"The story of how an actor prepares—and how that preparation becomes a performance in itself." – The New Yorker

In 1974, television reporter Christine Chubbuck took her own life during a live news broadcast in Sarasota, Florida, becoming the first person in history to commit suicide on air. Now, more than four decades later, actor Kate Lyn Sheil prepares to play the part of the troubled journalist in a version of her story. As Kate trawls through Christine's past to get ready for the role, tries to do justice to her memory, and finds her sense of self changed by the experience, Kate Plays Christine tells the tale of both women.

Picking up the thematic threads of his MIFF 2015 film Actress, director Robert Greene – along with cinematographer Sean Price Williams (Queen of Earth and Heaven Knows What, both MIFF 2015; Listen Up Philip, MIFF 2014) – pieces together a portrait of an infamous tragedy as well as an examination both of the performance process and of cinema's capacity to reveal the truth about anyone. Combining research, retellings and re-enactments in an effort reminiscent of Werner Herzog's best, Greene's blurring of fact and fiction represents an extraordinary experiment in documentary filmmaking – for which he won the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Writing at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

"An achievement unlike any other we'll see in nonfiction cinema this year." – Nonfics.com

David Jenkins will host a Q&A with Robert Greene at the session on 31 July.

Anthony Carew will host a Q&A with Robert Greene at the session on 2 August.