[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 6:30pm — Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City] A good film takes great sacrifice. A great film takes an almost unbearable amount. Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. That’s nothing compared to making good documentary. A good film is like an iceberg, for every bit you can see there’s at least 10 times more work invisibly undergirding it. The scenes and characters that didn’t make the cut, the cuts that were recut, the time you invested researching, the time you spend waiting for the right shot, going […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 12:15pm — Eccles Theatre] It’s funny, just getting a moment to address this interview question is a small sacrifice. It’s Christmastime, my kids are out of school and wild beyond reason, my husband just got back from a long work trip (making said kids wild), there are neighborhood Christmas gifts piled all over the house, a birthday party to throw together tonight, a possible baby to adopt, and a dog to bathe….sacrifice….isn’t that a synonym with motherhood already. So when asked what I sacrificed to make Austenland — it’s obvious to everyone who saw my kids that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 5:30pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Being a first time filmmaker is a strange labor. You don’t know anything, but you need to act like you do. In order for this to work, you really have to sacrifice that rational part of your thinking and lie, like Demi Moore’s character in the movie Indecent Proposal. You might even say, “It’s just my body… it’s not my mind,” but you know that that’s not true! The whole world thinks you’re completely insane, and it’s nearly impossible to convince them otherwise. After our first preview screening, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 11:30am — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Films don’t compromise. They don’t sacrifice. Directors do. That’s something I’ve always believed — but it was only on God Loves Uganda that I’ve had to confront that conviction, and act on it in a way that put my life in danger. While shooting in Uganda in 2010, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming — the most ardent supporters of the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill — discovered that I myself am gay. One began circulating emails suggesting that I be killed. I left the country immediately, and hoped […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 5:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Film is a child; full of potential and yet utterly helpless and destined to die without your intimate care, vigilant eye, and tireless guidance. It just doesn’t end. Even when you think it has, it just plain hasn’t. It’s hungry all the time. Crying, seemingly for no good reason and often for very good reasons. Its needs are boundless, in both a rudimentary and an existential way. Even when it’s fully grown, you’ve done your job, it’s out the door, found a home of it’s own… it still knows […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 2:30pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Any sacrifice here has been borne entirely by my wife and kids for tolerating my long hours and frequent absences. I think anybody who’s fortunate enough to get to make a movie, let alone get that movie into Sundance, would be hard pressed to frame that as a sacrifice — unless of course someone was harmed in the process. Sundance Responses 2013
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 9:00am — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] It is sometimes all too easy to forget the reality when you spend so long examining the facts and details of a story. We can become immune to the horrific truth of the events. So it is important to remember that in telling this story, 11 people died, leaving behind families and friends, and perhaps that is the greatest sacrifice in telling this complex and compelling narrative. For those who had to relive the memories of the traumatic events, there is a huge element of sacrifice, in giving their […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013Each 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: “What did you sacrifice to make your film? Or, did your film itself have to make a significant sacrifice in order to be produced? And, looking back, how do you value that sacrifice now?” 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 […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 16, 2013In tandem with their ongoing release of Hyde Park on Hudson, Focus Features is giving away a night at the movies! Be the first person to answer the question below correctly and you will will a $25 American Express Gift Card. In which film did Bill Murray and Olivia Williams previously co-star? Email answers to nick@filmmakermagazine.com. Hyde Park on Hudson tells the story of the King and Queen of England’s (Samuel West and Olivia Colman) stay at the Roosevelt household in 1939. The occasion marked the first-ever visit of a reigning English monarch to America, and with England on the brink […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 11, 2013After an overwhelmingly successful inaugural year, Executive Director Gregory Kallenberg announced that the second annual Louisiana Film Prize filmmaking competition will launch today, complete with a $50,000 cash prize to be awarded to the Grand Prize Winner. Building on last year’s success, this year’s festival will also increase the number of “Founder’s Circle” Grants from 3 to 5 recipients. These grants, of $3000, are awarded by the judges’ panel during the festival weekend and are meant to enable filmmakers to offset the future costs of creating their submissions for the following year’s festival. The 2013 Louisiana Film Prize jury, a combination of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 9, 2013