Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“I Don’t Want to Make Seamless Films”: Sierra Pettengill on Riotsville, USA
Where Sierra Pettengill’s previous all-archival film, The Reagan Show (co-directed with Pacho Velez), asked the question “How did we get here?” by re-examining the ’80s, her new feature Riotsville, USA goes back further, to the oft-examined period from roughly 1967 to 1968. As she explains in a press kit interview conducted by programmer Nellie Killian (also credited as a researcher on the film), the project originated when, while reading Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, Pettengill grew curious about what, exactly, might have happened at the titular sites. “I Googled [“Riotsville”] and I didn’t find much of anything—and for me, as an archival researcher, that’s just the […]
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Sundance 2022 Critic’s Notebook: Mija, Mars One, Emergency
When does a virtual film festival start? The types of film screenings, audience accommodations, parties, panels, social spaces, diversity and development programs, residencies, labs, medical procedures and contingency plans film festival organizers are responsible for keep spiraling. The International Film Festival Rotterdam warned all attendees in late December that its 2022 edition would be entirely virtual, while the Berlinale recently confirmed the festival’s focus on in-person screenings would proceed as planned next month, without exception for press, but with a slightly expanded, all-virtual European Film Market. In this climate, Sundance announced a scant two weeks before the festival’s opening night that […]
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Sundance 2022 Critic’s Notebook: When You Finish Saving the World
I eased into the opening hours of my second virtual Sundance Film Festival better prepared than at this time last year. The festival, of necessity, pivoted back to online-only mode with so little heads-up time that seasonal staffers evidently learned they were out of gigs at the same time everyone else on Twitter heard about the change of plans—financially devastating for the suddenly unemployed and uncompensated, very regrettable for filmmakers, logistically fairly easy to adjust to for everyone else after a few years’ virtual fest training. This time last year I had a projector, but also roommates and hence the […]
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“All Things Shorts”: Filmmakers Discuss the Shorts Scene in an XRM Media/Argo Panel at Sundance
A number of shorts producers and commissioning editors will discuss the short film landscape at Sundance today. In “All Things Shorts,” a panel assembled by media technology and entertainment entity, XRM Media, and short film streaming platform, Argo. The panelists will discuss key issues from the points of view of funders, festival programmers, distributors and content providers. Moderator is Amanda Salazar, Head of Programming & Acquisitions, Argo, and the panelists are: Lamonia Deanne Brown, Consulting Producer, WarnerMedia OneFifty; Merrill Sterritt, Co-Director, IF/Then Shorts; Charlie Phillips, Head of Video, The Guardian; Opal Hope Bennett, Shorts Co-Producer, POV; Adam Piron, Interim Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program. The […]
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“I Was Interested in Enhancing Spontaneous Observational Moments That Had a Strong Sense of Truth Behind the Avatar Embodiments”: Editor Joe Hunting on We Met in Virtual Reality
Joe Hunting directed, shot, edited and produced We Met in Virtual Reality, a documentary shot within virtual reality that follows a number of couples who met in VR while in lockdown during the COVID pandemic. Below, Hunting discusses what his subjects taught him about the VR space and how he edited the film to try to make audiences forget they were in VR. 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? Hunting: It was valuable for me to review and […]
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“What Does ‘Quiet’ Sound Like When You’re Trying to Express the Correct Emotion?”: Editor Michael Block on Watcher
Watcher is a psychological thriller that follows Julia, an American woman who moves to Romania when her husband receives a work opportunity. After seeing a neighbor watching her, Julia begins to think she is being stalked by the serial killer known as “The Spider” that is currently on the loose. Editor Michael Block explained how he led the audience to experience events the same way as its protagonist, the creative compositing in the film, and the different kinds of quiet in the sound design. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were […]
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“One Way to Create a Natural Flow in Sequences Is to Be Very Mindful of Eye Trace”: Editor Chris Witt on 892
Based on a true story, 892 depicts a veteran who struggles to reintegrate into civilian life and, after having his dignity whittled down by financial precarity and a society unreceptive to his needs, he decides to hold up a bank. Below, editor Chris Witt discusses how he subtly adjusted the movie’s pace, drew on Greek tragedy to make the final act as moving as possible, and shaping Michael Kenneth Williams’ final performance. 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? […]
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Sundance Curators and Directors Speak, Along with 16 Films Not To Miss
“Making the shift to an online-only experience was a difficult decision, but it was the right one for the full community,” said new Sundance Executive Director Joana Vicente at the top of today’s opening press conference of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. While the contours of last year’s largely-virtual (excepting the Satellite Screen events around the country) event were visible last June and then explicitly stated in early December, 2020, this year’s necessary hard-pivot to a largely virtual edition (again, with the Satellite Screens) happened late, in early January, 2022. So, when, as the various programmers all announced themselves by […]
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“Do Younger Israelis Care at All About This History?”: Alon Schwarz on His Sundance-Debuting Doc Tantura
Alon Schwarz’s Tantura takes its title from a particular Palestinian village that was depopulated – by any means necessary, including through a still-contested massacre of civilians – during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence (aka “Al Nakba,” the Catastrophe, if you hail from the occupied side). Yet the doc is less a history lesson than a deep-dive investigation into the stories a nation chooses to tell about itself. Schwarz’s (Aida’s Secrets) own story began when he got access to over 100 hours of shockingly candid audiotaped interviews that the (government and academia-silenced) researcher Teddy Katz conducted decades ago with former soldiers […]
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The 2022 Sundance Question: What Aspect of Your Filmmaking Did You Have to Reinvent?
Each year Filmmaker asks all the incoming feature directors at Sundance one question. (To see past years’ questions and responses, click here.) This year’s question: The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year? “Jumping […]
