Filmmaker Ella Glendining has always wanted to meet someone who shares the same rare disability that she was born with. The problem is, she’s not sure such an individual even exists. This quest is the basis of Is There Anybody Out There? her intimate documentary that incorporates personal video diaries alongside interviews with people she meets with bodies similar to her own. UK-based DP Annemarie Lean-Vercoe shares the female cinematography collective that connected her with the director, how the shoot adapted to COVID complications and the documentary touchstones her and Glendining used as references. See all responses to our annual […]

Ever since her mother’s death, 12-year-old Georgie (Lola Campbell) has been living all on her own in director Charlotte Regan’s film Scrapper. She scrapes by with the help of her friend Ali (Alin Uzun) and their bike-stealing hustle, staving off social workers by pretending to live with a non-existent uncle. Just when she thinks she’s got it all figured out, a man named Jason (Harris Dickenson) appears, who claims to be her father. Though she barely recognizes him due to his prolonged absence from her life, she nonetheless falls under his care—but not without a fair amount of pushback. Cinematographer […]

When a marked increase in abortion restrictions and bans began unfolding across the country, Francine Coeytaux knew she had to step up and do something. As a result, she formed the grassroots organization Plan C, which lends its name to Tracy Droz Tragos’s documentary about Coeytaux’s fight for everyone’s right to abortion medication and broader reproductive health services. Cinematographer Derek Howard tells Filmmaker all about his experience shooting PLAN C. 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 […]

The gentrification of New York’s Meatpacking District is told through the eyes of the trans women of color who lived and worked there in the nonfiction feature The Stroll. Once a go-to destination for sex workers to meet with clients, the neighborhood has become increasingly sanitized and corporate. In witnessing gentrification unfold due to increased policing and rampant development, directors Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker chart a neighborhood’s decline by way of its “up-and-coming” nature. DP Sara Kinney discusses first meeting The Stroll‘s co-director Drucker when they were teenagers, using a plethora of archival images and the enormous compliment of […]

Ben (Justin H. Min) is the manager of a local movie theater in Berkeley, California and an aspiring filmmaker. Despite living with his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki), he spends most of his free time obsessing over unattainable blond bombshells, watching an endless stream Criterion DVDs and hanging out with his queer best friend Alice (Sherry Cola). When she decides to move to New York to pursue an internship, Ben experiences a personal crisis. Based on Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel of the same name (who also penned the film’s script), Shortcomings serves as actor Randall Park’s directorial debut. DP Santiago Gonzalez […]

The winner of the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains introduces us to Pietro (Lupo Barbiero) as a young boy visiting the small mountain village of Grana with his mother. During this trip, he meets Bruno (Cristiano Sassella), a herder who also happens to be 11-years-old. Many years later, Pietro’s father passes away, leaving him a long-neglected plot of land in Grana. Upon returning to the Alpine town, he reunites with Bruno, who aids him in rebuilding a house on his newly-inherited land, strengthening a friendship that had previously […]

Mstyslav Chernov, a Ukrainian war correspondent and documentary filmmaker, entered the eastern port city of Mariupol on the eve of the Russian invasion. During the ensuing bombing and siege of the city, Chernov and a team of fellow Ukrainian journalists documented the horrors of the encroaching Russian military as they played out, hoping to survive long enough to share their footage with the world. Taking shelter in a hospital as Russian forces surrounded them, their collective fate became increasingly uncertain. Director and DP Mstyslav Chernov gives Filmmaker rapid-fire answers as to how the film (his debut feature) came to be—and how […]

Two recently-heartbroken 20-somethings spend a day kindling an unexpected romance in Rye Lane, Raine Allen-Miller’s debut feature with a script by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia. As Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) galavant through South London’s Peckham neighborhood, they begin to mend lingering wounds from past relationships and inch closer to the prospect of falling in love again. Cinematographer Olan Collardy discusses his desire to subvert rom-com conventions, Rye Lane‘s “eclectic mix of influences” and the challenges of shooting the film’s boat rendezvous scene.  See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.  Filmmaker: How and why did […]

Twin brothers (and YouTube filmmakers) Danny and Michael Philippou have crafted a ghost story for the influencer age with <i>Talk to Me</i>, their feature debut. When a mummified hand comes into the possession of a group of Australian teenagers, they record members of the group falling under a supernatural spell—channeling the dead when they clasp the hand and utter the requisite incantation: “talk to me.” However, if they allow the spirit to possess their body for more than 90 seconds, they effectively allow the entity to control their mind and body for eternity. With a crowd of teens recording the […]

The very real news story of tuba thefts occurring at a series of Southern California schools is the inspiration for The Tuba Thieves, visual artist Alison O’Daniel’s feature debut. Yet the film isn’t really about these odd crimes, focusing instead on abstract notions of sound and what is means to “listen,” particularly as it pertains to the d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing experience, a theme that has fueled much of O’Daniel’s artistic output. The film’s cinematographer, Derek Howard, discusses how being an outsider to LA helped him capture the city more honestly, the benefits of his documentary background and the […]