Sundance
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Five Questions with Newlyweeds Director Shaka King
The stoner comedy niche is one the Sundance Film Festival too rarely fills, but as if to remedy this lack we now have Shaka King’s debut feature Newlyweeds. Equal parts absurd and emotionally grounded, the film follows Lyle (Amari Cheatom) and Nina (Trae Harris), two young lovers with a shared passion for weed. But just as much as the drug provides a stabilizing force in their relationship, it also proves to be the thing holding them back. Newlyweeds premieres today in Sundance’s NEXT section. Filmmaker: Where did the idea for Newlyweeds come from? Forgive me for asking, but are you […]
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Jiseul | Director Muel O
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 3:00 — Sundance Resort Screening Room, Sundance Resort] Since the tragedy of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising, more than 60 years have been passed without any opportunity to reconsider due to the ignorance from Korea and the world. To bring the terrible memories up into the film caused huge pressure in regards to many things. As well as getting the financial support, the biggest pressure was that I had a duty to make a great enough film to satisfy the local residents in Jeju Island. This tragedy is still ineffaceable pain to them and the period […]
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Mud | Director Jeff Nichols
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 8:30pm — The MARC, Park City] When I first read this question I was immediately struck by how different my answers would be for each of the three films I’ve made. Each answer really shows where I was at in my life during these productions. For Mud, the biggest sacrifice I made was being away from my family. At the time, our son was one, and I missed roughly four months of his life. Despite a few occasional visits during production, I mostly had to block out the fact that I wasn’t getting to be […]
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Dave Grohl on Directing Sound City
Dave Grohl has a history of fruitfully redefining himself. After Nirvana self-destructed, he went from being the former drummer for one the most momentous rock bands of the 20th century to being the frontman for one of the biggest acts of the 21st, Foo Fighters. So it shouldn’t seem too surprising to find him making a successful broad jump from musician to documentarian, especially with a project is as close to his heart as Sound City. Opening its doors in 1969, L.A.’s Sound City Studios was low on frills and gloss, but boasted an almost magical live-room ambience and a […]
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Five Questions with Kill Your Darlings Director John Krokidas
After premiering his short film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, director John Krokidas vowed to be back two years later with his first feature film. Krokidas found that it took a bit longer than anticipated to get his film to Park City, but eleven long years later, Kill Your Darlings premieres in competition today at Sundance. The Beat generation has been a popular subject of films lately, but rather than adapt a Kerouac book or Ginsberg poem, Krokidas follows the nascent writers during their days at Columbia University and one particular event that shaped their future work and careers. In 1944, […]
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Five Questions with Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes Director Francesca Gregorini
Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes is Francesca Gregorini’s second feature film, but her first solo directorial undertaking. Influenced strongly by surrealism and her own personal struggles with loss, Gregorini’s film, which she also wrote, follows a teenage girl, Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario, Wuthering Heights), who struggles to comprehend her mother’s death. When a woman eerily similar to her deceased mom moves in next door, Emanuel finds ways to interact with her and develop a new relationship, learning they have more in common than anticipated. Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes explores how both children and adults cope with death and […]
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Stories We Tell | Director Sarah Polley
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 9:00pm — Salt Lake City Library Theatre, Salt Lake City] To make Stories We Tell, I think I sacrificed any semblance of an equilibrium for five years. It was terrifying to make a film about the people closest to me. The potential consequences of damaged or severed relationships hung over me and haunted me, the weighing of truth versus fiction in my family’s lives and how the exposure of that balance would surely effect us all, was at times almost too much to bear. Spending hours on end in an editing room reliving some of […]
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Shopping | Directors Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 3:00pm — Egyptian Theatre] Our biggest personal sacrifice would be our time. Both having large families, this is a limited commodity. Fortunately for us, our marriages are still intact. From the writing to shooting, we worked beyond expectation beginning “our own” pre-production months before money was on hand and going well beyond after we were told the budget was broke to ensure we had a solid level of preparation. This cost us personally financially yet has been one of the main contributing factors allowing for the quality we now see in the frame. Basically it’s […]
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The Spectacular Now | Director James Ponsoldt
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 8:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] This past summer, I traveled to my hometown of Athens, Georgia, and shot a movie in the neighborhoods and streets of my childhood. Our film’s production office was the recently vacated office of Athens’ local heroes, R.E.M. On weekends the cast and crew partied in local bars and rock clubs (the Manhattan, the 40 Watt Club, the Georgia Theatre). I saw my parents all the time. It was a dream — a second childhood, balmy and green, somehow better than the first. I was so, so lucky. But […]
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The Stuart Hall Project | Director John Akomfrah
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 3:00pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] In making this film, I sacrificed time and plenty of sleep! The organizational nightmare that comes with working almost exclusively with archive has provided its own set of challenges. Creating a whole new working practice for myself and the team these past few films – and by that I mean the migration away from what we all as filmmakers would understand to be the daily routine, the broadly known elements of documentary making – has been tough. Watching thousands of hours or archive and selecting the material was […]
