Authors — Jason Guerrasio

“CLIMATE REFUGEES” | director, Michael Nash

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 8:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] The single biggest decision I was faced with during the making of Climate Refugees literally happened on the first day. Was it possible to make a documentary film about climate change that would be politically bipartisan? I wanted to create a film that would play to both sides of the aisle. To me, I saw climate change as a metaphor in which a woman is swimming in the ocean. She is attacked by a shark. She is barely able to swim to shore. Two men see the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“NEW LOW” | director, Adam Bowers

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 6:00 pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] There were a couple of reshoots during production, most of which were short and painless. But after we shot a pretty complicated scene at a time-sensitive location, I watched the footage on the camera in my car while the cast and crew went and got dinner, and I knew that the scene was unusable. So I had to go meet up with everyone, who were so relieved to be done with such a tricky scene, and tell them that we had to do it all over. The […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“NIGHT CATCHES US” | writer-director, Tanya Hamilton

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] The hardest decision I made on this film was mustering the courage to deconstruct my film completely in postproduction. I don’t know if other directors had similar experiences with their films, but when I first pieced Night Catches Us together, while I was pleased with it, it no longer felt as creative as I’d hoped. Something was missing — though I couldn’t determine what. At first I was too overwhelmed and exhausted to confront the problem, let alone address the ways I needed to fix it. But eventually, […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“WELCOME TO THE RILEYS” | director, Jake Scott

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 2:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] Casting the film was probably the hardest series of decisions I had to make. I found that there was tremendous pressure to cast well known and very good actors who could potentially “mean more” in terms of getting the film made. You find yourself considering actors who are simply not right for the role and yet willing to risk the consequences. It was incredibly stressful but at the same time led me to consider the film in certain terms. If this was to be “my film” as director […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“THE TILLMAN STORY” | director, Amir Bar-Lev

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 3:00 pm – Temple Theatre, Park City] Here’s a challenge I faced making The Tillman Story: As a documentary filmmaker making a movie about Pat Tillman, I’m expected, of course, to get to bottom of who he really was and to leave no stone unturned in presenting his biography and character to my audience. Pat Tillman is synonymous with sacrifice and unflinching patriotic duty because it’s generally accepted that he was so moved by the events of 9/11 that he dropped everything, quit his football career, and enlisted in the Army Rangers. However the more […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“LIFECYCLES” | Matthew Moore

[New Frontier Performances and Installations] As a fourth-generation farmer, there seems to be an endless supply of crossroads while growing produce where, unlike in an editing program, you cannot undo the last 50 decisions you have made. What day to plant, how many seeds to place in a foot, how long to water, is that a weed, should I pull it? So here is a brilliant idea — how about I film that process? Hopefully the seed I placed in focus under the lens is the one that will emerge unscathed. That is how my project “lifecycles” began. Unfortunately all […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
RUNNING OUT OF AIR: PENNING MIDNIGHT MOVIE “BURIED” | By Melissa Silvestri

This piece was originally printed in our 2010 Winter issue. Hell can be many things — being buried alive in the Iraqi desert, for example, or perhaps just watching your screenplay slowly disintegrate on the shelf during never-ending studio “development.” The opposite of most screenwriters, Chris Sparling knows the former but not the latter. He went directly from struggling indie director to successful Hollywood scribe when the screenplay for his horror thriller Buried was picked up, cast with a major up-and-coming star, and thrown before the cameras in just six months. And now it’s receiving its U.S. premiere at the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“MOTHER AND CHILD” | writer-director, Rodrigo Garcia

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 3:00 pm — Screening Room, Sundance Resort] The hardest decision for me is offering the role to an actor. Even if it’s an actor that I admire, or have worked with before or dream of working with, or even if I’ve written the role with them in mind, the moment is traumatic. It’s the leap from the imagination to the concrete, from fantasy to reality. Plus I know that if you cast the wrong actor (and any great actor can potentially be wrong for a specific role), it’s a mistake that you never recuperate from. […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“WINTER’S BONE” | co-writer-director, Debra Granik

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 12:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] In Daniel Woodrell’s novel, the protagonist, Ree Dolly, has two younger brothers. We decided to cast these roles in Missouri and held auditions during preproduction. We were excited to find Isaiah Stone for the part of the older boy, Sonny, but we struggled to cast the younger boy. We auditioned a lot of boys, and then paired different boys with each other. We thought we were getting close, but something was holding me back. The boys we were moving toward were not from the rural areas in which […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010
“LAST TRAIN HOME” | director, Lixin Fan

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Screening Room, Sundance Resort] The most difficult decision I had in the making of Last Train Home is one that spans from shooting ground to editing room. It was at the painful moment when the crew and I witnessed the father become frustrated and hit his daughter right after they arrived at their village home before New Year’s Eve. To film or not to film? The ultimate question in documentary filmmaking was being put in front of me. In a filmmaking sense, this was a rarely intense moment, which revealed incredible personalities […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010

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