Sundance
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“A Mournful Look that Subtly Highlighted the Character’s Main Struggle”: DP Konstantinos Koukoulios on Pity
Greek director Babis Makridis premiered his debut feature L at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. He returned to the festival this year for his follow-up, the dark comedy Pity co-written by the co-writer of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films. The film stars Yannis Drakopoulos as a self-absorbed sad-sack addicted to the pity of others. Pity was shot by Konstantinos Koukoulios, here making his debut as a DP of features. Koukoulios spoke with Filmmaker about the influence of Edward Hopper on the movie, lighting a forest at night and his primary aesthetic goal: to make a film about sadness that doesn’t look sad. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“In the Edit Room I Found My Voice”: Editor Helen Kearns on Inventing Tomorrow
Los Angeles-based editor Helen Kearns has cuts seven documentary projects since 2013. She recently served as the editor on Netflix’s The Keepers, the tennis doc Serena and The Music of Strangers, a feature on Yo-Yo Ma’s the Silk Road Ensemble. Her most recent project as editor is Inventing Tomorrow, a doc on the students competing at the world’s largest high school science competition. The film, from director Laura Nix (The Yes Men Are Revolting), screened in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Kearns shares her thoughts below on what drew her to the project. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
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“Initially it Seemed Impossible”: DP Greta Zozula on Never Goin’ Back
Actor and filmmaker Augustine Frizzell made her debut as a feature director at Sundance this year with Never Goin’ Back, the shaggy-dog story of two teenage friends played by Maia Mitchell and Camila Morrone. Frizzell has appeared as an actor in the films of David Lowery (her husband) in addition to Krisha and a number of shorts. She tapped DP Greta Zozula to shoot the script, which she also wrote. Filmmaker spoke with Zozula ahead of the film’s premiere in the Midnight lineup about the perils of shifting daylight, the influence of Paul Thomas Anderson and the film’s strategic use of handheld camerawork. Filmmaker: […]
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“The Perfect Time for Us to Be Making this Show”: Creators Josh Feldman and Shoshannah Stern | This Close
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? Josh Feldman: Making our show required both acknowledging, and to an extent, ignoring, the disheartening shift in power in our country’s politics. During the particularly tough days, when the internet was constantly exploding over the latest developments, in the writers’ room we were even more convinced that this was the perfect time for us to be […]
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“Like a Long Mosaic Music Video that I Didn’t Want to End”: Editor Jason Gourson on Blaze
The first fiction feature film from actor Ethan Hawke since 2006’s The Hottest State, Blaze tells the story of the relatively unsung country musician Blaze Foley. The film’s star, Benjamin Dickey, won the Special Jury Award for Achievement in Acting at the Sundance Film Festival last week. Hawke hired editor Jason Gourson (The Magicians, Glee) to cut his impressionistic biopic. Below, Gourson speaks with Filmmaker about collaborating with Hawke and growing up as the son of a film editor. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that […]
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“That Sweet Spot of Story and Science”: Editors Dan Swietlik and Stephanie Mechura on The Game Changers
Louie Psihoyos, the Oscar-winning director of The Cove, returns to the Sundance Film Festival with The Game Changers, his new documentary on the health and environmental impacts of plant-based diets. Psihoyos premiered his previous doc, Racing Extinction, at the festival in 2015. To edit Game Changers, Psihoyos hired seasoned doc editor Dan Swietlik (An Inconvenient Truth, Sick0) to cut the film. He soon brought on a second editor, Stephanie Mechura (The Price of Sex), to help finish the job. Below, Swietlik and Mechura share their experiences on cutting The Game Changers. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
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“Any Good Script Deserves its Own Visual Identity”: DP Steven Capitano Calitri on A Kid Like Jake
In the past two years, Silas Howard has directed episodes of the TV series Transparent, This Is Us and The Fosters. He premiered his new feature, A Kid Like Jake, at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of a 2013 play by Daniel Pearle and stars Claire Danes, Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer. Howard hired Steven Capitano Calitri – the DP on 30 episodes of Broad City – to shoot the film in New York. Below, Calitri speaks with Filmmaker about his experiences making the film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
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“‘Slow Burn’ Was a Phrase We Used Often”: Editor Abbi Jutkowitz Lizzie
Abbi Jutkowitz has worked as an assistant editor on a number of films since 2004, including Super Size Me, The Darjeeling Limited and X-Men: First Class. In 2016 she edited As You Are, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and she returned to the festival this year with the in-competition drama Lizzie. The film tells the story of Lizzie Borden, the Massachusetts woman who was tried and acquitted of killing her parents in 1892, and stars Chloë Sevigny as Borden and Kristen Stewart as her live-in maid and confidante. Jutkowitz spoke with Filmmaker before the film’s premiere about how she got her […]
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“A Way to Present Multiple Truths”: Editor Joe Klotz on Monster
Joe Klotz has edited numerous films to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival: Junebug (2005), Choke (2008), Precious (2009) and The Yellow Birds among others. At this year’s festival he edited Monster, an adaptation of the 1999 young adult novel from Walter Dean Myers. The film, directed by Anthony Mandler, tells the story of an African-American teenager on trial for acting as a lookout during a lethal corner store robbery. Klotz shared his thoughts on editing the film prior to its five screenings at Sundance this week. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What […]
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“The Entry Point to a Story Is So Delicate”: Editor Maya Maffioli on Beast
Maya Maffioli and Michael Pearce were classmates at the National Film and Television School in England. They now join forces as editor and writer/director, respectively, of Beast, a romantic psychological thriller that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. Maffioli has edited more than two dozen short and feature-length projects since 2007. Below, she discusses balancing the film’s many tones, the striking lead performance from Jessie Buckley (Taboo) and why “a good love story on screen is always unbeatable.” Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that […]
