This week:
Two CNN Films premiered last week at SXSW.
Plus, the Bourdain podcast explores Madagascar and New Jersey.
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CNN makes a splash at SXSW |
Last week, CNN presented a new slate of exciting content at Austin's South By Southwest, or SXSW Festival. CNN stars and executives shared all of the exciting new shows, features, Original Series and Films that will be coming to CNN+ in March. CNN Films also premiered two all-new documentaries at the festival. Find out more about them below!
Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down
The tender yet raw documentary, Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down, is about former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ remarkable perseverance following a horrific 2011 assassination attempt that left her with partial paralysis and language impairment, aphasia. Home movies filmed at the hospital and current-day cinema verité filming, show Gifford’s painstaking and miraculous recovery from a gunshot to her head and her path to becoming one of America’s most effective advocates for gun violence prevention.
The filmmakers, RBG directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen, also capture a remarkable love story between Giffords and her husband, astronaut-turned-senator Mark Kelly.
You can read more about the reaction to the film here.
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Gabby Giffords at the SXSW premiere of Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down.
(John Nowak/WarnerMedia)
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The Last Movie Stars
From director Ethan Hawke, The Last Movie Stars is a lush, revelatory, and sweeping documentary that celebrates the enigmatic personas, incandescent talent, and love story of actors Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. Told in six parts, the film expands on the interviews from a long-abandoned memoir project that Newman himself commissioned from a friend and screenwriter Stewart Stern.
“Exploring Woodward and Newman through their 50-year love affair has proven more rewarding than I could have imagined. Their work, philanthropy, and lives serve as a kind of North Star, illuminating what a substantive, meaningful life can look like,” said Hawke.
Click here to read more about the reaction to the first hour of the film.
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Director Ethan Hawke attends the premiere of The Last Movie Stars at SXSW. (Gary Miller/WireImage) |
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One of your favorite CNN Original Series is now a podcast: |
The CNN podcast Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown relives the adventures of world-renowned chef, bestselling author and TV host Anthony Bourdain as he discovers Parts Unknown: little-known destinations and diverse cultures that make our global community more connected.
In today's episode, Bourdain travels to Madagascar where he samples the island cuisine and hangs out with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky.
"The camera is a liar. It shows everything. It shows nothing. It reveals only what we want. Often, what we see is seen only from a window, moving past and then gone. One window. My window. If you’d been here, chances are you would have seen things differently," Bourdain wrote in 2015. In a CNN article, he opened up about the poverty he saw during the trip.
In the next episode, which also released this morning, Bourdain explores his childhood home state of New Jersey with his brother Chris and rekindles memories at Hiram's Roadstand, a small hot dog restaurant.
"I’m a sucker for nostalgia. You can’t go back. I can’t go back. I wouldn’t, even if I could. I sure don’t want to ever have to be a teenager again. But those tastes and smells of childhood, they work still," he said at the time.
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