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"Jim: The James Foley Story"
U.S. Documentary Competition
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It's a tribute to James Foley, the war journalist murdered by the so-called Islamic State in 2014, that the documentary about him, "Jim: The James Foley Story" focuses on the man and not the manner of his death. Filmmaker Brian Oakes, a childhood friend of Foley's, draws on interviews with Foley's family and with the friends he seemed to make everywhere — particularly among the other war correspondents who covered such hot spots as Libya and Syria, and the hostages with whom Foley was imprisoned by ISIS before his execution. (The political argument over paying ransom to terrorists, which is why there are European survivors to talk about Foley's imprisonment but now English or American ones, is touched on lightly here.) The portrait that emerges is of a good guy, a hero in everyone's eyes but his own, who was determined to show the world what was happening in some of its most dangerous places.
— Sean P. Means
"Jim: The James Foley Story" screens again at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival: Thursday, 6 p.m., Salt Lake City Library Theatre; Friday, 4 p.m., Redstone Cinema 2, Park City; Saturday, 2:15 p.m., The MARC, Park City.