Sundance

“CONTRACORRIENTE (UNDERTOW)” | writer-director, Javier Fuentes-León

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 3:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] Probably the hardest decision during the whole process of making Contracorriente was casting the lead role of Miguel. The story of Contracorriente relies completely on the shoulders of the main character and so I needed a talented actor that could be both strong and vulnerable, masculine and sweet, who wouldn’t shy away from playing a man in love with his wife and with another man and who would be believable in the role of a fisherman and leader of his town. I also wanted him to be Peruvian […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010 Sundance Responses
“TWELVE” | director, Joel Schumacher

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 29, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] With our budget, we could only afford a 23-day shoot schedule on a complicated ensemble movie. At that time, my decision was, “Should we cancel the film or did I think we could do it in the days allotted?” I’m happy that we went ahead with production and, in the long run, our limitations and the pressures they added kept us on our toes and made for a better movie. I am very proud of our cast and crew, who worked under very difficult conditions to produce such […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010 Sundance Responses
“SOUTHERN DISTRICT” | writer-director, Juan Carlos Valdivia

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 6:00 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] I chose to work with an ensemble of mostly non-actors in a choreographed and precise mise-en-scene that allowed little improvisation. I had become disenchanted with film and with filmmaking. I knew that only a strong element of risk could bring back my sense of wonder. What makes a story unique is not what you tell, but how you to tell it — and the choices you make are the core of creativity. We shut ourselves in a house full of mirrors with a revolving camera that observed everything […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010 Sundance Responses
“THE VIOLENT KIND” | co-writers-directors, The Butcher Brothers

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 11:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Trying to figure out the fake blood from the real while on set. We work pretty hard when shooting but also play equally hard. There were many nights when the cast and crew would celebrate and drink together after an intense day of shooting… let’s just say it was not unusual to have someone walk onto set the next morning bandaged and bloodied. The greatest part about it was that the FX department would shoot photos for documentation and use our own surly cast/crew’s random scrapes, bruises […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
SUNDANCE SENIOR PROGRAMMER SHARI FRILOT TALKS NEW FRONTIER | By Alicia Van Couvering

Tasked with “celebrating experimentation and the convergence of art and film,” the New Frontier section at Sundance has been exhibiting feature films and installations for the last four years. Shari Frilot is the programmer, and spent the entire year reviewing work from new artists, figuring out which part of the ground being broken she wants to put in front of the Sundance audience. How to show film art in an art film context? Frilot tries to make sure that the artists all “speak the same language” as cinema. This year, the spotlight artist is Pipilotti Rist, who creates video work […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Features
“JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK” | director, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] Well let’s just say this, making a film about Joan Rivers was not easy. Phew! There’s Darfur, Afghanistan and then there’s Joan Rivers! Our producer Seth Keal reminded me of truly the hardest decision we had to make during the filming process. It came during the editing process when we were faced with whether or not to leave in the vagina fart jokes. It almost came to fisticuffs in the editing room, seriously! You think Obama had it tough when he decided to send in 30,000 additional troops […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“COUNTDOWN TO ZERO” | director, Lucy Walker

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 11:45 am — Library Center Theatre, Park City] There’s one thing that I learned about nuclear weapons that would make it so easy for terrorists to entirely destroy a city that there was a decision to make: Is it a good thing to advertise security vulnerabilities? Am I alerting responsible citizens to civilization’s scariest fault lines in order to demand enlightened leadership to make the world a safer place, or am I giving terrorists their best ideas and causing the deaths of millions of people? It’s not hard to build a nuclear weapon. It’s not […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE!” | writer-director, Zeina Durra

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 12:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I had to make among a lot of crazy decisions was only days before we were meant to start shooting; a piece of financing fell through at the last minute and we only had enough money for the first three weeks of our 23-day shoot. It was also the end of January 2009, the heart of the financial crisis was breaking — a scary time to raise funds for a small indie film! I decided to go ahead since everything was planned, the team and […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“THE EXTRA MAN” | co-writers-directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] Long before the cameras rolled on The Extra Man, we faced a decision of Sophie’s Choice proportions: whether or not to sign off on an impossible production schedule or pull out of the movie completely. We had expected to make the film on an incredibly challenging 30-day shoot. However when everything was budgeted out, we were left with only 27 shoot days, a rather extreme difference. When our a.d. nervously handed us this document, there were many days that were literally unmakeable. No matter how quickly we moved, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“FREEDOM RIDERS” | director, Stanley Nelson

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] I think the hardest decision for us among many hard ones was to make this film without narration. This had an impact on every aspect of the filmmaking and upped the “degree of difficulty” by a factor of 10. But it finally was a great decision because the story is now told largely by those who participated in the Freedom Rides. It became their story and not a story about them.

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses

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