Directors
Interviews - Directors
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“The Freedom To Find My Own Way Through Such a Personal Story”: Director-DP-Editor Sierra Urich on Joonam
In her personal documentary film Joonam, director, editor and DP Sierra Urich attempts to make sense of her complicated identity as an Iranian-American. Growing up in Vermont, the culture and homeland of her mother and grandmother has never been truly known to her—only through stories, cuisine and holidays has she been able to connect with her Iranian heritage. Particularly with the current political climate of Iran, the prospect of visiting seems all the more impossible. Urich briefly discusses shooting and editing her feature debut, touching on how instrumental supervising editor Maya Daisy Hawke was during the process. See all responses […]
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“The Process Is Similar to the One I Go Through When I Direct”: Editor Babak Jalali on Fremont
In Fremont, the latest film from Babak Jalali, Afghan refugee and former translator for the U.S. government Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) suffers from intense bouts of insomnia. Living in the Bay Area and working at a fortune cookie factory, she channels her loneliness and frustration into an odd outlet. She decides to insert a personalized fortune into a random cookie, curious and unsure of whose hands it will land in. Fremont director and co-writer Babak Jalali discusses the process of editing the film, a role he undertook due to a strong “gut feeling.” See all responses to our annual Sundance […]
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“The Gorgeous Light of LA Sunsets Always Seemed To Come Too Soon”: DP Derek Howard on The Tuba Thieves
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 […]
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“What Remains in the Body”: Maite Alberdi on The Eternal Memory
Oscar nominee and Sundance alum Maite Alberdi (with 2020’s surprisingly lighthearted The Mole Agent, which followed an endearing octogenarian with no private investigative skills on an undercover mission to expose retirement home elder abuse) returned to Park City this year with a much different follow-up. While The Eternal Memory likewise deals with both the joys and indignities of aging, Alberdi trains her lens this time on a dynamic duo who’ve been together for a quarter century, much of it in the media spotlight. Paulina Urrutia was (and still is) an actor and former State Minister, while Augusto Góngora was one of Chile’s most […]
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“We Underestimated the Violence of the Regime”: Lina on 5 Seasons of Revolution
Like most conflicts heavily documentedby Western media, the ongoing Syrian civil war is one in which nearly all nuance has been left on the cutting room floor. Fortunately, Lina’s 5 Seasons of Revolution, a revelatory Sundance debut from a Damascus video journalist who (for safety reasons) goes simply by her first name, shatters the trend. Currently based in Europe, Lina spent 2011-2015 filming her country’s path from high revolutionary hopes to ultimately shattered dreams. But even more importantly, she did so in the most personal and truthful way, by turning the camera on herself and four of her closest friends—all educated, […]
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“I Had No Idea How Filmmakers Actually Raise Huge Amounts of Money”: Alison O’Daniel on The Tuba Thieves
In visual artist Alison O’Daniel’s debut feature The Tuba Thieves, a local news story serves as the impetus for an abstract investigation into the cultural significance of sound, music, communication and the act of hearing itself. From 2011 through 2013, schools in Southern California experienced a common (and confounding) crime—tubas were stolen en masse, leaving marching bands without their lowest-pitched instrument. When O’Daniel—who is d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing—first listened to the developing news story via car radio, she was immediately intrigued. Yet she wasn’t interested in the conventional questions pertinent to such a crime (e.g. who is stealing these instruments and why?), […]
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“Independent Media Can Strengthen Tribal Sovereignty”: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler on Bad Press
While freedom of the press has certainly been a newsworthy topic these past few years, those of us in the US can at least take comfort in (i.e., take for granted) the fact that our First Amendment firmly protects this inalienable right. That is, unless you happen to likewise be a citizen of one of the sovereign nations sprinkled throughout this occupied land—aka Indian Country—where only a handful of tribes have seen fit to enshrine such a guarantee into their constitutions. Which is a problem not just for the average, truth-seeking Native populace at large, but especially for a dogged […]
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“I Realized That a Sauna Is Not Just for Cleaning the Body, but Also the Soul”: Anna Hints on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Debuting January 22 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is an intimate look at a tradition that UNESCO has added to its “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” This might appear to be a heavy designation for a way to sweat out stress. Unless, of course, one happens to be South Estonian like director Anna Hints, who grew up with the knowledge that for centuries smoke saunas have also been a place of life (birth) and death. For the small group of women that have generously allowed Hints to serve as a cinematic fly-on-the-wall […]
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“This Film Is Not Just for Disabled People, It Is for Anyone Who’s Ever Felt ‘Other'”: Ella Glendining on Is There Anybody Out There?
While many non-white, non-straight folks have long lamented underrepresentation in cinema, Ella Glendining has literally never seen anyone that looks like her on-screen—or off-screen, for that matter. (Yes, other similarly bodied people are indeed out there; along with fixit freaks like a Miami-based doctor who seems to have cornered the market on “limb lengthening.”) But this truth culminates in the biggest revelation of Is There Anybody Out There?, Glendining’s personal and illuminating non-fiction film: There truly is nobody out there quite like her, nor is there anybody out there quite like you or me. Filmmaker reached out to the acclaimed […]
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“I Was Blind to My Own Blackness by Apartheid’s Design”: Milisuthando Bongela on Milisuthando
The self-described South African “writer, editor, cultural worker and artist”—and now debut feature filmmaker—Milisuthando Bongela grew up under apartheid. Yet she also didn’t, at least not within the straightforward narrative of having witnessed a racist colonial regime heroically toppled by Black liberator Nelson Mandela. Indeed, the young Bongela wasn’t aware of her fellow Black countrymen’s struggle in cities like Soweto. But neither were most of the residents of The Transkei, an unrecognized Black independent region established by the oppressors to conjure the illusion that being “separate but equal” not only worked, but could provide Black people with a wonderfully blissful […]
