If early reports on Friday afternoon had turned out to be completely accurate, it would have been a much different weekend. Thankfully, Harrison Ford remains in stable condition after the crash of his small plane on a California golf course. As if we needed it, the events on Friday reminded us all that all of our idols will eventually pass. But for now, the man who brought so many beloved, badass characters to the cinema will live on in both body and spirit. Here are the top news items you may have missed over the past week:

Legendary Documentarian, Albert Maysles, Dies at 88

There are few filmmakers that have shaped the modern documentary as much as Albert Maysles. Often working with his brother, David Maysels, Albert made 49 feature and short documentaries, many are among the best personal profiles ever made. Among his credits include Gimme Shelter, the landmark profile of the Rolling Stones and the tragedy at their Altamont concert, following a door-to-door salesman in Salesman, and the best film ever made about Muhammad Ali, When We Were Kings. His most notable film, Grey Gardens, received a re-release in New York City this weekend before it expands to more cities. His last film, In Transit, is set to premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Check out the Dissolve for Keith Phipps’s beautiful tribute.

True/False Film Festival Wraps

The small film festival that takes place each year in college town Columbia, Missouri, has built itself into one of the best destinations to see documentary film. The 2015 festival took place this past weekend and highlights included the director’s cut of The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer’s follow-up The Look of Silence, Kartemquin Film’s (the studio behind Ebert documentary Life Itself) Almost There, Morgan Neville’s Best of Enemies, Gibney Scientology sendoff Going Clear, and Sundance standout (T)Error.

Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij Netflix Show

Marling and Batmanglij burst onto the indie film scene at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival with the very interesting cult thriller The Sound of My Voice (Marling’s Another Earth also premiered at the festival that year). The duo reunited in 2013 with The East, a more than solid follow-up. According to Deadline, their next venture will be The OA, an eight-episode series that was greenlit for Netflix. Plot details for the series aren’t yet known, but given the talent involved, we can expect it to be original, tense and dark.

The End of the Tour Release Dates Announced

A Sundance darling from this year’s festival, The End of the Tour, has received a July 31 limited release date. Released by A24, the film stars Jesse Eisenberg as a Rolling Stone writer who builds a relationship with author David Foster Wallace just before his untimely death. Wallace is portrayed by Jason Segel, who received raves out of Sundance, with some even speculating year-end awards buzz. For more information on the decision to give the indie Oscar hopeful a summer release, Anne Thompson has the scoop at her blog.

Wild Tales Director Damian Szifron Readying English Language Debut

On the heels of his bold anthology dark comedy, Damian Szifron is signed up for his first English language release. First reported by Deadline, the untitled thriller will be written, directed and produced by Szifron and released by TriStar. As for Wild Tales, the Oscar nominee expanded to 28 screens this past weekend and will hopefully show up at a theater near you.

Trailer of the Week: The Connection

Following his Best Actor win for The Artist, Jean Dujardin’s next starring role sees him trying to take down the biggest drug ring in France. The Connection (titled La French in France), debuted at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and is up for a limited release in May. Check out the violent red-band trailer below.

Zal Batmanglij’s The East arrives on Blu-ray and DVD today and we are celebrating by giving away a copy of the film on Blu-ray to two of our Way Too Indie readers. The East follows an ambitious new recruit (Brit Marling) on her first undercover assignment to infiltrate “The East”, an activist collective that terrorizes corporate leaders who commit crimes against humanity. The film is Batmanglij’s follow-up to his directorial debut of Sound of My Voice which also starred Brit Marling.

How do you enter the giveaway?

Step 1: LIKE Way Too Indie on Facebook
Step 2: Leave a comment on this page telling us what your favorite spy film is.

* Additional chance to win: Follow @WayTooIndie on Twitter and tweet at us: (your favorite spy film) “@WayTooIndie http://way2in.de/east”, to enter.

The East trailer:

The Earth Liberation Front that inspired The East

The film is said to be inspired by Zal and Brit’s experience of spending some time with an anarchist group briefly during the summer. Lending to that experience were the various eco-terrorist groups and movements in the northwest, such as the Earth Liberation Front. Starting in 1992, ELF as its known began in United Kingdom and quickly spread throughout Europe into the US. Here are important facts you need to know about ELF and its part for inspiring the film, The East.

ELF Fact #1:

How It Came to Be
ELF was founded in the UK, in the city of Brighton by members of a group called Earth First (EF!). Earth First! was described as a movement and quickly notes it is not an organization. EF developed a popular reputation of not overtly breaking any laws in their protests. This led to the creation of ELF, as it was called for those that chose to carry out extreme measures.

ELF Fact #2:

Notable Actions
The ELF garnered national attention with a series of events, most notably, the burning of a $12 million ski resort in the wealthy and famous Vail, Colorado. The reason behind the attack is said to be primarily because the resort was set to expand their property, which in turn, would ruin the last lynx habitat in the state. In a release to the press, it’s stated the elves expressed that business ahead of Colorado’s habitat would not be tolerated.

