Sundance
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Sundance Notes: On Political Action in Park City
Sundance coincides with Presidential inaugurations, and I have indelible memories of twice racing to find a cozy Main Street bar in order to watch the live television broadcast of Barack Obama’s inauguration and speech. All of us in the bar, strangers but inspirited fellow citizens, were glued to every minute. Saturday, sitting in an idling car outside the Park City Marriott, I happened to catch Trump’s speech over the car radio as my partner was inside picking up our press credentials. Something about “carnage.” Ho-hum. Hyperbole and bombast may be the new normal, but this act grows old fast. Films […]
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“We Must Continually Declare What Our Film Is About”: Directors Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross | My Happy Family
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? As filmmakers we must continually declare what our film is about, and explain the process in which we intend to achieve it. It begins in the funding phase and concludes with the distribution of the film, when you must devise ways to communicate the story to a potential audience. For an artist and filmmaker this process is not necessarily positive, because it can kill your artistic intuition. […]
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Sundance Notes: The Nile Hilton Incident
Twice in a row the first film I’ve seen at Sundance is so brilliant, so accomplished that I start Sundance on a mountain high — and it’s not the thin air. I had to miss 2016 Sundance, but two years ago it was Tom Hardy in Steven Knight’s Locke, a tour de force of a one-hander that’s nonetheless a nail-biter — Hardy in close-up the entire film, speeding through the night in his car, his life crumbling in real time with each harrowing Bluetooth call. You learn a lot about concrete pours and the consequences of poor choices. But I […]
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DPs Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau on Big Game Hunting Doc Trophy
Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau are the cofounders of Reel Peak Media, a production company that prides itself on documentary work of both “journalistic integrity and cinematic quality.” Both filmmakers began as photojournalists before making the move to documentary cinema. On Trophy, Schwarz and Clusiau served as DPs with Schwarz acting as director. Their film explores the worlds of big game hunting, breeding, and wildlife conservation. Below, the two discuss these issues ahead of Trophy‘s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? Schwarz and Clusiau: Since we are directors who started as photojournalists, […]
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“The Unconventional Structure We Wanted”: Editor Katie Flaxman on Killing Ground
Katie Flaxman has edited 35 shorts, TV series, fiction films and documentaries in the past 12 years. Her most recent feature, Killing Ground, made its U.S. premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this week. A violent thriller from director Damien Power, the film tells the story of a nightmarish camping trip in the Australian woods. Below, Flaxman discusses the film’s non-linear structure, her techniques for “storyboarding” a film in the editing suite and the importance of POV in thrillers. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that […]
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“A Show about a Family Going Through a Transformation”: Co-creators/Co-Writers Giles Andrew & Dan Marshall | Playdates
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? We originally got the idea for Playdates through conversations with our friend and co-creator Alex Bourne — a stay-at-home dad who would complain about the playdates he was forced to take his two daughters on while his wife held down a steady job. So, we based our main character, Bennett, on Alex’s personality, his experiences with parenting, and his reaction within certain situations. We thus had a […]
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“I Found that Less Was a Lot More”: Director Brett Haley | The Hero
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? I love dream sequences. While writing The Hero I was inspired by films like 8 1/2 and TV shows like The Sopranos for their use of dreams in their narratives. Those sequences work so well because they communicate the subconscious fears and hopes of their main characters in truly unique and engaging ways. But dream sequences are tough to get right, not least because they’ve already been […]
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“Simple, Effortless and Full of Hope”: Director Lone Scherfig | Their Finest
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? The script for Their Finest was unusually dense and complex, but the film itself should seem simple, effortless and full of hope. We wanted to pack it with detail, but in so subtle a way that the many layers felt light, shifting between humorous and much more emotional scenes. There’s a wide range of great technical challenges built into the story: a gorgeous Technicolor film within the […]
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“A Story about the Very Challenge of Communication”: Director Christine Turner | Hold On
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? In Hold On, a short film about a young man who is left to care for his grandmother, I tell a story about the very challenge of communication. Living under the same roof, but separated by more than 50 years, the two characters are worlds apart. On the one hand there is Troy, a multi-tasking teenager, who speaks the language of Twitter, Tinder, Instagram. On the other […]
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Sundance Dispatch 1: Trump, Person to Person
For a few weeks now I’ve been preemptively writing bad ledes for Sundance write-ups/reviews in my head. Such as: “In the age of Trump, do independent films matter? Yes — now perhaps more than ever.” “Can independent film lead the resistance? It can, and it must.” “The spectacle of the Sundance Film Festival sits strangely against the much more lavish pageantry of the Trump inauguration, let me frame every single write-up through this lens.” “Can documentaries make an impact in the post-truth era?” And so on and so on, quite satisfactorily, with the illusion of topicality thinly sustained. If you […]
