Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“I Wanted To Take a Closer Look at How People Shut Down”: Veerle Baetens on When It Melts
It’s somehow been a decade since Veerle Baetens was named best European actress for her incandescent, heart-wrenching turn in The Broken Circle Breakdown. As a bluegrass-loving tattoo artist gradually obliterated by tragedy, Baetens’ performance was complex, unflinching and emotionally raw. When It Melts, the Flemish filmmaker’s Sundance-premiering feature directorial debut, cuts similarly close to the bone. Adapted by Baetens and co-writer Maarten Loix from Lize Spit’s bestselling Flemish novel, it centers on an isolated woman named Eva (Charlotte de Bruyne) who returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. There, […]
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Sundance 2023: Fremont, Gush
After three full features and one walk-out on my first full IRL day of Sundance 2023, I closed with the day’s best, Babak Jalali’s Fremont. Donya (Anaita Wali Zada, a debuting nonprofessional Afghan refugee playing one) lives in the titular city but commutes to San Francisco to work at a fortune cookie factory. She can’t sleep at nights and, after eight months of unsuccessfully trying to get a psychiatrist appointment, finagles a slot with Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington). Their one-on-ones are representative of the film as a whole; even on the semi-populated factory floor, Fremont largely unfolds as a series of […]
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“Judy’s Books Allowed Us to Travel Back to Our Own Childhoods” | Leah Wolchok and Davina Pardo, Judy Blume Forever
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? We first started talking to Judy Blume about the idea of this documentary in June 2018, but it wasn’t until the end of February 2020 that we received an email from her saying, “Yes, let’s do it.” That “yes” was a dream come true, but we all know what happens next: just a few short weeks later, we were in […]
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Field of Vision’s Charlotte Cook on Criteria for New Partners, Preventing Staff Burnout and Their 2023 Sundance Slate
Last month, a letter from Field of Vision’s co-founder and executive director Charlotte Cook announced that the non-profit organization would be splitting from its parent company First Look Media and become an independent studio. Formed in 2015, Field of Vision has been behind documentaries like Hale County This Morning, This Evening, American Factory and Riotsville, USA among others. They’ve also had their hand in producing several films made by 25 New Faces of Film alums, with Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves and Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. As part of the split, First Look […]
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2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Editor Responses
Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series editors a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out cinematographer questionnaires and a single question for feature directors to answer. Below, find links to individual editor responses, which will be updated daily during the festival. “I Love To Look For Good Reactions”: Editor Whitney Houser on Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out “Don’t Settle for What Your Eyes See on the First Day”: Editor Clara Martínez Malagelada on La Pecera “My Techniques Are Intuitive”: Editors Marc Boucrot and Jacqueline […]
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The 2023 Sundance Question: What Was an Unforeseen Obstacle, Crisis, or Simply Unpredictable Event You Had to Respond To?
Each year, Filmmaker asks all the incoming feature directors at Sundance one question. (To see last year’s question and responses, click here.) We also send out cinematographer and editor questionnaires. This year’s question: Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Below, find links to each director’s individual response to the prompt. Keep checking back here during the festival, as more responses will be posted daily! “A Rare […]
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2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Cinematographer Responses
Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series cinematographers a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out editor questionnaires and a single question for feature directors to answer. Below, find links to individual cinematographer responses, which will be updated daily during the festival. “We Had To Capture Bioluminescence on Camera in the Most Organic Way”: DP PJ López on La Pecera “It Was -30 to -40 Degrees Celsius for Most of the Shoot”: DP Bryn McCashin on My Animal “You Hope the Work Can Play a Small Part in Moving the Needle […]
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“I Found Out That the Interview Was to Be Broadcast on NASA TV” | Ido Mizrahy, The Longest Goodbye
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Toward the end of our shoot, I was given the green light to conduct a 20 minute interview with astronaut Kayla Barron—one of our main subjects—while she was on the space station. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous about an interview (also, it kinda felt like I was going to space). Following up on an interview I did […]
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23 Films We’re Anticipating at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is always the American independent scene’s bellwether. The festival’s curatorial decisions vault a select group of films — this year, 99 features out of 4,061 submitted — to the top tier of pictures receiving attention from distributors, critics, curators from other festivals and, through copious media coverage, audiences. And while longtime festival veterans — I’ve been attending since 1993 — are accustomed to the usual first-half rhythms (“the festival seems slow”; “the documentaries are stronger”; “did you hear Company X bought film Y for $Z million dollars!”), Sundance’s return to in-person combined with its first true hybrid […]
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“To Change Reality, You Need to Change the Narrative”: E Mãlama Pono, Willy Boy Director Scott W. Kekama Amona at Hawaii International Film Festival 2023
At the end of the recent Hawai’i International Film Festival, Filmmaker reached out to director Scott W. Kekama Amona to learn more about E Mãlama Pono, Willy Boy, which won the festival’s Audience Award for Best Short Film. An astonishingly assured, measured debut, Willy Boy is one of the more important Native Hawaiian and indigenous titles to come out in recent years, successfully addressing issues like land-rights injustice, political disenfranchisement, police overreach and native identity in a concise narrative framework that takes place in only one day, from one character’s awakening to their eventual “awakening.” Shot in a steely, timeless black-and-white […]
