Interviews
Interviews
-
“I’d Waited My Whole Career for a Director To Ask Me To Do That”: Editor Shawn Paper, Love, Brooklyn
Rachael Holder, who has directed several episodes from shows including Dickinson and Everything’s Gonna be Okay, makes the jump to filmmaking with Love, Brooklyn. The film is an observational portrait of three Brooklynites navigating love, loss and life. The U.S. Dramatic Competition Sundance entry was edited by Shawn Paper (That Awkward Moment). Read on to hear about Steven Soderbergh pitch-perfect advice to Paper, as well as the difficulty of—and solutions to—editing the film’s beginning. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led […]
-
“What It Means to be a Human Straddling These Two Worlds”: Editor Nick Rondeau on Serious People
Serious People is co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson NEXT feature about a music video director who hires a lookalike to replace him at work while his wife is pregnant. The film is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood. Serious People is also the feature editorial debut of Nick Rondeau. Below, Rondeau talks about keeping the emotional core of the story central even while adapting a fly-on-the-wall observational approach. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
-
“Moviemaking on a Hyper-Condensed Timeline”: Producer Laurel Thomson on Serious People
Co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson made a work of autofiction about the former’s expectant fatherhood and work-life balance in Serious People, about a music video director who hires a lookalike to take his place at work while his wife is pregnant. Serious People is also Laurel Thomson’s first feature film as a producer. She discusses what made this film so different to produce from other films she has worked on and the ensuing “baptism by fire” to get the film ready for Sundance, where it screens as part of the NEXT section. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer […]
-
“Letting Brooklyn be a Constant but Subtle Presence”: DP Martim Vian on Love, Brooklyn
The U.S. Dramatic Competition entry Love, Brooklyn follows the lives of three Brooklynites as they navigate the trials and travails of everyday life. The film is the debut film by Rachael Handler, who has directed episodes for a number of streaming series. Serving as director of photography on Love, Brooklyn is Martim Vian. Below, Vian goes into detail about the film’s cinematographic principles and bringing its setting to life. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? See all responses to […]
-
“It Was More Pointedly a Satirical Look at …’The Peace-Building Industry'”: Amber Fares on her Sundance-Premiering Coexistence, My Ass!
Amber Fares’s Sundance-premiering Coexistence, My Ass! takes its fabulous title from a one-woman show of the same name, a piece developed (at Harvard of all places) by the doc’s star, “activist-comedian” Noam Shuster Eliassi. The daughter of an Iranian Jewish mother and a Romanian Jewish father, Shuster Eliassi grew up in “Oasis of Peace” (Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam), a utopian community purposely comprised equally of Jews and Palestinians, where she would become “the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process” and eventually a co-director of the UN’s Interpeace organization by the time she was in her early 20s. But then […]
-
“Connect Images in the Edit Based on an Analysis of Characters”: Editor Cooper Raiff on Hal & Harper
Director Cooper Raiff returns to Sundance after his prize-winning Cha Cha Real Smooth with the episodic series Hal & Harper, about a pair of codependent siblings and their father. The first four episodes of Hal & Harper will screen as part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Episodics section. Besides directing, Raiff also served as editor on the series. Below, he talks about his approach to editing as a writer-director and why editing the series transformed his understanding of its characters. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]
-
“Something That Felt Unadorned and a Bit Raw”: DP Doug Emmett on Hal & Harper
Hal & Harper charts the development two codependent siblings with a lifetime of inside jokes and their father. The series is directed by Cooper Raiff (Cha Cha Real Smooth), who plays Hal; Lili Reinhart; and Mark Ruffalo. The first four episodes of Hal & Harper will screen as part of Sundance’s Episodics sidebar. Doug Emmett (The Edge of Seventeen, Sorry to Bother You) the series’ cinematographer, describes the show’s naturalistic and raw feel below. 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 […]
-
“Our Work is More Akin to Writing”: Editor Jeremy Stulberg on Move Ya Body: The Birth of House
The sounds from Chicago that would forever alter dance music get an overdue documentary treatment in Move Ya Body: The Birth of House. The film is directed by Elegance Bratton (The Inspection) and screens in the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres section. Jeremy Stulberg (Growing Up Coy) served as editor for Move Ya Body. Below, he discusses the process of finding the personal story within the raw material and explains why documentary editing is like writing, which necessitates a new way of thinking about the work. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you […]
-
“There Was an Interesting Opportunity to Mix Formats”: DP Ethan Palmer on Plainclothes
The 2025 Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition feature Plainclothes, the feature debut of writer-director Carmen Emmi, mixes a paranoid, anxious police thriller with a coming out narrative. It follows a police officer, Lucas (Tom Blyth), tasked with arresting gay men whose job gets complicated when he falls for one. Plainclothes mixes lo-fi surveillance footage with a contemporary digital aesthetic. The film’s cinematographer, Ethan Palmer (Ted K, Goat) discusses mixing formats and using cinematography to highlight the protagonist’s journey. 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 Intense, Emotional Journey of Navigating One’s Queerness”: Editor Erik Vogt-Nilsen on Plainclothes
Lucas is a young undercover police officer tasked with cracking down on gay communities whose job gets complicated when he falls in love with one of his targets in Plainclothes. The film is the feature debut of writer-director Carmen Emmi and is part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition. Erik Vogt-Nilsen (Big Boys) served as the editor on Plainclothes. Below, he explains how his own coming out, as well as his background in both dance and commercials, helped him shape the narrative and striking a balance between observing Lucas and inhabiting his point of view. See all responses […]
