FILM THREAT – ASK NO QUESTIONS Review
SLAMDANCE 2020 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW! Wildly intriguing and entertaining, Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s speculative documentary Ask No Questions plays out like a real-life episode of Black Mirror. The filmmakers do ask questions, which they know have no definitive answers – and yet, as their investigation gradually unfurls, horrific implications are revealed: an alleged, meticulously-planned, violent scheme by a controlling government to destroy a spiritual group that it deemed threatening. A lot is packed into Ask No Questions brief running time, so keep up… Source: https://filmthreat.com/reviews/ask-no-questions/
DEADLINE – A Film Festival Screening In VR? ‘Ask No Questions’ Documentary Is Trying It, And Here’s How It Will Look
The filmmakers behind this year’s Slamdance documentary Ask No Questions saw their film’s festival run waylaid this spring by the industry’s coronavirus shutdown. Now they are teaming with San Francisco’s DocFest, where the pic was headed next, in an effort bring the fest screening experience to audiences in their homes. Source: https://deadline.com/2020/04/ask-no-questions-virtual-reality-film-festival-screening-1202911101/
Iran and Its Youth
A 22 min show in Farsi edited from four live webcasts.
SF WEEKLY: The Roxie Theater Experiments with Virtual Reality Screening
It has been a little over a month since the Roxie Virtual Cinema opened on March 25, bringing the Roxie Theater’s curated programming to audiences online while the theater remains closed per the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order. While movies that otherwise would have played at the Roxie account for the bulk of Virtual Cinema, it is also a space that replicates — as best as it can — the entire indie theater experience. For example, in addition to taking in films, viewers are also invited to participate in Q&As. Source: https://www.sfweekly.com/film/the-roxie-theater-experiments-with-virtual-reality-screening/
DEADLINE – 1091 Nabs ‘Ask No Questions’ Docu – Film Briefs
1091 has acquired rights to Ask No Questions, a journalistic true-crime documentary from Lofty Sky Pictures as well as filmmakers Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli. It slated to be released across all digital platforms throughout North America beginning on June 30. The doc, which premiered at the year’s Slamdance, examines the captivating story of a Chinese state TV insider who is held and forced to accept the state line on a fiery public suicide he believes was a government plot… Source: https://deadline.com/2020/05/ren-stimpy-documentary-gravitas-talent-managers-erika-monroe-williams-sherry-kayne-moxie-artists-1091-ask-no-questions-docu-film-briefs-1202935853/
UNSEEN FILMS – Ask No Questions (2020) Slamdance 2020
ASK NO QUESTIONS is a look at China’s treatment of the Falun Gong movement which it supported for a while before it’s exponential growth scared the ruling party and the cracked down on it. The film focuses on the incident in Tiananmen Square where several members of Falun Gong set themselves on fire in protest. It was a moment that the Chinese government seized upon as means of showing how dangerous the group was… Source: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2020/01/ask-no-questions-2020-slamdance-2020.html
SLUG Magazine on Slamdance: Ask No Questions
Viewers must approach Ask No Questions as a investigative documentary instead of another conspiracy-theory proposal. The film begins with the account of a CNN reporter who, with her cameraman, captures the scene of what is televised as a Falun Gong “religious public suicide” in Beijing at Tiananmen Square. After the government officials detain the reporters, CNN’s Lisa Weaver and her cameraman manage to smuggle the footage, details and clues are revealed about what really happened on Chinese New Year 2001 at Tiananmen Square. Source: https://www.slugmag.com/slugmag/slamdance-ask-no-questions/
FILMS GONE WILD – VOD Reviews: Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s ASK NO QUESTIONS
At once both extremely personal and universal, this documentary about a potentially falsified self-immolation in 2001 in Tiananmen Square reflects all the best qualities of true crime and documentary. Ask No Questions feels like an intensely personal story as it focuses on directors Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s questioning of a self-immolation by members of the group Falun Gong. Despite his very personal investment (himself a practicing member of the Buddhist branch of religion) it maintains a slight air of objectivity as it examines this event to understand the Chinese propaganda and brainwashing state apparatus. Ask No Questions follows the personal account of a journalist held in brainwashing detention centers in China while Loftus and Pedicelli investigate the true nature of a self-immolation all culminating in a paranoid sensation that the Chinese government orchestrated the entire event. Source: http://filmsgonewild.com/vod-reviews-jason-loftus-ask-no-questions-looks-suspected-faked-immolation-suicides-by-the-chinese-government-by-balancing-a-personal-story-with-true-crime-deconstruction/
J.B. Spins – Slamdance ’20: Ask No Questions
The world should be horrified by the evidence of genocide emerging from East Turkestan, but we shouldn’t be so surprised. To a large extent, the Chinese Communist Party is merely repeating the game-plan they used to launch their wholesale crackdown on Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong). Today, Party propaganda tells the world they are simply rotting out terrorists. In the case, of Falun Gong, it was religious extremism. Filmmakers Jason Loftus & Eric Pedicelli ask the hard questions about the incident used to justify the anti-Falun Gong campaign that the Western media should have in the riveting expose documentary, Ask No Questions, which premiered at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival, in Park City… Source: http://www.jbspins.com/2020/01/slamdance-20-ask-no-questions.html
SALT LAKE DIRT – An Interview with the Filmmakers of ASK NO QUESTIONS
One of the standouts at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival was the documentary Ask No Questions. We were fortunate enough to interview the filmmakers Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli during Slamdance and an excerpt from that interview can be found below. Ask No Questions was slated to play at the SF DocFest this year as well. Due to shelter-in-place restrictions the festival has been postponed indefinitely. However, the SF DocFest has partnered with the filmmakers of Ask No Questions to do a one-off online screening to experiment with a festival-style screening in VR. You can see Ask No Questions in this format at various times on April 28th… Source: https://saltlakedirt.com/f/an-interview-with-the-filmmakers-of-ask-no-questions