Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“He’s an Articulation of the Environment, an Unforgiving Force of Nature” | Chris Nash, In A Violent Nature
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? In A Violent Nature is a slasher-in-the-woods horror film, but told from the perspective of Johnny instead of the cannon fodder in his way. The setting of In A Violent Nature was based on the area of Northern Ontario where I was raised, […]
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“Our Style Was Very Observational”: DP Bruce Sakai on And So It Begins
A companion to her 2020 film A Thousand Cuts, Filipino-American documentary filmmaker Ramona S. Díaz returns to Sundance with And So It Begins, which chronicles recent Filipino elections following the end of right-wing president Rodrigo Duterte’s term, which could either bring about the restoration of democracy or an increased shift toward nationalist leaders. Cinematographer Bruce Sakai reveals how he was hired to shoot the project due to increased COVID restrictions, as well as the decision to employ a “very verité approach.” See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
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“I Am an Obsessive Collector of Photography Books”: DP Alejandro Mejia on In the Summers
Each summer, the sisters at the center of Alessandra Lacorazza’s Sundance 2024 premiere In the Summers visit their father in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The film spans several formative years of the sisters’ lives, and their father sometimes struggles to keep pace. Below, cinematographer Alejandro Mejia, whose recent credits include Stolen Youth, discusses shooting the film, including how his love of photography books helped inform the film’s look. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. 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 […]
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“A Fundamental Quality for the Editor is to Investigate the Director’s Unconscious”: Editor Paola Freddi on Reinas
In Reinas, director Klaudia Reynicke (Love Me Tender) returns to her childhood home of Lima to tell the story of a mother and her two daughters attempt to reconcile with the estranged father before seeking greener pastures in the United States. Below, editor Paola Freddi, whose previous credits include the Venice premieres A Espera (2015) and Monica (2022), discusses her collaboration with Reynicke and how she approaches her craft. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
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“Like If Pablo Larrain’s Jackie Was About Jason Voorhees”: Editor Alex Jacobs on In A Violent Nature
In a Violent Nature, the directorial debut of Chris Nash and a Sundance 2024 Midnight selection, puts a twist on the slasher film by staying close to the killer. Instead of the shenanigans in the secluded cabin with vaguely menacing sounds from outside, it shows us the killer trekking toward the distant voices. The film also marks the graduation of editor Alex Jacobs, who worked on titles, graphics and credits on the V/H/S film to lead editor on another director’s project. Below, he shares his serendipitous introduction to the director and how his love of lo-fi beats helped him in editing. […]
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“A Town with a Personality as Rich as the Characters” | Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? From very early on in the writing process, I selected Las Cruces, N.M., as the backdrop for In the Summers—a town with a personality as rich as the characters, from the house with its treasures, Slot Canyon with its million mosquitoes and […]
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“In New York, You Create Your Own Family” | Lana Wilson, Look Into My Eyes
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Look Into My Eyes takes place in New York City. It was always a New York movie for me, even before the pandemic started, but the experience of being in New York City throughout the pandemic made me extra-committed to the setting. […]
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Sundance 2024: Presence, A Real Pain
An experiment in shooting a movie entirely from a first-person POV, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence has conceptual precedents but no meaningful ones in terms of the camera’s weight and the operator’s resulting physical relationship to it. 1947’s Lady in the Lake tried nonstop subjectivity with a bulky 35mm camera; 2009’s Enter the Void eliminated the embodied camera in its second half of weightless drifting. More recently there’s Hardcore Henry, which strapped GoPros to its protagonist’s head for a bouncy embodiment of a stuntman’s hardest workday. In Presence, Soderbergh’s longtime practice of acting as his own cinematographer and operator takes on an […]
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“It Was Essential to Offer the Cast Complete Freedom of Movement”: DP Mauro Pinheiro Jr. on Malu
Pedro Freire’s feature debut, Malu is a multigenerational family drama about an actress whose relationship with both mother and daughter are strained. Set in Rio de Janeiro, the film depicts the frayed familial fabric that sees the women at once caring for and offending one another. Mauro Pinheiro Jr. (Reaching for the Moon, Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures) served as the film’s cinematographer. Below, he explains how he fended off problems posed by inclement weather and why he favored a sparse setup that allowed the film’s performers maximum freedom. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why […]
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“It Was Necessary to Make Non-Obvious Cuts”: Editor Marilia Moraes on Malu
Malu is a mercurial actress living with her conservative mother in a Rio de Janeiro slum while trying to navigate her strained relationship with her own daughter in Pedro Freire’s multigenerational family drama, Malu. The film is the feature debut of director Pedro Freire. Serving as editor is Marilia Moraes, whose credits include the recent Medusa and Petra Costa’s Elena. Below, Moraes dives deep into her process and what the particularities of the film required in the editing room, including the need to construct its rhythms around the performers. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: How and why did you […]
