Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“I Want the Viewer to Feel Totally Immersed in My World”: Director Francis Lee | God’s Own Country
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? For me God’s Own Country is an investigation into authenticity of emotion and landscape. Having grown up on the same hillside where the film is set, it was critically important to me to communicate what this very specific landscape not only looks like but how it feels, sounds, tastes, smells. The wind, the cold, the rain that gets into your bones when you work outside all day. […]
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Sundance Dispatch 3: Columbus, Golden Exits
Columbus certainly doesn’t look like a standard American independent film: even if you didn’t know debuting director kogonada’s background as a video essayist primarily concerned with High Art (Bresson, Tarkovsky et al.), it’s clear this is made by somebody who’s studied the framing of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang et al. quite closely. No matter how mundane the setting — average small downtown streets, a drab university library — kogonada and DP Elisha Christian stick to the visual philosophy espoused by architecture-obsessed protagonist Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) as she annotates one building’s properties, noting how it’s “asymmetrical but also still balanced.” I […]
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“Cate Outstripped Us All with Her Immeasurable Enthusiasm”: Director Julian Rosefeldt | Manifesto
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Manifesto was originally planned as a 13-screen installation for the art context, so it is touring museums and art festivals now. But I also got some funding from a German TV channel and I needed to consider how to bring that multi-screen-concept later into a linear version. Given the fact that we only had 11 days to shoot with Cate, the entire project, running in my mind parallel […]
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“An Interactive and Realistic Amazon Environment”: Directors Milica Zec and Winslow Porter | Tree
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Tree transports users into the body of a rainforest tree, where they can experience not only its splendor but also its untimely fate. One challenge we faced was how to communicate with our audience without using traditional dialogue – and to keep that message and execution organic while in a CGI landscape. Essentially, to “show,” via real-time experience and interactivity, rather than “tell.” In order to immerse users […]
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“Hiring All Women Isn’t a Gimmick; It’s Progress”: Director Jovanka Vuckovic | XX
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Bela Lugosi once famously said, “It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out — and come back for more.” He was as right then as he is now. Women love horror. And yet here we are in 2017, and even though more than half of all horror film ticket buyers are women, people […]
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Sundance Dispatch 2: Dina, Quest, My Happy Family
Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles’ Dina is incredibly hard to write about without exposing my underlying biases. Shot by DP Adam Uhl in almost entirely rigorously locked-down static 1.66 (!), Dina tracks the uneasily evolving relationship between its title subject and fiance Scott in the months up to and after their wedding. (She’s the main subject, he the supporting player: the end credits cutely add his name to the title.) Both are, by their own admission and diagnosis, somewhere on the spectrum — where precisely is unclear, as it so often is — and in something like love. The major issue, which becomes increasingly […]
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“Basically What You’re Asking for Is Faith”: Director Michelle Morgan | L.A. Times
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? For me, the greatest communication challenge that I encountered while working on my film happened during the prep phase, where I was still scrambling to raise funds and cast my leads. This was my first feature and a lot of people just weren’t sure of me yet. And short of surgically implanting someone into my head, it was nearly impossible to convey to them how the film […]
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“A Prerequisite for Good Filmmaking in China”: Director Jun Geng | Free and Easy
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Oftentimes, indie filmmaking in China is something that invites suspicion. You will need to persuade potential collaborators and investors with convincing arguments. For the rest of the process, it could also be true. Chinese indie filmmakers would run into these problems on a regular basis, which is why communicating becomes a craftsmanship. It is of vital importance both in terms of the efficiency and the final result […]
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“A Different Kind of Surf Movie”: Director Rory Kennedy | Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? The greatest communication challenge in making Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton was how to take a somewhat conventional mode of storytelling – the iconic surf film – and tell it in an unexpected, unconventional way. Most surf films operate like their own contained love stories: Man (or woman) meet wave; Man rides wave; Man reflects on riding wave before going off to ride another. […]
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“Unexpected, Beautiful Things Began to Happen”: Director John Trengove | The Wound
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? The Wound was cast almost entirely with non-professional actors who speak Xhosa, a language which I do not understand. In the film they enacted a very nuanced rites-of-passage ritual which I had no first-hand experience of. Despite the support of exhaustive research, excellent script translations and a full-time facilitator on set, I knew that the only hope I had of achieving any kind of life in front […]
