative from both the air and the ground, the never-ending breaking news cycle and the competition to capture its most intriguing visual aspects for L.A.’s prime-time news make for a riveting storyline. Keeping up with the footage and adapting its effects upon the family and the city is at the heart of Yoka’s film.

The overhead archival camera shots of L.A. in both panorama and close up, coupled with head-shot interviews and candid family footage shot specifically for the film, provided him a palette sufficient to cinematically carve out both his criteria. He would indeed have an L.A. story with enough visual to drop jaws.

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–https://www.parkrecord.com/entertainment/whirlybird-shows-a-filmmaker-swinging-for-the-fences-at-sundance/

By Andrea James | January 23, 2020 | Film and media news, Reviews, Stuff to check out, Uncategorized, Whirlybird |

2020 Sundance movies: 39 buzzy films to check out at the festival

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By KENNETH TURAN

FILM CRITIC JAN. 23, 2020 5 AM

As to what’s screening at Sundance itself, the news is good. Having had the opportunity to sample a variety of what’s in store, I was struck not only by the continued remarkable strength of the festival’s documentaries but also by the involving adult dramas that are rare elsewhere but plentiful here. Here are the films that made the strongest impression on me:

“Whirlybird”: L.A.’s pioneering helicopter news pilot Bob Tur, known to be exceptionally aggressive in chasing stories, looks back on his life, having transitioned to Zoey Tur.

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https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-01-23/sundance-film-festival-2020-turan-recommendations

By Andrea James | January 23, 2020 | Film and media news, Stuff to check out, Whirlybird |