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Director: |
Lynn Hershman-Leeson
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Starring: |
Tilda Swinton, Peter Coyote, Marcie Prohofsky, Lucia Sommer, Sigrid Sutter, Nato Thompson, Paul Vanouse, Richard Wenzel, Keith Olbermann, Dr. Susan Leeson, Beatriz da Costa, Larissa Clayton, Jakob Bokulich, Cassie Powell, Shoresh Alaudini, Steve Kurtz, Josh Kornbluth, Thomas Jay Ryan
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Genres: |
Documentary, Biography, Indie-Arthouse Cinema, Media
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Origin: |
USA
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Languages: |
English
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Running Time: |
75 min
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The surreal nightmare of internationally-acclaimed artist and professor Steve Kurtz began when his wife Hope died in her sleep of heart failure. Police who responded to Kurtz's 911 call deemed Kurtz's art suspicious and called the FBI. Within hours the artist was detained as a suspected "bioterrorist" as dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife's body. Today Kurtz and his long-time collaborator Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, await a trial date.
Since Kurtz is not able to tell his own story on camera, for the film Strange Culture Leeson has combined interviews and newsreel footage with cinema verite-style recreations, featuring actors Thomas Jay Ryan as Steve Kurtz, Tilda Swinton as Hope Kurtz, and Peter Coyote as Steve's associate Robert Ferrell. Strange Culture also features an original score by pioneering experimental rock group the Residents.
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