ELF Fact #3:

What’s In a Name?
Much like the film, the group called themselves ‘The East’. The ELF is also known as ‘Elves’ or ‘The Elves’. The exact definition is the autonomous individuals or covert cells “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment”.

ELF Fact #4:

If A Tree Falls
Gaining notoriety for its abrasive and destructive tactics, ELF became the subject of the world news and the film world alike. A Sundance winner and Academy Award nominated documentary, If A Tree Falls, investigates the movement through the eyes of one of its members, Daniel McGowan. The documentary includes rare footage and interviews with members of the cell during the height of the movement from 1995 to early 2001.

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I’ll admit that the main reason I was interested in The East was due to it starring Ellen Page, though the story did also appeal to me. I had not seen Zal Batmanglij’s previous thriller, Sound of My Voice, so I went in blind in regards to his style. However, I was thoroughly impressed. The East is Batmanglij’s second Sundance release and I’d recommend almost everyone to see it, but don’t go expecting epicness as you may be disappointed, instead acknowledge that it’s a morally complex ‘we are the revolution’, gripping and profound film featuring an tremendously talented and convincing cast.

Sarah Moss (Brit Marling) is a private intelligence operative hired by a firm titled Hiller Brood. Her first big mission set by her power hungry boss (Patricia Clarkson), requires her to infiltrate an anarchist group called The East. Her main objective is to convince the members she is a genuine supporter of their movement in order to extract names, locations and their personal agendas in order to shut them down before the FBI gets involved.

To me this was a very different take on the ‘undercover special ops’ typical plot that I’ve seen previously in films – you believed Sarah’s intentions were innocent and that she was there to stop these individuals from being sent to prison, rather than exposing the group as hardened criminals. The way in which Batmanglij approached this was to study Freeganism (the practice of reclaiming and eating food that has been discarded) alongside co-writer and actress Marling as to further understand and deepen the actors that portray the anarchist’s, commitment to an anti-consumerist lifestyle. By doing so, you get a real sense of truth and dedication from the cast towards their cause, which brings to light the difficult moral choices Sarah and the audience have to make throughout the film.

Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) who is the founder of The East is very hesitant to give Sarah responsibility in the tasks that they set themselves (referred to in the film as ‘jams’). Initially, Benji does not believe Sarah is as free as they need her to be in respect to how she lives her life, and that her reasons for being around is not to support their movement. One thing leads to another and Sarah is asked by Izzy (Ellen Page – Benji’s second in command) to perform duties to help secure the successful completion of a major jam – one close to the members hearts. In order to play a part in this mission however, she is not allowed to know the details about what they will be doing, only that she has to distract a certain man. When the night is over the group commend her for her efforts. As they begin to trust Sarah they end up explaining to her what they do and why they do it.

Throughout the film The East demonstrates an outstanding ability to take you on several different emotional journeys and intense adventures. There may be a few flaws within the narrative structure, where there seem to be missing sections of information in certain scenes. In some cases this is a good thing, but here it made the film feel a little off balance. Overall, The East did not disappoint my expectations and actually exceeded my expectations on almost all accounts. I left the cinema with a thousand things to talk about and nearly all were very positive. Also, the soundtrack was amazing, something I should have mentioned earlier, but I’m saying it now!

The East trailer:

Reading the synopsis from Sundance Film Festival had one thinking that the second feature film from Zal Batmanglij, The East, sounded a lot like his previous film, which also featured and was co-written by Brit Marling. The film is about a person who looks to infiltrate an anarchist group, but ends up falling for its leader. That is shockingly close to the premise of Sound of My Voice, essentially swamping a cult group for an anarchist one. But an official trailer of the film was released today and judging from what is shown, The East appears to be more different than it sounds.

The cast of The East includes; Ellen Page, Alexander Skarsgård, and Brit Marling. The estimated budget of the film is 6.5 million. The film premiered yesterday at the Sundance Film Festival.

Watch the official trailer for The East:

Sound of My Voice an intelligent slow burning indie drama that somehow fell off many people’s radar despite a relatively warm reception at Sundance. The logical answer would be that it may have been slightly overshadowed by lead Brit Marling’s other indie drama during the same year, Another Earth. It is one of the most captivating opening ten minutes that I have seen in years and it does not lose your attention once during the film.

The beginning of Sound of My Voice starts with an appropriately named title card of “One”. Two characters pull up into a garage with their car with further instructions pending their arrival. A man comes into the garage and pats the man and woman down to make sure they are not carrying any weapons. They are handed a change of clothes and instructed to “be thorough with the soap” as they shower before changing into their white scrubs. The two are then blindfolded before they are loaded into a van with several others heading to a discreet location.

