Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Sundance 2025: The Perfect Neighbor, Sly Lives
Stagnation (long-term) and change (imminent) hang over this year’s Sundance. In 2027, the festival will relocate to one of three finalist sites—potentially still a Salt Lake City/Park City split, with the balance of power now reversed between the latter and former, through the rumor vine says Cincinnati or Boulder are more likely. (Please, lord, deliver us unto the midwest or thereabouts.) A Variety article headlined “Sundance in Cincinnati? Hollywood Worries Film Festival Won’t Be the Same Without Park City” actually reports nothing of the sort; the voices regretting Sundance’s imminent departure to a less demanding altitude come from two Utah […]
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“A Delusional Burst of Confidence” | Mary Bronstein, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? From creating the title page to premiering at Sundance I’ve been on a rollercoaster of pure tenacity and support from those closest to me, lasting over seven years. The most significant day of the entire process has to be the night in December 2007 when I had an existential crisis that spewed forth a […]
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“I Sometimes Felt Like the Worst Partner in the World”: DP Clarke Gayford on Prime Minister
Prime Minister, premiering in the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Documentary Competition, is co-director Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s behind-the-scenes look at Jacinda Ardern’s’s five years as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Clarke Gayford, Ardern’s’s husband and a radio and TV broadcaster, also served as one of the film’s cinematographers. Below, he talks about the challenges of pulling double duty as both a DP and a supportive husband to a prime minister. 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 […]
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“Horror Films Have a Unique Ability to Tap into Deep Emotions”: DP Andreas Johannessen on Rabbit Trap
In Rabbit Trap, a musician and her husband find their outsider status in a remote Wales town amplified when their music brings to the door an unnamed child who will stop at nothing to weasel into their lives. Shot on 35mm, debut English-language feature by director Bryn Chainey will play as part of the Midnights section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Andreas Johannessen, who served as camera operator on The Worst Person in the World and has acted as cinematographer on music videos by Jenny Hval, among others, also makes his feature debut as DP. Below, he goes into detail about […]
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“A New Way of Looking at the American West”: DP Austin Shelton on East of Wall
In East of Wall, writer-director Kate Beecroft trains her camera on Tabatha Zimiga, who runs a ranch for wayward teenagers while trying to cope with her own precarity. Beecroft found her subject by chance, as the film’s cinematographer, Austin Shelton, explains below. He also talks about how they approached filming Tabatha and her family in a way that was both true to her lives, even when it meant finding unorthodox solutions to make a scene work. 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 […]
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“He Wanted To Share with People How To Embrace Death”: Editor Parker Laramie on André is an Idiot
In Tony Benna’s directorial debut, André is an Idiot, André Ricciardi, armed with his sense of humor, documents his own eventual death from cancer. The film will premiere in the U.S. Documentary Competition of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Parker Laramie (Unfriended, Sing Sing) served as the film’s editor. Below, he talks about what it was like to join a delicate project while it was in motion and how they cut their subject’s journey down to just 88 minutes. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of […]
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“This Was Our One Shot To Capture Something Lasting”: DP Ethan Indorf on André is an Idiot
When André Ricciardi received the cancer diagnosis that would eventually kill him, he decided he wanted to make a movie documenting how he faced death with humor. The result, André is an Idiot, will screen as part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The film is the directorial debut of Tony Benna and was shot by Ethan Indorf, both friends with Ricciardi. Below, Indorf discusses what it was like to be tasked with documenting the death of his friend. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of […]
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“Finally Allowing Myself to Grieve” | Tony Benna, André is an Idiot
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? The night before the Sundance deadline, I found myself laying on the floor of my edit suite at 3am with a freshly self-inflicted broken hand and a waterfall of tears running down my face. To say that I had lost my mind a bit would’ve been an understatement. The post-production process had been an […]
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“Something Dangerous is Always Lurking Just Beneath the Surface” | Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Our film is set in Ocala, Florida, just a 40-minute drive from Orlando—a place where beauty and stark contradictions are in constant tension. On one side, you have sprawling, wealthy horse farms and ranches; on the other, economically vulnerable communities living in close proximity to these affluent areas. The neighborhood at the heart of […]
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“A Journey of Nearly Two Decades Had Reached a Natural Conclusion” | Evan Twohy, Bubble & Squeak
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? I started working on Bubble & Squeak nearly twenty years ago, so there are many significant days to choose from. If I had to single out just one, I would choose our final day of production. That afternoon, we moved our company to an abandoned limestone quarry outside Tallinn, Estonia. On its shores, families […]
