The Writer with No Hands
| The Writer with No Hands | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | William Westaway |
| Produced by | Matthew Alford (2014); Tom Czaban (2017) |
| Starring |
Claudia Christian John Irvin Haskell Wexler |
| Music by | Andy Nunn & Ian Kellett (2014); Lorenzo Tomio (2017) |
Production company |
Bus Fare Film (2014); Drum Roll Films (2017) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 87 minutes (2014); 71 minutes (2017) |
The Writer with No Hands is a British documentary feature film, which follows academic Matthew Alford as he tries to establish that the accidental death of Hollywood screenwriter Gary Devore was actually an assassination by the US government. It premiered at Hot Docs in 2014 but was not distributed. A second version was released on Amazon and iTunes on 27 June 2017, the twentieth anniversary of Devore’s disappearance.
Background
On Friday 27 June 1997, Gary Devore had been driving home after completing a new feature film script. He was last seen at a Denny's Diner in the Mohave Desert around 1am on the morning of the 28th. The subsequent manhunt remained unsuccessful until the following July when an amateur detective located fragments of Devore’s car next to the California Aqueduct near Palmdale.
The California Highway Patrol’s investigation concluded that Devore must have driven the wrong way along the highway, crashed into the water and drowned in his vehicle.[1]
Production
The film title refers to reports that Devore’s hands were detached from the body and had initially lain undiscovered in his car.[2]
In 2016, director William Westaway raised £4,769 through a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund completion of technical aspects to the final cut. The working title at the time was Follywood.[3]
Alford discussed a range of difficulties in the filmmaking process and although he produced the original film his name did not appear as producer on the final cut.[4] In 2012, Devore's publicist Michael Sands, who had been participating in the documentary, unexpectedly died after eating a meat sample in a supermarket. [5] Alford and Westaway’s differing reactions to Sands’ death fuelled their disagreements over the direction of the project and Sands appeared only briefly in the original film.
The films spawned an eponymous book on 1 April 2016.
Reception
The original film won The Tablet of Honor at the Ammar Popular Film Festival in December 2014[6]. The final cut won Best Documentary at the Vienna Independent Film Festival in July 2017, following a series of screenings at independent venues around the world during June.[7]
The original film had received criticism at Hot Docs over ethical concerns, including being called a "sour" and "dubious" product "that borders on unethical".[8] Cinestyle said: "[Although] I wouldn’t want to be [director] Westaway’s friend (or enemy)... This documentary is riveting".[9]
References
- ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/10/local/me-31044 Scott Glover, CHP Pieces Together Writer's Final Hours, Los Angeles Times, 10th October 1998
- ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2905392/Hollywood-screenwriter-mysteriously-killed-20-years-ago-working-CIA-hands-sent-autopsy-200-years-old.html Daily Mail, Exclusive, 2014
- ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/242588498/follywood-a-conspiracy-documentary-like-no-other
- ↑ http://standingstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-writer-with-no-hands-interview-with.html
- ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129744/Michael-Sands-death-deli-meat-sample-Hollywood-publicist-claimed-CIA-chokes.html
- ↑ Ammar Film Festival http://ammarpopularff.com/festival/aipff-2015/
- ↑ VIFF http://www.vienna-film-festival.com/winners-2017.html
- ↑ Brown, Phil (April 21, 2014). "Hot Docs 2014: The Writer with No Hands Review". Dork Shelf. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014.
- ↑ Review: Cinestyle http://www.cineinstyle.com/?tag=gary-devore
External links
- The Writer with No Hands: Festival Cut IMDb
- The Writer with No Hands: Final Cut IMDb
- The Writer with No Hands Facebook Page