Everyone is gathered in a circle all wearing the same white scrubs in some unknown basement. An older man with long gray haired man and oval glasses introduces the two main characters Peter Aitken (Christopher Denham) and his girlfriend Lorna Michaelson (Nicole Vicius) to the rest of the group. The man explains that Peter and Lorna are in for an unforgettable experience as newcomers but are not permitted to ask questions or make any sudden movements. The man then calls Maggie (Brit Marling) to the room. She slowly strolls in with an oxygen tank in hand.

Maggie goes on to explain her story of how she woke up in a bath tub in a motel one day but is still to this day not sure how she ended up there to begin with. She left the motel only remembering her name and her birthday but nothing else. She had no money or memories so she ended up on the streets until one day the man with the long gray hair, who we first saw in the basement, picked her up off the streets. She also explains that the tattoo of an anchor on her ankle means that she is a traveler and the number 54 next to it represents the year 2054 because that is where she comes from.

In chapter “Two” Peter and Lorna are leaving the cult location and reveal the true purpose of them being there. He explains that he wants to expose her because she is a con-artist who claims to be traveling back in time to save the people she loves. This bleeds into the third chapter that begins with Peter swallowing a transmitter which will record video of Maggie. The footage will be part of the documentary that the two plan to make on cults.

Just as he was about to expose Maggie as the fraud that he thought she was something crazy happened. She seeks him out and begins to describe his past well enough that he angers him before eventually he breaks down into tears. So maybe she is not con-artist he thought she was? Even though he denies later to Lorna that the emotions he showed were faked, it is hard to believe him. The ensuing chapters make it even harder to tell if Peter is continuing with the investigative journalism or if he has actually started to believe in Maggie.

2011 was a breakout year for Brit Marling. This is because not only did she star, co-produce, and co-write Sound of My Voice but also did the same for Another Earth. Both which were considered Sundance hits the same year. In both of these roles, she plays a compelling otherworldly character that is absolutely convincing and powerful.

However, perhaps even more impressive than the fantastic acting, is that the film was done by a first time filmmaker. Zal Batmanglij bypasses many of the pitfalls of similar films with thought-provoking scenes in a seemingly effortless manner. That is because the film does not clutter up the plot; it is simple yet highly effective. These are feats that are often not overcome by first time directors.

Sound of My Voice has the cult concept from Martha Marcy May Marlene and the lo-fi drama feel of Brit Marling’s previous film, Another Earth. As much as I enjoyed both of those films, I found myself mesmerized the whole time during Sound of My Voice and could not wait to see what happened next. If you thought the ending of Another Earth was intriguing, wait to you see this. There is no doubt some will fault the ending and some of the minor hiccups it had along the way but for me the positives vastly exceeded the negatives.

Fox Home Entertainment just gave a street date of October 2nd for Zal Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice on Blu-ray and DVD. Along with the release date they gave some details on what the special features will contain as well as full specs on the film.

Synopsis:

Brit Marling is “intoxicating” (The Huffington Post) and “stirring” (PEOPLE) in the year’s most talked-about psychological thriller. A filmmaker (Christopher Denham) and his girlfriend (Nicole Vicius) set out to expose the beautiful leader of a cult (Marling), who claims to be from the future. But the more they explore, the more danger they face in this “intricate and taut thriller” (Claudia Puig, USA Today) from writer-actress Marling and writer-director Zal Batmanglij.

Special Features:
DVD:

• The Making of The Sound of My Voice
• Maggie Featurettes
• Theatrical Trailer

BD – all of the above plus:

• The Making of The Sound of My Voice
• Fox Movie Channel Presents: Direct Effect Zal Batmanglij
• Fox Movie Channel Presents: Writer s Draft Brit Marling

Specs:
Sound of My Voice Blu-ray & DVD
Street Date: October 2, 2012
Screen Format: 16:9 (2.35:1)
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD-MA
French 5.1 DD
Spanish 5.1 DD
Subtitles: English, French and Spanish
U.S. Rating: R
Total Run Time: 01:53:57 / 01:44:18 (DVD)
Closed Captioned: Yes

After watching the excellent trailer for Sound of My Voice two things came to mind, the first was how much I am looking forward to watching this film. The second was how closely it resembled Martha Marcy May Marlene. The latter is interesting as Fox Searchlight picked up both of these films for distribution.

The film made the Official Selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and stars Brit Marling. Brit Marling was considered a “Sundance standout” in 2011 as she not only starred, co-wrote and co-produced Sound of My Voice but in the same year had the same credentials for Another Earth (which was fantastic). The film also stars Christopher Denham (Shutter Island and Nicole Vicius ((500) Days of Summer).

Sound of My Voice theater release date is: April 27th. You can, however, watch the first 12 minutes of Sound of My Voice on their official website, www.soundofmyvoicemovie.com.

Official trailer for Sound of My Voice: