Editors
Interviews - Editors
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“Hamlet from Ophelia’s POV”: Editor Luke Dunkley on Sundance Drama Ophelia
Luke Dunkley began his career 20-some years ago as an editor on the short-lived BBC show This Life. He has since gone on to work for dozens of TV series and miniseries, including Netflix’s The Crown, Channel 4’s National Treasure and Canal Plus’s The Last Panther. Dunkley served as the editor on Ophelia, the fourth feature from Australian director Claire McCarthy. Ophelia is a retelling of Hamlet as told from the perspective of the young noblewoman of Denmark. Below, Dunkley discusses how he and McCarthy sought to “not compromise the young female perspective” in their spin on Shakespeare. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“Blissful Madness!”: Lucas Celler on Editing Sandi Tan’s Documentary Shirkers
Twenty-some years ago, Sandi Tan and her friends shot a 16mm thriller called Shirkers. It was a guerilla-style production in her home country of Singapore. The film, however, was never finished because a member of the crew – the mysterious Georges – stole all the footage and disappeared. Tan’s new documentary, Shirkers, is an experimental dive into that footage and what it meant to her as a young filmmaker. Tan hired filmmaker Lucas Celler to edit and give shape to the film. Below, Celler discusses editing this “collage film, constructed with everything from video to film to photos to maps to […]
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“A Film about the Trials and Tribulations of Artists”: Editor Sabine Krayenbühl on The Price of Everything
Sabine Krayenbühl began her career as an editor in 1994 with a number of small shorts and features. Her breakthrough came in 2003 with My Architect, a documentary on architect Louis Kahn directed by his song Nathaniel. She has since edited more than 10 feature-length docs, including the 2016 film Letters from Baghdad, which she directed. She reunites with Nathaniel Kahn for The Price of Everything, a documentary look at the contemporary art world, which, as she says below, “values money above everything.” Krayenbühl spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the film’s five screenings at Sundance about her editing process. Filmmaker: How and why […]
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“It Would Have Ruined the Film if We Had Made it More Pleasant”: Editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm on Holiday
Danish filmmaker Olivia Neergaard-Holm was one of three directors on last year’s Criterion-anointed documentary David Lynch: The Art Life. Neergaard-Holm has edited a dozen shorts and features since 2010, including the single-take German thriller Victoria and the Danish horror drama Shelley. She most recently edited Holiday, the debut feature from director Isabella Eklöf, which appears in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Neergaard-Holm spoke with Filmmaker about Holiday‘s tricky gender politics and why it was important for the film to maintain a “cold, cynical and misogynistic vibe.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the […]
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“I Started Editing by Accident”: Editor Sofia Subercaseaux on Tyrel
Sofia Subercaseaux readily admits to editing her first feature film with the aid of “tutorials on YouTube.” That film, Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, went on to premiere at Sundance in 2013. She has since gone on to edit Nasty Baby, Christine and Dina – all of which debuted at Sundance in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. This year she edited two films at the festival: Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing and Sebastián Silva’s Tyrel. Below, Subercaseaux discusses her continued collaboration with Silva and the “instinctual and easy to navigate” feel of editing on Adobe Premiere. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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Melba Robichaux on Editing the Zellner Brothers’ Comedy/Western Damsel
Brothers David and Nathan Zellner are a reliable presence at the Sundance Film Festival. Their films Baghead (2008), Goliath (2008), Kid-Thing (2012) and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014) have all premiered at Sundance. To that list they now add Damsel, their new comedy/western starring Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska. Damsel editor Melba Robichaux spoke with Filmmaker before the film’s premiere about some of the key questions one asks during the process of editing a feature film. 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 […]
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“My Past as a Dancer Has a Big Influence on How I Work”: Editor Charlotte Munch Bengtsen on The Last Race
Charlotte Munch Bengtsen began her career as an editor in the mid-2000s on a number of documentaries and shorts. Her break came in 2012 when Joshua Oppenheimer hired her as an editor on his seismic work The Act of Killing. Munch Bengtsen’s newest project is The Last Race, the feature doc debut from visual artist Michael Dweck. Below, she shares her thoughts on the importance of test screenings, rushes and how her experience as a dancer influences her work as an editor. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes […]
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“I Think a Lot about the Crossover Between Painting and Editing”: Editor Hannah Buck on Chef Flynn
Flynn McGarry began hosting his own supper club when he was 11 years old. Now 19, the teen chef has fascinated readers of the New York Times Magazine, Time and food blogs the world over. McGarry is the subject of Chef Flynn, the second feature doc from director Cameron Yates (The Canal Street Madam). Yates hired Hannah Buck to edit Chef Flynn alongside consulting editors Amy Foote and Shannon Kennedy. Below, Buck discusses how she sought to move the film away from talking heads and voiceover narration and toward “a more vérité approach.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
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“The Courage to Just Give a Damn”: Editor Patrick Ryan Gass on HIV/AIDS Documentary Quiet Heroes
In 1981, Dr. Kristen Ries and her partner Maggie Snyder were the only medical professionals in Utah to treat people with HIV/AIDS. Jenny Mackenzie’s new documentary, Quiet Heroes, tells their story. Mackenzie previously directed similar healthcare-focused docs on childhood diabetes (Sugar Babies) and the opioid epidemic (Dying in Vein). Below, Gass spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the film’s Sundance premiere about being a self-taught editor and why this story needed to be told. 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? Gass: I […]
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David Gutnik on Editing the Psychological Thriller NANCY Starring Andrea Riseborough
Writer/director Christina Cho and editor David Gutnik met during their time at Columbia University’s MFA Film Program. Gutnik edited Cho’s thesis film, I Am John Wayne, which won the Grand Jury Prize for best short film at Slamdance in 2012. Their new film together, NANCY, is one of three films at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival to star Andrea Riseborough. Below, Gutnik discusses the genre elements of this psychological thriller and how he sought to ensure that “every edit is connected to the central nervous system of the character, and by extension the soul of the film.” Filmmaker: How and why did you […]
