Sundance
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Interview with Drunktown’s Finest Director Sydney Freeland
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Freeland: I grew up on the Navajo reservation and one thing that struck me growing up was that I never saw anybody that I recognized in the movies. I wanted to tell a story about the people and experiences I saw growing up and that’s what set me out to try and make this movie. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Freeland: I’m not sure, honestly. Our pre-production schedule was only 3 weeks and our shoot schedule was only 15 days. […]
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Street Views: a Conversation with James Nares and His Cinematic Ode to New York
The following article originally ran in Spring 2013, when Street was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is republished here to coincide with it playing as part of New Frontier at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. In James Nares’s 1976 film Pendulum, a large metal sphere swings ominously from a bridge in a desolate TriBeCa street. We watch with unease as the ball, viewed from multiple positions, traces a giant arc, pulling on the cable, which emits a low rhythmic groan on the soundtrack. This tense, hypnotic Super-8 film, which transforms a forlorn […]
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Five Questions with Ping Pong Summer Director Michael Tully
As much a tribute to the films of the 80s as it is a tribute to the 80s themselves, Michael Tully’s Ping Pong Summer is a strangely sweet, knowingly retro coming-of-age story. Set against the unique and colorful backdrop of 1980s Ocean City, Maryland, the film follows the aptly named Radical Miracle (newcomer Marcello Conte) across a summer of old-school arcade games, teen romance, breakdancing, and of course, plenty of ping pong. Weaving the idiosyncratic style of his previous feature Septien (which premiered at Sundance back in 2011) into a warmer, more universal (yet no less distinctive) tapestry, Tully has […]
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Five Questions with God Help the Girl Director Stuart Murdoch
Stuart Murdoch has been a major creative force in the independent music sphere for over two decades now as the lead singer of seminal indie-pop outfit Belle and Sebastian. Over eight albums and roughly a dozen EPs, Murdoch has expertly reinvented himself and his band many times – from the twee folk of If You’re Feeling Sinister to the 80s-inspired pop of Dear Catastrophe Waitress to the Bowie-esque swagger of The Life Pursuit. Never one to rest on his laurels, though, Murdoch is now turning his attention to an entirely different medium with God Help the Girl, his feature directorial […]
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Park City Critic’s Notes #1: Jungle Violence and Prairie Reckonings
Generally speaking, the documentary competitions sections of major market film festivals are not places to go and find uplift. Wanna feel good in, say, the James Brown sense of the phrase? The Premieres or Spotlight sections at a festival such as Sundance are usually better bets, programs that tend to provide, with some notable exceptions, a bevy of of biopics, inspiring tales and quirky comedies packaged to appeal to vain movie stars and whatever audience still remains for mid-to-lowbrow, adult-centered specialty films. Any world where the people are all as attractive as, say, Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz and Mark […]
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Ping Pong Summer | Director Michael Tully
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Speaking on broad […]
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Interview with Captivated: The Trials Of Pamela Smart Editor Keiko Deguchi
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Deguchi: I worked with Jeremiah Zagar, the director of this film before – on his first feature length documentary film called “In A Dream”. Even before I worked with him, by looking at a few scenes he put together, I could tell he was an extremely talented filmmaker. Not only that he is a delight to work with! We became good friends since and when he asked me to edit this film, I was thrilled. I would’ve dropped everything to work with him. Filmmaker: Do you think a male director might have […]
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God Help the Girl | Director Stuart Murdoch
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? My day job […]
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To Be Takei | Director Jennifer Kroot
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Obviously there is […]
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Cold in July | Director Jim Mickle
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? I remember hearing […]
