[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 9:00pm — Salt Lake City Library Theatre, Salt Lake City]

To make Stories We Tell, I think I sacrificed any semblance of an equilibrium for five years. It was terrifying to make a film about the people closest to me. The potential consequences of damaged or severed relationships hung over me and haunted me, the weighing of truth versus fiction in my family’s lives and how the exposure of that balance would surely effect us all, was at times almost too much to bear. Spending hours on end in an editing room reliving some of the most painful moments of my own life seemed self-indulgent, exhausting and crazily unhealthy! I did feel a distinct lack of joy in my life while I made it, but also a driving need to continue making it. When I look back on the experience I think it was the best use of years of my life that I can think of. When I saw my family’s responses to seeing our history told from so many angles it felt like the most complete, whole creative experience of my life. If they had been the only audience for the film, it would have felt like it was worth it.

Sundance Responses 2013