Sundance
-
“I Wanted to Bring Them into a Confession Booth”: DPs Avner Shahaf and Alex Margineau on The Oslo Diaries
Directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan hired two cinematographers to film The Oslo Diaries, their documentary on Israeli-Palestinian relations in the early 1990s. They did so for a specific reason: One cameraman (Avner Shahaf) would serve as lead DP on interviews, while the other (Alex Margineau) would shoot the film’s reenactments. The latter footage – shot in the vein of such films as No and Stories We Tell – was shot to blend seamlessly with actual archival footage from the era. Below, both cinematographers discuss their experiences on the project, which screens in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How […]
-
“He Was Loaded with Apparent Contradictions”: DP Andrij Parekh on The Catcher Was a Spy
In 2005, Filmmaker hailed Andrij Parekh as one of its 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Since then, the New York-based DP has gone on to shoot a number of major films and series: Blue Valentine, The Zookeeper’s Wife and HBO’s Show Me a Hero, to name a few. Parekh served as the DP on The Catcher Was a Spy, a period drama starring Paul Rudd as a professional baseball player (Moe Berg) who was tapped to become a spy during World War II. Ahead of the film’s premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Parekh spoke with Filmmaker about the film’s […]
-
“We Wanted the Film to Feel French”: DP Giles Nuttgens on Colette
Giles Nuttgens received a BAFTA nomination last year for his work on David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water. The DP’s other recent credits include Sundance premieres God Help the Girl (2014), The D Train (2015), The Fundamentals of Caring (2016). He returns to the festival this year with Colette, a UK drama starring Keira Knightley and Dominic West. Below, he discusses working with director Wash Westmoreland, the inspiration of Max Ophuls and avoiding the “‘chocolate box’ type of imagery that one often sees on period films.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors […]
-
“Blissful Madness!”: Lucas Celler on Editing Sandi Tan’s Documentary Shirkers
Twenty-some years ago, Sandi Tan and her friends shot a 16mm thriller called Shirkers. It was a guerilla-style production in her home country of Singapore. The film, however, was never finished because a member of the crew – the mysterious Georges – stole all the footage and disappeared. Tan’s new documentary, Shirkers, is an experimental dive into that footage and what it meant to her as a young filmmaker. Tan hired filmmaker Lucas Celler to edit and give shape to the film. Below, Celler discusses editing this “collage film, constructed with everything from video to film to photos to maps to […]
-
“How Do You Give Meaning and Structure to Decades of a Person’s Life?”: Director David Wain | A Futile and Stupid Gesture
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? A Futile and Stupid Gesture was my first experience doing a biopic, which I learned is a daunting task. How do you give meaning and structure to decades of a person’s life, in the course of one movie? And Doug Kenney’s life was defined by chaos. So we knew that in shooting, it was important to […]
-
“A Film about the Trials and Tribulations of Artists”: Editor Sabine Krayenbühl on The Price of Everything
Sabine Krayenbühl began her career as an editor in 1994 with a number of small shorts and features. Her breakthrough came in 2003 with My Architect, a documentary on architect Louis Kahn directed by his song Nathaniel. She has since edited more than 10 feature-length docs, including the 2016 film Letters from Baghdad, which she directed. She reunites with Nathaniel Kahn for The Price of Everything, a documentary look at the contemporary art world, which, as she says below, “values money above everything.” Krayenbühl spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the film’s five screenings at Sundance about her editing process. Filmmaker: How and why […]
-
“It Would Have Ruined the Film if We Had Made it More Pleasant”: Editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm on Holiday
Danish filmmaker Olivia Neergaard-Holm was one of three directors on last year’s Criterion-anointed documentary David Lynch: The Art Life. Neergaard-Holm has edited a dozen shorts and features since 2010, including the single-take German thriller Victoria and the Danish horror drama Shelley. She most recently edited Holiday, the debut feature from director Isabella Eklöf, which appears in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Neergaard-Holm spoke with Filmmaker about Holiday‘s tricky gender politics and why it was important for the film to maintain a “cold, cynical and misogynistic vibe.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the […]
-
“I Started Editing by Accident”: Editor Sofia Subercaseaux on Tyrel
Sofia Subercaseaux readily admits to editing her first feature film with the aid of “tutorials on YouTube.” That film, Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, went on to premiere at Sundance in 2013. She has since gone on to edit Nasty Baby, Christine and Dina – all of which debuted at Sundance in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. This year she edited two films at the festival: Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing and Sebastián Silva’s Tyrel. Below, Subercaseaux discusses her continued collaboration with Silva and the “instinctual and easy to navigate” feel of editing on Adobe Premiere. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
-
“Time and Access to Justice Ginsburg Was Very Limited”: Cinematographer Claudia Raschke on RBG
Few figures remain as adored among liberal Americans as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite this, and like all her fellow justices, the public has little access to Ginsburg as a human being. One isn’t likely to see photos of a Supreme Court justice at dinner or in a Starbucks line. Hence the enormous appeal of RBG, a new documentary on the life of Justice Ginsburg from directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West. The film makes its debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. RBG‘s cinematographer, Claudia Raschke, discusses the high-stakes shoot and the importance of all-woman team on this project below. Filmmaker: How and why […]
-
“People Always Laugh at Me for Pulling out a $1,000 Camera to Shoot Alongside an Alexa”: DP Sam Chase on Paint
Writer/director Michael Walker returns to the Sundance Film Festival for the first time since Price Check, his 2012 comedy/drama starring Parker Posey and a pre-fame Amy Schumer. His new work, Paint, is an episodic series about three young artists living together in Brooklyn. Walker tapped Sam Chase to shoot and coproduce the series. Chase previously shot Price Check along with more than 25 shorts, features and series. Below, he discusses his love of the Black Magic Pocket Camera and why Hangover 2 is the work of a “coverage and lighting genius.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer […]
