Editor Augustine Frizzell makes her feature directorial comedy with the loose comedy Never Goin’ Back, starring Maia Mitchell and Cami Morrone as two best friends whose planned week off at the beach will not be canceled despite being burgled, behind on rent and the fact that they might lose their jobs. DP Greta Zozula already spoke to some of the challenges of production here; editor Courtney Ware offers more insight on cutting a comedy alongside the shoot. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired […]
Winner of this year’s World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award, Gustav Möller’s The Guilty is a one-set thriller tracking a police emergency dispatcher (Jakob Cedergren) as he attempts to thwart a kidnapping in real time. A phone call from a woman being abducted by her husband sets the dispatcher on a quest to save her. Möller’s DP Jasper J. Spanning discussed the challenges of filming a one-set movie with three cameras in just 13 days. 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 job? […]
Expanding on the subject of his first feature, the both-sides-of-the-border drug wars documentary Cartel Land, director Matthew Heineman’s latest project is a five-part documentary series for Showtime. The first two hours premiered at Sundance. Prior to the screening, DP Matt Porwoll explained the difficulties of working on a project following both drug cartels in Mexico and stories of addiction and counter-law enforcement in the States in multiple cities. 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 job? Porwoll: When Matthew Heineman first […]
On the heels of Sundance and its New Frontier section every year comes transmediale, the Berlin-based festival more singularly focused on interactive film, video art, transmedia, virtual reality, and other forms of new media. Founded in 199, transmediale also excels at maintaining a clear focus on how these new works engaged with broader societal issues; traditional artwork, panel discussions, academic papers, and other offerings are always an integral part of the proceedings along with films and videos. This year’s theme is “face value.” With forces like globalization and feminism in stark public contrast with nationalistic authoritarianism and racial inequalities in […]
Zach Clark is a familiar name on this site for his work as a director; he’s also a full-time editor. In this brief Q&A, Clark discusses his work on Hannah Fiddell’s The Long Dumb Road, a road movie and buddy comedy that winds from Texas to Los Angeles. Click here for more from DP Andrew Droz Palermo on the film’s production. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Clark: Hannah and I have been pals for years. She asked me if […]
We’ve already written about Sandi Tan‘s Shirkers, her debut feature documentary named after the long-lost footage from her 1992 would-be feature debut of the same names. Under the mentorship of the mysterious Georges Cardona, the college-age Tan and friends embarked on making a rare Singaporean independent film; this documentary revisits that film and tells the story of Tan’s life to date while on the trail of the elusive Cardona. We’ve also already posted an interview with early project editor Lucas Celler; here, we pass on the baton to editor Kimberley Hassett, who brought the film to final cut. Filmmaker: How and why […]
Cinematographer Michael McDonough met director Debra Granik in 1994, when they were both enrolled at the same NYU film studies class. Leave No Trace is their third collaboration, following Down to the Bone and Winter’s Bone, and also marks Granik’s first narrative feature in the eight years following the latter. Leave No Trace follows father Will (Ben Foster) and 12-year-old daughter Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), squatters secretly living in a forest in almost total isolation. When they’re spotted by a hiker, social workers get involved and Tom is torn from the woods, entering the social world and potential friendships for the first time. Prior to […]
The lobby is packed. Within minutes of opening, a line has formed for Frankenstein AI: a monster made by many, and we’re completely booked for the day. Festival-goers curious about emergent forms of storytelling weave their way through the New Frontier section of the festival, a labyrinth of VR, AR and AI. Now in its 11th year, Sundance’s New Frontier is hosted in two venues and has expanded to over 30 exhibitions ranging from individual experiences to a social VR theater for close to 100 participants. The last few months have been a whirlwind. On November 13th I received an […]
The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Desiree Akhaven’s drama about teenage gay conversion therapy, and Kailash, Derek Doneen’s documentary about Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi took home the two top U.S. prizes, the U.S. Dramatic and U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prizes, at tonight’s 2018 Sundance Film Festival closing night ceremonies. Nearly 30 awards were given out throughout the evening, prompting emcee Jason Mantzoukas, star of Hannah Fidell’s The Long Dumb Road, to chant, “10 more days, 10 more awards!” at the end of an evening that saw much diversity in the juror selections: Four out of the five top U.S. awards […]
For her first directorial feature following three shorts, Night Comes On, actor Jordana Spiro reteamed with DP Hatuey Viveros Lavielle. The feature follows a young woman just released from juvenile prison (Dominique Fishback of The Deuce), whose plans are derailed when she’s unexpectedly reunited with her 10-year-old sister (newcomer Tatum Marilyn Hall), who’s been placed in foster care. Prior to the fest, Lavielle described her collaboration with Spiro and affinity for natural light as forces shaping Night Comes On. 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 […]