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32 SOUNDS

Synopsis

An immersive documentary and profound sensory experience from filmmaker Sam Green that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound. The film is a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.

The Filmmakers

Sam Green Director, Writer, and Editor

Sam Green is a New York-based documentary filmmaker. Green’s most recent live documentaries include A Thousand Thoughts (with the Kronos Quartet) (2018), The Measure of All Things (2014), The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (with Yo La Tengo) (2012), and Utopia in Four Movements (2010). With all of these works, Green narrates the film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. Green’s 2004 feature-length film, The Weather Underground, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, was included in the Whitney Biennial, and has screened widely around the world. Learn more about Sam: https://samgreen.to/ 

Josh Penn Producer

Josh Penn is a producer with the Department of Motion Pictures. He produced Beasts Of The Southern Wild, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the Cannes Caméra d'Or, and was nominated for four Academy Awards (including Best Picture). In addition, Josh was nominated for Outstanding Producer at the 2013 Producer's Guild Awards.  He has produced Monsters And Men (Sundance Special Jury Prize), Philly D.A. (Winner of the 2021 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series), the live documentary A Thousand Thoughts, Wendy, Users (Sundance 2021 Best Directors Award), and Farewell Amor among others. He was an Executive Producer on Patti Cake$, Western (Sundance Special Jury Prize), The Great Invisible (SXSW Grand Jury Prize), and Bloody Nose Empty Pockets. Josh and the DMP had three films premiere at Sundance 2020, and three more in Sundance 2021.  In 2018, Josh became a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Outside of his work in film, Josh was previously the Michigan New Media Director for President Obama's 2008 campaign and a Senior Digital Program Manager for the 2012 re-election campaign.

JD Samson Composer and Performer

JD Samson is best known as leader of the band MEN and for being one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band and performance project, Le Tigre. For more than a decade JD’s career as a visual artist, musician, producer and DJ has landed her at the intersection of the music, art, activism, and fashion. During that time she has toured the world, produced songs for Grammy award winning artists, written for publications such as Huffington Post, Talkhouse, and Creative Time Review, created multi-media artwork, hosted documentary programs, acted, modeled, and engaged in direct support with a wide-range of progressive social and political causes. JD is now an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Learn more about JD: http://www.jdsamson.info/ 

Thomas O. Kriegsmann Producer

ArKtype/Thomas O. Kriegsmann specializes in new work development and touring worldwide. His past work includes projects with Kaneza Schaal, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Peter Brook, Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin, Yael Farber, Anna Deavere Smith, Annie-B Parson & Paul Lazar, Lisa Peterson, Peter Sellars, Julie Taymor, John Cameron Mitchell and Tony Taccone. Recent premieres include 600 HIGHWAYMEN’s A Thousand Ways, Bryce Dessner’s Triptych (Eyes Of One On Another), John Cameron Mitchell’s The Origin Of Love, Kaneza Schaal & Christopher Myers’ Cartography, Sam Green & Kronos Quartet’s A Thousand Thoughts, Big Dance Theater / Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Man In A Case, and Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater’s Not By Bread Alone. Ongoing collaborations include 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Big Dance Theater, Rude Mechs, Adrien M. & Clare B., Noche Flamenca, Toshi Reagon, and Compagnia T.P.O. Upcoming premieres include Scott Shepherd’s This Ignorant Present w/Malthouse, Sam Green’s 32 Sounds, Karen O & Lila Neugebauer’s Forget About You and Nora Chipaumire’s Nehanda. He is a founding member of CIPA (The Creative & Independent Producer Alliance). More information at arktype.org.

Festivals & Awards

Sundance Film Festival

2022

Award-winning documentarian Sam Green returns to Sundance with a groundbreaking and immersive documentary that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound and how it affects our conscious and unconscious lives. This indelible, feature-length journey weaves together 32 audio experiences, crafting a cinematic poem about the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world. Green previously premiered A Thousand Thoughts at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Featuring original compositions by JD Samson, 32 Sounds is designed to be experienced with personal headphones for a truly unique binaural audio experience. A high-quality headset is strongly recommended for online audiences.

+ Festival Website

Reviews

A movie I hoped would never end...Full to bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity, 32 SOUNDS is a uniquely mind-expanding plunge into a dimension of the human experience so many of us take for granted, a rare and rewarding sonic journey with the potential to enrich our lives.”

-Variety

[A] relentlessly curious documentary [with] lingering gravitas... With the narrator and musicians seated in front of the movie screen, proudly displaying their processes, the effect is as though one has unscrewed the top of a traditional documentary to expose its busily whirring component parts.”

-The New York Times