Interviews
Interviews
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“It Was Hard to Find Settings That Really Evoked the 1990s”: DP George Geddes on My Old School
In My Old School, director Jono McLeod returns to his past and reassembles his classmates to tell the strange story of a former classmate, an awkward but fiercely intelligent protector who harbored a secret. Below, cinematographer George Geddes talks about the film’s journey from a documentary with dramatized sequences and then to a heavily rotoscoped feature before settling into a mix of live-action and animation. 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? Geddes: Jono, the director, and I […]
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“It’s a Huge Responsibility Working with Children, Especially after Filming Ends”: Simon Lereng Wilmont on his Sundance-Debuting doc A House Made of Splinters
A House Made of Splinters is Simon Lereng Wilmont’s exquisite followup to The Distant Barking of Dogs, his likewise stunning feature debut (that was awarded Best First Appearance at IDFA 2017, and went on to be Oscar shortlisted two years later on these shores). With this latest, world-premiering January 23 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, the Danish director returns to the suddenly-in-the-headlines front line of Eastern Ukraine to once again focus on the youngest victims of an endless war. This time he trains his lens on Eva, Sasha and Kolya – three children temporarily removed from substance-abusing parents and […]
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“He Knew Exactly What Movie He Wanted to Make”: Editor Henry Hayes on Cha Cha Real Smooth
Cooper Raiff’s follow-up to his 2020 SXSW winner Shithouse follows a recent alum who, unable to find a career path, moves back home and begins to work as a party-starter for his younger brother’s classmates. When he befriends a local’s mom, he begins to imagine a different future for himself. Editor Henry Hayes balancing humor and pathos and how working with friends and on small projects gave him space to experiment. 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? Hayes: […]
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“My Process was Much Like Design Brainstorming”: Editor Anisha Acharya on Neptune Frost
Although its distinct color palette is more immediately noticeable, Neptune Frost, a directorial collaboration by slam poet Saul Williams and actress-cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, also weaves a complex Afrofuturist narrative into a musical that brings pressing political questions about colonialism, environmentalism, and more to the forefront. Editor Anisha Acharya explains how a plethora of narrative interpretations informed the final product, and how the filmmakers struck a balance between complexity and accessibility. 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? Acharya: […]
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“The Camera Movements Were Almost Choreographed to Amplify the Ensemble Feeling, the Dances and the Musicality of That Universe”: DP Anisia Uzeyman on Neptune Frost
Neptune Frost is an Afrofuturist musical that tells the story of a group of African miners digging for the material that sustains a digital network, as well as an emergent connection between a miner and an intersex runaway. Co-director and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman discusses how she captured the film’s distinctive and colorful aesthetic. 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? Uzeyman: Saul and I worked side by side on the creation of this project from the beginning. We developed […]
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“The Movie’s Beauty Comes From What Reminds People of Their Own Life”: DP Cristina Dunlap on Cha Cha Real Smooth
Cha Cha Real Smooth taps into generational angst with its story of Andrew, a recent university alum who finds himself moving in with his parents due to a lack of job prospects. Andrew catches a break when he finds work as a party-starter for bar and bat mitzvahs, where he finds himself yearning for a future that might not be his own. Cinematographer Cristina Dunlap discusses how she varied the look of each of the seven bar and bat mitzvahs and making an abandoned Pittsburgh mall stand-in for so many different locations. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
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“A Labor of Love, Every Step of the Way”: Editor Grace Zarah on Sirens
Although Sirens captures a historic band—the all-woman Lebanese thrash metal band Slave to Sirens—at an equally historic moment in their nation’s history, director Rita Baghdadi and editor Grace Zarah quickly agreed that it was neither of these threads but instead the moments of friendship that were at the heart of their footage. Below, Zarah talks about looking for those moments and determining how to depict the August 2020 port explosion in Beirut. 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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“We Had a Remarkable Number of Catastrophes to Navigate”: DP Rita Baghdadi on Sirens
The subject of Sirens, Rita Baghdadi’s third documentary feature, is the all-woman Lebanese thrash band Slave to Sirens, who are captured here against the unrest that has shaken Lebanon in recent years as well as in performances, including one at the Glastonbury Festival. Baghdadi recalls the difficulty of capturing sufficient footage at the festival and how she turned a film about a band into a film about being in your twenties. 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? […]
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“It Was So Physically Demanding That It Almost Killed the Three of Us”: DP Aaron Moorhead on Something in the Dirt
Something in the Dirt is the fifth film that Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have directed together, but this one is paradoxically the most ambitious and the most intimate. Shot during the COVID pandemic, it by necessity made almost entirely by Benson and Moorhead, as well as their producer, David Lawson, and a production designer, Ariel Vida. Below, Moorhead discusses how they incorporated the isolation mandated by COVID into the film and disguised the conditions of the shoot with a bit of movie magic. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were […]
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“We Wanted to Make Sure There Was Intention With Every Shift”: Editor Stacy Moon on Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, Adamma Ebo’s feature-length adaptation of their short film of the same name about a couple attempting to rebuild the congregation of their once-thriving megachurch after a scandal. Partially shot in the faux-documentary style of the film’s own documentarians, the film required the hand of a diligent editor to make every shift between the film’s different styles meaningful; editor Stacy Moon discusses how she made these shifts purposeful and more below. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
