2 Sundance films explore a journalist's on-air suicide

2 Sundance films explore a journalist's on-air suicide

[...] this year at the Sundance Film Festival, audiences found themselves with an unusual double feature.

The Festival hosted the premieres of two films exploring the largely forgotten story of Christine Chubbuck, a 29-year-old on-air journalist in Sarasota, Florida who shot and killed herself during a live broadcast on July 15, 1974.

The other is an experimental documentary about an actress, indie mainstay Kate Lyn Sheil, preparing to portray Chubbuck called "Kate Plays Christine."

Chubbuck, sitting behind the anchor's desk, then said, "in keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are going to see another first — attempted suicide" before taking the gun out of her bag and pulling the trigger.

The Christine Chubbuck story has always made me stop and take pause and made me think about presumptions I have about women, about myself, about what makes a depressed person go that far. ...