Back to selection
The 2024 Sundance Question: What Place Tells Its Own Story About Your Film?
Each year, Filmmaker asks all the incoming feature directors at Sundance one question. (To see last year’s question and responses, click here.) We also send out cinematographer, editor and first-time producer questionnaires.
This year’s question:
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively?
Below, find links to each director’s individual response to the prompt. Keep checking back here during the festival, as more responses will be posted daily!
“It Was an Interesting Challenge to Take a Real Place and Mold It” | Josh Margolin, Thelma
“We Imagined the Queer London of Our Dreams” | Amrou Al-Kadhi, Layla
“I Knew Right Then the Filmmaking Gods Were Looking Down on Us” | Rich Peppiatt, Kneecap
“Malia Will Now Always Be the Right Location for the Film” | Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex
“This Field Beneath the Field Kept Showing Up in My Dreams” | Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
“Can Someone Who Uses a Wheelchair Access this Location?” | Amber Sealey, Out of My Mind
“We Were Very Fortunate to Be Allowed to Shoot There” | Astrid Rondero & Fernanda Valadez, Sujo
“It Was All About Hanging On For Dear Life” | Ondi Timoner, Dig! XX
“A Section of the LA River Which Is Often Overlooked” | Jack Begert, Little Death
“We Shot in Wildly Different Landscapes” | Sam and Andy Zuchero, Love Me
“The Gravestones Appear Almost Like Signs” | Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, Eternal You
“I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon
“The Dichotomy of Worlds Held in This One Place” | Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie, Sugarcane
“The NJ Turnpike as a Symbol of Autonomy” | River Gallo, Ponyboi
“An Unusually High Concentration of Boarding Schools” | Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls
“Finding the Perfect Cottage to Film In” | Megan Park, My Old Ass
“The Feeling of Dealing with Death in a Place That is So Full of Life” | Laura Chinn, Suncoast
“An Opportunity To Show Another Story of Los Angeles” | Sally Aitken, EVERY LITTLE THING
“The Visual Idea of a House Frozen in Time” | Pedro Freire, Malu
“A Town with a Personality as Rich as the Characters” | Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers
“In New York, You Create Your Own Family” | Lana Wilson, Look Into My Eyes
“The Spectacle of Elections” | Ramona S. Díaz, And So It Begins
“A Departure From Narratives of Division” | Iliana Sosa, God Save Texas: La Frontera
“Ninety Percent of Our Film Takes Place In One Location” | Greg Jardin, It’s What’s Inside
