Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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“Never Being Satisfied and Always Asking the Hard Questions”: Editor Joseph Krings on Winner and Love Me
Joseph Krings (Galveston, Captain Fantastic) is the credited editor on two films at Sundance this year: the sci-fi animated Love Me, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, and Winner, a biopic about Reality Winner, the imprisoned whistleblower who leaked NSA documents related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Below, Krings discusses both films at length, touching on the challenges of editing a film that is going to be heavily reworked in animation, finding the right balance between tragedy and gallows humor, and the peculiar VFX challenges of both films. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“Simplicity Would Become One of Our Fundamental Rules”: DP Ximena Amann on Sujo
Sujo, the Sundance 2024 World Cinema Dramatic Competition premiere directed by Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, follows the life of a Mexican boy who is orphaned when his father, a cartel gunman, is killed. Below, cinematographer Ximena Amann, who also shot Rondero’s previous film, The Darkest Days of Us, discusses the challenges and delights of working with children and shooting in a protected natural area with minimal equipment. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“Creating Editorial Iterations Can Often Be Like Smelling Too Much Perfume”: Editor Susan Korda on Sujo
In Sujo, co-directed by Astrid Rondero (The Darkest Days of Us) and Fernanda Valadez (Identifying Features) and premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, the eponymous child is left orphaned when his father, a cartel gunman, is killed. The film then follows the turbulence that echoes throughout his life as he grows older. The film’s editor, Susan Korda, is best known for the Oscar-nominated For All Mankind, but she also edited Rondero’s The Darkest Days of Us and Valadez’s Identifying Features. Rondero and Valadez also worked on each other’s films, making this […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“We Knew It Was Going to Be a Bit of a Sprint”: Editor Arielle Zakowski on Didi
In the U.S. Dramatic Competition film Didi, the feature debut of writer-director Sean Wang, a Taiwanese American boy learns to skate handle the emotions of adolescent longing in the summer before high school. Set in 2008, the film is replete with period signifiers familiar to any child of the era, including MySpace friend rankings, AIM messaging, and Windows XP. In her discussion of Didi below, editor Arielle Zakowski, whose most recent credit is the 2023 computer screen film Missing, explains the importance of test screenings and how she brought the film’s period setting to life and contrasted the excitement of the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“I Get to Work with So Many Talented People”: DP Kevin Fletcher on It’s What’s Inside
In the Sundance 2024 Midnight premiere It’s What’s Inside, the feature debut of writer-director Greg Jardin, an uninvited guest with a mysterious suitcase derails a pre-wedding party. The film’s colorful visual palette, realized by Kevin Fletcher, echoes the high-octane nature of the plot. Below, Fletcher shares some of the influences on the film’s distinct look and extols the virtues of preparatory work. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“Can Someone Who Uses a Wheelchair Access this Location?” | Amber Sealey, Out of My Mind
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? There was a practical aspect to choosing our locations and sets for Out of My Mind that is not usually at the forefront of filmmakers’ minds: Can someone who uses a wheelchair access this location and every aspect of this location? Our […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024 -
“Trying To Fit Someone’s Dream Into a Confined Budget Is Not Easy”: Producer Sam Intili on I Saw the TV Glow
A strange late-night TV show entrances teen loners, played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, in I Saw the TV Glow, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature. The program depicts a supernatural world existing underneath the duo’s suburban sprawl, hinting at the horror that lurks just under the surface of white picket fence aspirations. First-time producer Sam Intili shares how they came on board the project and their pride in the finished film never compromising on “the queerness or explicit transness” of the material. See all responses to our questionnaire for first-time Sundance producers here. Filmmaker: Tell us about the professional path […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2024 -
“This Field Beneath the Field Kept Showing Up in My Dreams” | Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
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? Just past the far end zone of the high school football field in my hometown of Ardsley, NY there’s a short but steep fenced-off decline down a hill towards a second, smaller field: a baseball diamond with a big outfield of grass […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2024 -
“We Realized During the Edit That There Were Several Options for the Ending”: Editor Sofi Marshall on I Saw the TV Glow
Suburban teen loner Owen (Justice Smith) is introduced to a late-night TV show shrouded in mystery by a fellow classmate (Brigette Lundy-Paine) in I Saw the TV Glow, the latest genre offering from writer-director Jane Schoenbrun. Dubbed an “emo horror” flick by Sundance programmers, Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature is having its world premiere in Park City this year, where the filmmaker’s buzzy feature debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, similarly premiered in 2021. Editor Sofi Marshall discusses how she became involved in Schoenbrun’s latest project, how the “independent” section of her local Blockbuster catalyzed her filmic career path and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2024 -
“Crafting Stories With My Head and My Heart”: Editor Amy Foote on Girls State
Filmmaking team Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine follow-up their 2020 documentary Boys State, naturally, with Girls State, making its Sundance debut in the festival’s Premieres category. Much like their previous film, Girls State follows a diverse group of teenage girls across the state of Missouri who engage in a week-long immersive project that requires them to collectively construct a government from the ground up, which this time includes building a judicial branch on both local and state levels. With the project unfolding as Roe v. Wade threatens to be overturned, the girls also ruminate on how real-world legislature could infringe […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2024
