
Sundance 2025: Cinematographer Interviews

Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series cinematographers a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out a single question for feature directors to answer as well as questionnaires for editors and first-time Sundance feature producers.
Below, find links to individual cinematographer responses, which will be updated daily during the festival.
“We Wanted a Visual Language That Was Both Filmic and Intimate”: DP Guy Mossman on Speak.
“A Feeling of Endless Night”: DP Arseni Khachaturan on April
“With Each Location We Embraced Its Essence”: DP Matthew Chuang on Jimpa
“It Was the Movie I’d Been Waiting For”: DP Paul Meyers on Omaha
“We Kept the Space Very Intimate for Our Subjects”: DP Laura Goncalves on Sly Lives
“Merging Aesthetic Elements and Practical Considerations”: DP Patrick Jones on By Design
“Interrotrons Can Be a Real Drain on Production”: DP David Jacobson on Pee-wee as Himself
“The Camera Team Was Also the SFX Team”: DP Rhayne Vermette on Dead Lover
“An Observational Character Study of an Ex-Offender”: DP Sam Motamedi on Ricky
“For Me, Less is More”: DP Anna Smoronova on Bubble & Squeak
“A Continuous Swing Between Memories and the Present.”: DP Clarissa Cappellani on Brides
“This Was Our One Shot To Capture Something Lasting”: DP Ethan Indorf on André is an Idiot
“Having a Crew Was Not an Option: DP Gianluca Matarrese on GEN_
“A New Way of Looking at the American West”: DP Austin Shelton on East of Wall
“I Sometimes Felt Like the Worst Partner in the World”: DP Clarke Gayford on Prime Minister
“I Love Diving Into the Unexpected”: DP Amine Berrada on Sukkwan Island
“Shooting Vérité Means Embracing the Coincidences”: DP Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo on Folktales
“A Way to Capture the Spirit of the Times”: DP Pavel Talankin, Mr. Nobody Against Putin
“We Wanted To Play with This Line Between Artifice and Reality”: DP Eric Yue on Atropia
“A Feeling of Magical Imperfection that Film Brings”: DP Sara Mishara on Two Women
“It Was Always Fun, But Not Necessarily Easy”: DP Pete Ohs on OBEX
“I’ve Never Prepped a Movie So Many Times.”: DP Christopher Aoun, All That’s Left of You
“Claustrophobic Framing Became the Photographic Heart”: DP Ben Fordesman on The Thing with Feathers
“Let the Weight of the Words Carry the Scene”: DP Bao Nguyen on The Stringer
“A One-person Crew”: DP Brittany Shyne on Seeds
“All the Delicate Layers Gently Rose to the Surface”: DP Daisy Zhou on Bunnylovr
“We Often Had to Reimagine Entire Setups”: DP Adolpho Veloso on Train Dreams
“I Wanted to Always be Receptive to Inspiration on the Day”: DP Conor Murphy on Oh, Hi!
“These Two Worlds Couldn’t Be More Opposite”: DP Tobias Schliessler on Kiss of the Spider Woman
“There Was an Interesting Opportunity to Mix Formats”: DP Ethan Palmer on Plainclothes
“Something That Felt Unadorned and a Bit Raw”: DP Doug Emmett on Hal & Harper
“Letting Brooklyn be a Constant but Subtle Presence”: DP Martim Vian on Love, Brooklyn
“I Don’t Want to Worry About Camera Settings”: DP Diego Tenorio on The Virgin of the Quarry Lake
“Snapshots of a Memory of Our Character”: DP Mia Cioffi Henry on Sorry, Baby
“The Feeling of Triumph was Palpable”: DP Martin DiCicco on Heightened Scrutiny
“Forgetting the Camera Was Rolling, It Hit Me”: DPs Neema Sadeghi & Nicholas Bupp on Serious People
“We Weren’t Looking To Trick the Audience”: DP Michael Latham on SALLY
“Draw the Audience into Johan’s World”: DP Nicolai Lok on Sauna
“Capturing a Kenyan Point of View as a Central Theme”: DP Christopher King on How to Build a Library
“These Small Letters Can Cause Such Instability”: DP Paulius Kontijevas on The Librarians
“Perfection Can Be Your Enemy”: DP Paul Gleason on Didn’t Die
“We Wanted to Get Across a Sense of the Overbearing Heat”: DP Rufai Ajala on Mad Bills to Pay