Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Five Questions with I Used to be Darker Director Matt Porterfield
Though it only arrived three years ago, Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill, with its unique blend of fiction and documentary and its crisp, patient filmmaking, has already become quite an influential and well-loved piece of the micro-budget cannon. Now Porterfield has returned with I Used to Be Darker, a more formally scripted work that follows a troubled young woman (Deragh Campbell) who moves in with her aunt (Kim Taylor), uncle (Ned Oldham), and cousin (Hannah Gross) in Maryland. The film premieres today in US Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: Tell me a bit about the development process for […]
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Five Questions with Escape from Tomorrow Director Randy Moore
There’s something the Sundance Film Guide didn’t tell you about Escape from Tomorrow, the first narrative feature from director Randy Moore – the film was shot guerilla style, on location, at Disney World. Seriously. A debut for the ages, Escape from Tomorrow takes viewers on a surreal journey into the mind of family man Jim Walsh on the last day of his vacation at the park. After finding out that he has been unexpectedly laid off from work, Jim’s day derails until he’s bordering on a complete mental break. This is deranged, imaginative, destabilizing filmmaking – a magical film about […]
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Five Questions with It Felt Like Love Director Eliza Hittman
Coming of age tales are a longstanding mainstay of the Sundance Film Festival, but few films tackle the well-tread genre with the unsentimental eye of It Felt Like Love. The debut feature from filmmaker Eliza Hittman, It Felt Like Love stars first-time actress Gina Piersanti as fourteen-year old Lila, a Brooklyn native who spends her summer pursuing a love affair with an older teen. The film premieres today in the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section. Filmmaker: Your previous short, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, deals with themes similar to It Felt Like Love. How did your experience making that film, and […]
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Five Questions with Concussion Director Stacie Passon
Stacie Passon’s Concussion has a logline that might be misleading. The story of a bored, lesbian housewife who covertly takes a job as a high-scale prostitute for women, the film is so much more than that high-concept, basic-cable-ready premise implies. Equal parts darkly comedic social satire and gut-wrenching character study, Concussion is anchored by a stunning performance by character actress Robin Weigert, and marks the arrival of a strong new filmmaking voice in director Stacie Passon. The film premieres today in US Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: For a film from a first-time director, Concussion is quite […]
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Five Questions with Blue Caprice Director Alexandre Moors
Named for the car from which John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo committed the 2002 Beltway Sniper Attacks, Alexandre Moors’ debut Blue Caprice attempts to move past the chilling anonymity of those attacks to get at the motivations and interior lives of its two culprits. The film is intimate and disturbing, as Moors, a French director who has mostly worked in music videos until this point, focuses on the dysfunctional father / son bond formed between Muhammad and Malvo (played by Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond, respectively), and digs into the distinctly American mindset that they committed their crimes […]
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Gay Film Auteur Travis Mathews Talks Interior. Leather Bar.
San Francisco-based gay filmmaker Travis Mathews built his reputation as one of the leading figures in the latest new wave of gay independent cinema on the back of a series of award-winning intimate, confessional documentary films about young homosexual men, In their Room. His first narrative feature, I Want Your Love, explored gay friends negotiating their way towards and through sexual relationships and featured unsimulated sex. His new film, Interior. Leather Bar, co-directed with the actor James Franco, is just as honest in its depictions. This film within a film begins with a re-imagining of the lost 40 minutes of […]
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Five Questions with Cutie and the Boxer Director Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer functions as a love story about a couple and their devotion to their individual art. Zach Heinzerling’s directorial debut concerns itself with the difficulties of marriage, but also the trials of being an artist. After meeting Ushio and Noriko Shinohara in Brooklyn through a friend, Heinzerling was immediately fascinated by their relationship and lifestyle – two extremely different artists in attitude, age, and craft who have been married and lived together for over 40 years. Cutie and the Boxer came together over five years. Two or three years spent solely on getting to know Ushio and Noriko […]
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Five Questions with The Spectacular Now Director James Ponsoldt
James Ponsoldt is no stranger to the Sundance Film Festival. His last two feature films, Smashed and Off the Black, both premiered in Park City, with Smashed winning a Special Jury Prize in 2012. The Spectacular Now, Ponsoldt’s third film, premieres today. Working from the novel by Tim Tharp of the same name, (500) Days of Summer‘s screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber adapted the story about a popular high school boy with an emerging drinking problem who finds himself drawn to a girl of a lesser social status. Miles Teller (Project X) and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) star […]
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Five Questions with Our School Director/Producer Mona Nicoara
The Roma, more commonly known by the derogatory term “Gypsies,” are Europe’s largest and most oppressed ethic minority. Despite being enslaved in some regions into the 19th century, Western literature, art and culture has long masked the ugly truths with the romanticized notion of the Roma as a free-spirited, nomadic people. Unfortunately these people are subjected to much crueler stereotypes in their day-to-day lives: that they are lazy, dirty, diseased and violent, uninterested in education or holding a job. Far from the truth, the Roma hope for betterment and claw desperately to break free from the cycle of poverty and […]
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Five Questions with Newlyweeds Director Shaka King
The stoner comedy niche is one the Sundance Film Festival too rarely fills, but as if to remedy this lack we now have Shaka King’s debut feature Newlyweeds. Equal parts absurd and emotionally grounded, the film follows Lyle (Amari Cheatom) and Nina (Trae Harris), two young lovers with a shared passion for weed. But just as much as the drug provides a stabilizing force in their relationship, it also proves to be the thing holding them back. Newlyweeds premieres today in Sundance’s NEXT section. Filmmaker: Where did the idea for Newlyweeds come from? Forgive me for asking, but are you […]
