Sundance

“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
“JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD” | director, Tamra Davis

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] All the decisions that I thought were hard choices seem so obvious when I look back. While making my documentary I wrestled with the idea of putting myself in the film. I felt awkward studying this idea. I didn’t want the film to be about my personal journey but about the story of my subject, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Now when I watch and show the film I see that the personal texture I added has become one of its strongest narrative elements.

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“FIX ME” | director, Raed Andoni

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City] Fix ME… The hardest decisions during the making of this film were all connected to the recording of my personal therapy sessions. From the beginning I wanted those sessions to be honest and real. I wanted the doctor to do his job and to treat me during the sessions as if the camera does not exist. But on the other hand, as filmmaker I also wanted to be sure that I have enough interesting material coming out of the filming material of those sessions. I had […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“BILAL’S STAND” | writer-director, Sultan Sharrief

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:00 pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I had to make while shooting my film Bilal’s Stand was to do reshoots in a different format. The film was originally shot on 16mm film. I love the process of film from loading the camera to seeing dailies for the first time. I love the stubborn, sometimes unforgiving nature of the medium and the care required to get the beauty you want. I often joke and say that film and I have a “Ross and Rachel” type relationship. You know you have strong […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“SKATELAND” | co-writer-director, Anthony Burns

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] Making a movie is never easy. In fact much of the entire process is just continuous problem solving. With the right amount of preparation however, many unforeseen issues or setbacks can be avoided. In our case, Skateland was written and completely shot out in eight months. We went from a blank page in April to a wrap party at some colorful bar in Shreveport, La., by December with about a hundred new friends and co-workers. My point is we stacked the odds against us. The shot list was […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses
“SON OF BABYLON” | writer-director, Mohamed Al Daradji

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I made on my film was with the casting. My style of working and telling the story often means working with non-professional actors. The main character of the film is a mother who goes across Iraq with her grandson, searching for her son who has been missing for 12 years. My aim was to search for people who had this experience; I searched for six months in villages and cities in Iraq. Eventually I came to a small village of about 300 homes, and each […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010 Sundance Responses

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