Three Identical Strangers
Description
The fact that Robert Shafran, Edward Galland, and David Kellman are triplets separated at birth who find one another in their early twenties is only the first revelation in this mind-blowing documentary. Combining present-day interviews with splendid archival footage detailing the triplets’ adventures together in 1980s Manhattan (Studio 54, talk-show appearances, a cameo in 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan), Wardle’s film prods the nature vs. nurture conversation in endlessly fascinating manner.
“Tim Wardle’s fascinating Three Identical Strangers first feels like it might just be about an amazing, quirky story of sudden celebrity but becomes something much stranger and even essential in the never-ending debate over nature vs. nurture. Three Identical Strangers may be non-fiction, but it’s structured and composed like the best short story you’ve never heard. And it’s one that definitely proves the dictum that life is stranger than fiction.” – Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
After getting his start producing and directing documentaries for television, Tim Wardle makes his feature documentary debut with Three Identical Strangers, the winner of a Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Storytelling. “[The film] combines what I see as two completely distinct types of documentary filmmaking: one is sort of past-tense storytelling with archive and a little bit of reconstruction, and the other is the present-tense, vérité storytelling (what we call in the UK ‘actuality’). And to me, they’re completely different genres. They’ve got very different styles, very different pacing, very different visual aesthetic. And I was really fascinated by whether it would be possible to combine those two.” (sundance.org)
Film Details
Language English
Year 2017
Runtime 96
Country USA
Director Tim Wardle
Producer Becky Read, Grace Hughes-Hallett
Editor Michael Harte
Cinematographer Tim Cragg
Music Paul Saunderson