Nothing So Strange
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When Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was shot dead on December 2, 1999, it was a tragedy that resonated throughout the world. But as time wears on, that tragedy has developed into a mystery for many observers, who see police misconduct and a cover-up where others see an open-and-shut case. NOTHING SO STRANGE follows the efforts of an organized group of these skeptics, who call themselves Citizens for Truth, as they launch an aggressive independent investigation of the Gates assassination and in the process confront the LAPD, a hostile mainstream press, and the group's own internal squabbles. With never-before-seen amateur footage of the Gates assassination, hypnotic 3D recreations of the various aspects of the crime, and almost unlimited access to the inner workings of Citizens for Truth, NOTHING SO STRANGE is ultimately both personal and political-an intimate portrait of average citizens on a search for the truth, as well as a revealing look at the last great crime of the 20th Century. For Citizens for Truth, the mystery begins with the assassination itself. While there is no question that Bill Gates appeared at a charity event in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and was killed by two bullets fired from a rifle on the rooftop of the Park Plaza Hotel, the motive of the alleged assassin, a 24-year-old African American man named Alek Hidell, has never been determined. While Hidell's journals contain references to his concerns that a "class war" is brewing in the U.S., in the view of Citizens for Truth his writings amount to no more than the expression of frustrations shared by many African Americans. The lack of physical evidence linking Hidell to the crime - no fingerprints on the murder weapon, for example - and the seemingly rushed nature of the official District Attorney's office investigation also arouse the suspicion of the group. Because Hidell was killed in the hotel basement minutes after the assassination by a lone LAPD officer who says Hidell tried to shoot him, the public has never heard Hidell's side of the story. Given the long history of corruption and cover up by the LAPD (from its Wild West origins to the Rodney King beating, Mark Fuhrman and the Rampart scandal), Citizens for Truth makes it their mission to discover the real story behind the assassination.
This film has never been screened
Microcinema Interview/Article:
“A genre-bending experience.” –Austin Chronicle “A crackling good movie.” –Variety “Pitch perfect. See this film.” --Wired “Slamdance had this year's best hope for emulating the cultish following of ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ It was ‘Nothing So Strange,’ a fictional film about the internal politics in an activist group investigating the conspiratorial coverup of the assassination of Microsoft's Bill Gates. The film, which pretends to be a documentary, is an homage to classics of the documentary genre, such as Errol Morris' legendary ‘The Thin Blue Line.’ It picks up brilliantly on the strange culture of conspiracy theorists, drawing inspiration from the JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King cases and from LAPD scandals such as Rampart.” –Salon “Brian Flemming's ‘Nothing So Strange,’ with its anti-capitalist fever-dream premise about the assassination of Bill Gates, created heavy buzz all up and down Park City's ski slopes before it even premiered. The film itself is more than just a novel premise, going off in myriad unexpected directions and setting something of a high bar for the mockumentary subgenre.” –Daily Variety “It’s a mock documentary of the first order.” –indieWIRE
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