Documentary film edited by Imperial lecturer Robert Sternberg from the Centre for Culture, Languages and Communication has just been released on DVD.
‘The Fear of 13’ is the story of Nicholas Yarris, a convicted murderer who, after enduring twenty years in a Pennsylvania jail, requests his own execution. The producer, Chris Riley, is himself an Imperial alumnus, and the film was edited by Robert in his spare time at Imperial’s Science Communication Unit. Made entirely from four days of interviews with the condemned man the documentary presents no other voices and the result is total immersion in the life of Nick Yarris. It is a gripping tale that twists and turns like a thriller before delivering one final, devastating blow.
Sternberg says, ‘although you might expect a story about death row to be unrelentingly grim, in the end the film is very moving, a lesson in the redemptive power of reading books.’
The movie was released in cinemas last November and has been nominated for best documentary in the National Film Awards. http://nationalfilmawards.co.uk/nominations-for-the-national-film-awards-2016-revealed/
The DVD is distributed by Dogwoof http://dogwoof.com/films/the-fear-of-13
It was also broadcast on Sunday 31st Jaunary 2016 on BBC 4’s Storyville http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zdjn0 and is available on iPlayer until end of February 2016.
Find out more about the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication's Science Communication unit //www.imperial.ac.uk/centre-for-languages-culture-and-communication/
Article text (excluding photos or graphics) available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license.
Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission or © Imperial College London.
Reporter
Ms Jackie Twitchett
Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication
