Dan Klores’ Award-Winning Documentary Debuts on YouTube on January 5th and on Sundance Channel January 10 at 1PM ET/PT
New York, December 8, 2008 – Sundance Channel has teamed up with YouTube to give viewers a sneak peek at the stranger than fiction love story told in Dan Klores’ award- winning and critically-acclaimed documentary film, Crazy Love. As part of it’s efforts to explore new distribution models, the network is making the film available on YouTube’s long form video player beginning January 5th in advance of its linear TV debut on January 10th at 1PM ET/PT.
The announcement was made today by Laura Michalchyshyn, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Sundance Channel. Crazy Love will be screened on YouTube beginning January 5, 2009, and will remain available to all YouTube users through January 31, 2009. Winner of the 2008 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, the film will make its television debut on Saturday, January 10 at 1pm ET/PT as part of Sundance Channel’s high-profile programming around the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
A Grand Prize nominee at the Sundance Film Festival, Crazy Love delves into the antagonistic and turbulent relationship of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss Pugach. It was voted Best Documentary of the Year by both the Boston and San Diego Film Critics Societies and won the Santa Barbara Film Festival in addition to being nominated for Best Documentary by the International Documentary Association.
Directed and produced by Klores, whose films credits include Black Magic and Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize nominees The Boys of Second Street Park and Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, Crazy Love examines the tumultuous love-affair of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss Pugach. The couple rocked headlines in 1959 when Burt, then a 32-year-old married New York City attorney, was charged with orchestrating a jealousy-fueled attack that left his young mistress, Linda blind. While Burt served 14 years in prison, he continued to express his affection for Linda and begged her to see him upon his release in 1974. In a twist that takes hopeless-romantic to a whole new level, Linda agreed to visit with him and the two were eventually married and remain together today. The dramatic and puzzling love story is revealed through numerous interviews with Burt, Linda, and their friends and colleagues, combined with the testimonies of journalists and riveting photographs and news clippings connected with the story. Crazy Love, sheds light on the psychological origin and impact of an extreme case of obsession, as the eccentric duo ferociously determines to never let it end.
Crazy Love was produced and co-directed by Fisher Stevens, and edited and co-produced by David Zieff.
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