The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year? Our film was somewhat unique in that we were halfway through our shoot when the pandemic hit. We had to shut down in the middle of […]

A House Made of Splinters is Simon Lereng Wilmont’s exquisite followup to The Distant Barking of Dogs, his likewise stunning feature debut (that was awarded Best First Appearance at IDFA 2017, and went on to be Oscar shortlisted two years later on these shores). With this latest, world-premiering January 23 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, the Danish director returns to the suddenly-in-the-headlines front line of Eastern Ukraine to once again focus on the youngest victims of an endless war. This time he trains his lens on Eva, Sasha and Kolya – three children temporarily removed from substance-abusing parents and […]

Cooper Raiff’s follow-up to his 2020 SXSW winner Shithouse follows a recent alum who, unable to find a career path, moves back home and begins to work as a party-starter for his younger brother’s classmates. When he befriends a local’s mom, he begins to imagine a different future for himself. Editor Henry Hayes balancing humor and pathos and how working with friends and on small projects gave him space to experiment. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Hayes: […]

Although its distinct color palette is more immediately noticeable, Neptune Frost, a directorial collaboration by slam poet Saul Williams and actress-cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, also weaves a complex Afrofuturist narrative into a musical that brings pressing political questions about colonialism, environmentalism, and more to the forefront. Editor Anisha Acharya explains how a plethora of narrative interpretations informed the final product, and how the filmmakers struck a balance between complexity and accessibility. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Acharya: […]

The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year? Cha Cha Real Smooth is the first movie I’ve made with a real production company, so it was all pretty new to me. I suppose I did […]

Neptune Frost is an Afrofuturist musical that tells the story of a group of African miners digging for the material that sustains a digital network, as well as an emergent connection between a miner and an intersex runaway. Co-director and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman discusses how she captured the film’s distinctive and colorful aesthetic. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Uzeyman: Saul and I worked side by side on the creation of this project from the beginning. We developed […]

Cha Cha Real Smooth taps into generational angst with its story of Andrew, a recent university alum who finds himself moving in with his parents due to a lack of job prospects. Andrew catches a break when he finds work as a party-starter for bar and bat mitzvahs, where he finds himself yearning for a future that might not be his own. Cinematographer Cristina Dunlap discusses how she varied the look of each of the seven bar and bat mitzvahs and making an abandoned Pittsburgh mall stand-in for so many different locations. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year? We wrapped principal photography in Rwanda on March 4th, 2020, only a few days before the world shut down, and began editing back in the U.S. […]

Although Sirens captures a historic band—the all-woman Lebanese thrash metal band Slave to Sirens—at an equally historic moment in their nation’s history, director Rita Baghdadi and editor Grace Zarah quickly agreed that it was neither of these threads but instead the moments of friendship that were at the heart of their footage. Below, Zarah talks about looking for those moments and determining how to depict the August 2020 port explosion in Beirut. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this […]

The subject of Sirens, Rita Baghdadi’s third documentary feature, is the all-woman Lebanese thrash band Slave to Sirens, who are captured here against the unrest that has shaken Lebanon in recent years as well as in performances, including one at the Glastonbury Festival. Baghdadi recalls the difficulty of capturing sufficient footage at the festival and how she turned a film about a band into a film about being in your twenties. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]