[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 11:30 pm — Library Center Theatre] The biggest surprise surrounding and involving our film The Woman is how shocked people are by it. When you make a film, you live with it day in and day out for months and years. You get intimate with it. You get used to it. It becomes a dear and familiar friend. Once you’re comfortable enough with it, you share it and the audience response is never exactly how you pictured it. It’s always so much more. I’ve shown this film privately to very few people in preparation for […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 9:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] My film is about 17 biracial Ukrainian orphans, mostly teenagers, and the woman who has been their foster mother for years despite all the hardships, be they financial or caused by the racist society that surrounds them. Before going on the first shoot, I had no doubts that Olga, the foster mother, can only be a saint. Unfortunately the biggest surprise was the realization that her need for power and control is really the foundation of the family and the motivation for her to become a legal guardian […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] The biggest puzzle to me was that the majority of Black Africa was celebrating 50 years of independence when we had the idea for the film An African Election and that nobody saw the potential of looking into where Africa stood after 50 years of its rebirth. The project was brushed aside as being interesting but unrealistic. Meanwhile people were talking about the silver bullet and all the failures associated with the Dark Continent. Nobody wanted to invest, and even cultural institutions whose mission statements were to preserve […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 8:45 pm — Library Center Theatre] I thought the hardest part, at least emotionally, would be bleeding it all out on paper when I wrote the script. Little did I know the truly raw part hadn’t even begun. Working with actors is like falling head over heels in love — a dizzying rush to learn everything there is about each other. Just a little window of time to build enough trust to take a gigantic leap of faith. Before making Little Birds I’d always thought it was an actor’s job to show up, turn on […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 8:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre] Chaz [Bono] showed us that changing one’s gender is an extraordinary thing to do in the true sense of the word; it takes tremendous bravery and courage and a willingness to lose everything. If only we all possessed these qualities the world could be such a different place.
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 6:00 pm — Temple Theatre] In April, I went to the newsroom at the Times with my camera, ready to film. This had been my routine for the past few months–I’d show up, not sure what story the reporters on the Media Desk would be covering that day, and attempt to be a fly on the wall. When I arrived, “a former hacker with a whistleblower website” –whom we now know as Julian Assange of WikiLeaks–had posted a [chilling] video of a U.S. military helicopter shooting down two journalists and several Iraqi civilians. Reuters had […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 6:30 pm — Eccles Theatre] When we unmasked the Bog Monster and it turned out to be old man Whithers, we were literally dumbfounded. Why? Because he OWNS the allegedly haunted amusement park. We should’ve seen it.
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Temple Theatre] How to Die in Oregon tells the stories of terminally ill Oregonians as they decide when, and whether, to end their lives at the time and circumstance of their own choosing under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. What inspired me to make the film was the desire to explore the profound choices an individual would have to make in order to take the life-ending medication. I knew that telling this story was going to be difficult because it would require extraordinary access and a willingness to participate in the film, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 11:30 am — Library Center Theatre] The biggest surprise for me as I made this movie was how satisfying an experience it was working with my cast. I was very happy about who we had cast, but I didn’t know them beyond their previous work, and in some cases a meeting or two. As the production started coming together I was comfortable with how most aspects of the movie were shaping up: I knew what the challenges were going to be, and I had a firm grasp of what I was going for. The great […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] “Down, down, down!” yelled a U.S. Marine as bullets whizzed overhead and machine-gun fire rattled. We had been drawn into a coordinated ambush deep behind enemy lines. In these difficult situations, I use intense concentration to keep operating my camera system. As we ducked to the next mud berm for cover, I focused on keeping my movements smooth and my distance to the Marine ahead of me constant so I would have a steady tracking shot that would remain in focus. Pinned down by incoming fire, the insurgents triggered […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011