Sundance
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“HELL AND BACK AGAIN” | director, Danfung Dennis
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] “Down, down, down!” yelled a U.S. Marine as bullets whizzed overhead and machine-gun fire rattled. We had been drawn into a coordinated ambush deep behind enemy lines. In these difficult situations, I use intense concentration to keep operating my camera system. As we ducked to the next mud berm for cover, I focused on keeping my movements smooth and my distance to the Marine ahead of me constant so I would have a steady tracking shot that would remain in focus. Pinned down by incoming fire, the insurgents triggered […]
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“HIGHER GROUND” | director, Vera Farmiga
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Eccles Theatre] There was a steady drumbeat of “gotchas” on the Higher Ground adventure. From my Clearblue Easy stick test reading “positive” at the same time as financing magically appeared, and then hurdling through preproduction before my baby bump emerged, to our first day when the catering guy stole our craft-service food. He just didn’t company move when we did. Or rather he did, but in the opposite direction. Higher Ground was infested with shockers. However, I’d have to say the biggest startle in all the process for me personally… was editing. […]
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“SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE | writer-diretor, Matthew Bate
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] My discovery and subsequent first listen to the secretly recorded Shut Up Little Man! tapes left me gobsmacked (“surprise” seems too nice a word, although it is the theme of this discussion). Hearing Peter and Raymond’s vitriolic arguments, their foul-mouthed insults and absolute PURE hatred for one another takes you into a world most of us will never experience. It’s captivating, like traveling past a bad road accident. It presents a similar moral conundrum: Should I be fascinated? Should I look/listen? Should I be laughing at their banter? […]
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RAN INTO TIM LEAGUE
At Sundance, the mastermind of Alamo Drafthouse and tanlines. “Jason Eisener’s HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN is going to burn a swath of destruction across the collective faces of Sundance badgeholders. I can’t wait.” Photo credit – Elijah Wood at the Fight For Your Right to Party Party.
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“THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM” | co-writer-director, Todd Rohal
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 11:59 pm — Egyptian Theatre] I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but our cast and crew threw themselves into the idea about making a movie with Satanic elements and potentially dangerous situations — there was sheer joy in the faces of crew members when they were asked to go into a parking lot, draw a pentagram with gasoline and light it on fire. Throwing risk factors into the production only seemed to make everyone anticipate the days with more enthusiasm: “Let’s take all of your borrowed expensive electronic equipment, put it in a boat […]
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“THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED” | directors, Eric Strauss & Daniele Anastasion
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Neither of us was prepared for how much we would genuinely like Joshua Milton Blahyi. The fact that a human being can be warm, funny and endearing, yet also responsible for the deaths of thousands, is something that’s very difficult to reconcile. For five years we documented Joshua’s life and struggles. During this time we got to know him on a very personal level, not just as filmmakers, but as human beings. Navigating this relationship between filmmaker and character, and trying to stay objective throughout, can be extremely tricky. There were days […]
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The Future Director Miranda July
Known as a West coast performance and video artist in the decade before her 2005 award-winning debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July seems to jump effortlessly from one medium to another. Her collection of short stories — No One Belongs Here More Than You — won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2007, and more recently she designed an interactive sculpture garden that was on view in the 2009 Venice Biennale before moving to Union Square this past summer. At this point, there are very few career moves for Miranda July that would […]
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“THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM” DIRECTOR TODD ROHAL
For many people, making a film seems like an impossibility. However, for those who do get their first feature in the bag, there’s no guarantee that making a second will be any easier. Todd Rohal is a case in point. He attracted buzz for his debut, The Guatemalan Handshake, which won Best Film at Slamdance in 2006 and earned him a spot on Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces list that same year. However the success of Handshake, a beautiful and stunningly original cinematic vision which Rohal describes as a hybrid of Kentucky Fried Movie and Days of Heaven, did not directly […]
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“THESE AMAZING SHADOWS” | directors, Kurt Norton & Paul Marian
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 3:00 pm — Redstone Cinemas 8] We were really surprised by the extraordinarily wacky and absurdist humor of early filmmakers. Our documentary, These Amazing Shadows, focuses on the National Film Registry, so naturally we immersed ourselves in the incredible diversity of the 550 films on the list (Hollywood classics, avant-garde, documentaries, animation, home movies, silents and more). What quickly jumped out was that Monty Python, Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld have nothing on early filmmakers. Let’s just take two silent films as examples (I know some of you are thinking, “Silent films are boring!” but come […]
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“VAMPIRE” | writer-director, Iwai Shunji
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 22, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre] A few years after I wrote the first draft of the script, I read a news story in the local Japanese newspaper where the police were investigating a series of cases where the suspect or murderer would find and stalk his victims through online suicide websites/chat rooms and message boards. I found this coincidence completely shocking and surprising — I could not believe the similarities between the film and what was really happening. It’s creepy…
