20,000 Days on Earth

Institute History

  • 2014 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Editing Award: World Cinema Documentary and Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary



Nick Cave has long been one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures in the music and film world. 20,000 Days on Earth enhances his mystique.

This innovative drama/documentary features Cave as both subject and coconspirator, intimately documenting his artistic process and combining it with a fictional staged narrative of his 20,000th day on Earth. As a result, the film also explores the creative spirit.

The film weaves two parallel narrative threads. The first is a cinematic portrait of Cave's 20,000th day, created through a series of staged, but not scripted, scenes and encounters. The second looks in depth at his creativity—from writing through recording and rehearsal to performance.

This unique blend of documentary essay and cinematic fiction demonstrates the connection between Cave and the filmmakers, visual artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard; all three are illuminating the search for truth through artifice and myth. Ultimately, 20,000 Days on Earth reaches beyond Cave to ask all of us how many days we've been alive and what use we've made of that time.

— Trevor Groth

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]