From the director of
Man on Wire and the middle chapter of the
Red Riding Trilogy, James Marsh's latest film,
Project Nim was the best documentary that I saw at this years HotDocs film festival. Because (a) the film is fantastic and accessible, and (b) Man on Wire won the Academy Award a couple years ago for best documentary, Project Nim is getting a theatrical roll out in Canada, the United States (July 8) and the UK (Aug 12.) Roadside Attractions just put a trailer up.
The chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky, who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human.