Sundance

“MOTHERHOOD” writer-director, Katherine Dieckmann

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Wednesday, Jan. 21, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] I started out writing Motherhood from a place of frustration with contemporary movies because I couldn’t think of a single one that dealt nearly exclusively in a complicated, human, reasonably authentic way with the subject of what it’s like to be a mother. Moms in the movies tend to be neglectful, embarrassing, screwballs, alcoholics, bitches, or monsters of controlling will, which may be true of some mothers some of the time, but certainly not all mothers all of the time. As a serious fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 21, 2009 Sundance Features
SLAMDANCE: “ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD'”S JORDAN GALLAND By Alicia Van Couvering

Up there with Snakes On A Plane in the pantheon of catchy titles, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a horror-comedy about Hamlet and the Holy Grail premiering in Slamdance this year. The movie stars Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, Jeremy Sisto, John Ventimiglia, Ralph Maccio and Waris Ahluwalia and was only the second East Coast feature film to use the Red camera. The film’s director, Jordan Galland, is a New York-bred renaissance man with deep and varied interests. At age eighteen, Jordan Galland started a band, Dopo Yume, which toured the world with Cibo Matto and Rufus Wainwright, and he […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“THE MISSING PERSON”‘S NOAH BUSCHEL By Alicia Van Couvering

Noah Buschel’s The Missing Person stars Michael Shannon, last seen as the asylum-bound neighbor in Revolutionary Road, and if Sam Mendes had directed this film, he might have played it straight, disregarding the minefield of clichés to pay reverent homage to The Long Goodbye; Buschel knows what a bold move it is to make a noir in 2007, so he subverts the genre with un-ironic simplicity and a few tall guys hitting their heads on the ceiling. We meet Shannon’s character in his dungeon-like Chicago apartment. His cell phone is ringing; he’s a PI; he’s offered a lot of money […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“ROUGH AUNTIES” director, Kim Longinotto

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 8:30 pm — Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City] I’m trying to tell a story as simply as possible. I want the experience of watching the film to be like watching a fiction film so that you feel like you are there and things are happening around you. The editor, Ollie Huddleston, tries to use just one or two shots in each scene so that there’s not a lot of cutting and it flows smoothly. I want the film to be an emotional journey for the audience, one that feels as unexpected and as vivid […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“WHITE LIGHTNIN”‘ director, Dominic Murphy

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 11:59 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] I didn’t consciously think about the forces affecting cinema today at any point during the long development of the movie. The script was inspired by the life of a real person but it’s fiction so we told the story in the way we thought would be most effective. But that’s not to say myself and the writers didn’t agonize over structure. I’m naturally drawn to character and narrative and I’ve worked in current affairs and documentary so that helped. We never made any decisions based on how we […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“PETER AND VANDY” writer-director, Jay DiPietro

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 8:00 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] “Was your story — its conception, structure and/or execution — shaped by the forces affecting cinema today?” Absolutely! On the first day of shooting I said to everyone, “Guys, I know we were all excited to shoot a slow, self-indulgent, boring movie. But due to the wintery economic climate, we need to change course and try to make an entertaining movie that people might enjoy. I’m sorry, everyone, change of plans.” And while we were shooting and editing, I often found myself saying, “You know, this looks fantastic…but […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE” writer-director, David Russo

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 5:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] While attending Sundance with my two short films, Populi and Pan with Us, I found myself bored with the majority of low-budget independent feature films, particularly their third acts. I didn’t know what specifically caused the redundant patterns in the scripts but I expected more originality from things that carry the qualifier “independent.” Never having given any thought to making feature films before (or narrative works of any kind for that matter), I came home with a bug up my butt and wrote something that I hoped […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“DARE” director, Adam Salky

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] It’s very hard to begin creating a story with a defined set of rules. It has to come from the gut and has to be truthful. David Brind, the writer of Dare, and I set out to tell a story within the format of a full-length film. It started out as a 15-minute, first-year film-school project that left us with a distinct “What happens next?” feeling. We’ve spent the last four years turning it into a feature. Dare is a story about the need to take chances when […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“EVERYTHING STRANGE AND NEW” director, Frazer Bradshaw

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 11:30 am — Library Center Theatre, Park City] A lot came into play when writing Everything Strange and New. I feel it’s paramount for the success of an indie film to be responsive to circumstances, and I tried to consider as many of those circumstances as possible during the film’s conception. First and foremost, I feel that there is a distinct lack of innovation in the current crop of American indie films, and I wanted to make a film that could stand on higher ground than the off-Hollywood material that is so pervasive. It was […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features
“ONCE MORE WITH FEELING” director, Jeff Lipsky

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 2:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] I’m known far and wide as a contrarian. Perhaps that’s a justified accusation. For in approaching my new film, the American Spectrum selection Once More With Feeling, I consciously elected to honor a very fine, very touching and very entertaining script by celebrating old-school filmmaking trappings within our very limited budget, though we did shoot in HD, a method I found to be more time-consuming and no less costly than shooting on film (but those are issues for a different article). Once More With Feeling is both […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2009 Sundance Features

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