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The Sundance Question: What Role Does Attention Play in Your Work?

Each year, Filmmaker asks the Sundance Film Festival feature directors a question about their filmmaking process. We then compile any and all of the directors’ feedback and bring it to our readers courtesy of our “Sundance Responses.”

This year we asked:

Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film?

We’ll upload the responses individually, the day of each film’s premiere. So, as the festival progresses, click the links below. The Sundance Film Festival is being held in Park City, Utah from January 16th to the 26th.

The Green Prince | Director Nadav Schirman

Whiplash | Director Damien Chazelle

Lilting | Director Hong Khaou

The Babadook | Director Jennifer Kent

My Prairie Home | Director Chelsea McMullan

To Kill a Man | Director Alejandro Fernández

Concerning Violence | Director Göran Hugo Olsson

The Notorious Mr. Bout | Directors Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin

The Guest | Director Adam Wingard

The Overnighters | Director Jesse Moss

Blind | Director Eskil Vogt

Hellion | Director Kat Candler

Camp X-Ray | Director Peter Sattler

SEPIDEH – Reaching for the Stars | Director Berit Madsen

We Are the Giant | Director Greg Barker

Appropriate Behavior | Director Desiree Akhavan

Drunktown’s Finest | Director Sydney Freeland

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger | Director Joe Berlinger

52 Tuesdays | Director Sophie Hyde

The Case Against 8 | Directors Benjamin Cotner and Ryan White

Dear White People | Director Justin Simien

Cold in July | Director Jim Mickle

To Be Takei | Director Jennifer Kroot

God Help the Girl | Director Stuart Murdoch

Ping Pong Summer | Director Michael Tully

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Director Ana Lily Amirpour

Fed Up | Director Stephanie Soechtig

Low Down | Director Jeff Preiss

This May Be the Last Time | Director Sterlin Harjo

Viktoria | Director Maya Vitkova

Web Junkie | Directors Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia

Private Violence | Director Cynthia Hill

Land Ho! | Directors Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens

No No: A Dockumentary | Director Jeffrey Radice

The Foxy Merkins | Director Madeleine Olnek

The Disobedient | Director Mina Djukic

The Sleepwalker | Director Mona Fastvold

Mr leos caraX | Director Tessa Louise-Salomé

Song One | Director Kate Barker-Froyland

Listen Up Philip | Director Alex Ross Perry

Killers | Directors The Mo Brothers (Timothy Tjahjanto and Kimo Stromboel)

Lock Charmer (El cerrajero) | Director Natalia Smirnoff

Difret | Director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

Hits | Director David Cross

The One I Love | Director Charlie McDowell

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