Sundance Features
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Women of Sundance: Obvious Child
Gillian Robespierre, Elisabeth Holm and Jenny Slate are highly skilled comedians who are prone to self-deprecation and the bawdiest of humor that will make even the most sexually liberated feel prude. When I went to Robespierre’s apartment to take their photo, however, it was not a time for gag humor with kitschy props (condoms were, for example, off limits). Their film, Obvious Child, written and directed by Robespierre, produced by Holm and starring Slate, is both bold in its humor and also its intent: to make a comedy that talks about real issues that women face – something usually saved for […]
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Interview with A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Director Ana Lily Amirpour
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Amirpour: Because I’m lonely, romantic, and love to dance. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Amirpour: Just our costume and makeup departments. The rest were a glorious and talented group of boys. Filmmaker: How did you go about raising funding for it? (I ask this because most female filmmakers says that being female makes it harder to raise funds, so thought your story could be inspiring — I know this topic can be touchy feely, so answer it in the way that […]
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Interview with My Prairie Home Director Chelsea McMullan
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? McMullan: Rae Spoon and I have been friends and collaborators for some time. The more they (Spoon prefers the use of the gender-neutral, third-person pronoun) told me about their life and their story, the more interested I was. I just found it fascinating, and I wanted to know more. That started triggering all these questions of my own, about Rae’s specific experience but also broader questions about the context of the world we’re all living in. It was becoming this big knotted ball of curiosity, and I think another […]
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Five Questions with Land Ho! Directors Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens
Co-directed features aren’t too common in the independent film world, and even less so from already established auteurs. But Land Ho! finds two of the American independent scene’s most promising young directors – Aaron Katz (Cold Weather) and Martha Stephens (Pilgrim Song) – joining forces. A buddy, road trip comedy about a pair of aging ex-brother-in-laws (Paul Eenhoorn of This is Martin Bonner, and Earl Lynn Nelson) on holiday in Iceland, the film is already being hyped as one of the most promising discoveries of this year’s festival. Land Ho! premieres today in Sundance’s NEXT section. Filmmaker: A full-on directorial […]
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Interview with Private Violence Director Cynthia Hill
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Hill: This is probably not a film I would have initiated on my own. It’s a subject matter that touches me personally, but one I’ve left behind. But six years ago, Kit Gruelle, an advocate for battered women, asked me to work on a project about the history of the battered women’s movement. It was intended to honor the women – and male allies – who have dedicated their lives to ending violence against women. So I started following Kit to work in shelters, court rooms, training sessions, wherever she would […]
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Interview with 52 Tuesdays Director Sophie Hyde
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Hyde: Many reasons. We had the opportunity to make something that was a genuine investigation of narrative – how it was made (shooting one day a week every week for one year and scripting as we went) as well as how it is viewed (every Tuesday is seen in the film). These rules or parameters helped us explore how we make films and how we construct our lives, so we were always working toward the finished film but we were also deep inside an experience ourselves. I wanted to […]
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Interview with E-TEAM Director Katy Chevigny
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Chevigny: My co-director, Ross Kauffman, and I were intrigued by the fact that no one had ever been granted access to make an independent film about Human Rights Watch researchers in the field. We knew their work was fascinating and thought it was an interesting opportunity. And once we actually met the member of the E-Team in person, we knew there were some great characters there. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Chevigny: My co-director, Ross Kauffman, is a man. Our […]
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Five Questions with Appropriate Behavior Director Desiree Akhavan
Fans of Desiree Akhavan and Ingrid Jungermann’s comedic web series The Slope could not have guessed at the impressive range that Akhavan displays in her debut feature, Appropriate Behavior. As emotionally devastating as it is uproarious, Behavior stars Akhavan as Shirin, a woman dealing the aftermath of a breakup with a serious girlfriend (Rebecca Henderson), as well as her prolonged struggles to come out as bisexual to her Persian-American family. The film rings deeply personal and true, and Akhavan manages to establish herself as a real star-to-watch and the rare triple threat – a witty writer, a nimble director, and […]
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“Life is Artifice”: Willis Earl Beal at the Premiere of Memphis
“I couldn’t figure out if I was acting or telling the truth,” said singer Willis Earl Beal, making his film debut in Tim Sutton’s Memphis, at the movie’s U.S. Sundance Film Festival premiere yesterday. “That’s the way it is with my life. I’m trying to be real but I can’t. Or, if I am being real people don’t recognize it as that.” Beal — not from the film’s eponymous city, but like his character, a mysterious figure whose obliquely impassioned DIY soul soars over crackly, homemade backdrops — inflects Sutton’s film with his own very artful dodgery. Indeed, the spirit […]
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Appropriate Behavior and Obvious Child D.P. Chris Teague
In every young filmmaking scene, there are always one or two up-and-coming DPs you want to shoot your movie. These are the guys, or women, who have shot award-winning student films, who have loyal crews, and who know how to bring extra style, assurance and compositional smarts to first-time features. In the New York independent film community, Chris Teague has been one of those folks, and this year his talents are receiving greater recognition at Sundance, where two of his narrative feature films are debuting. In the Premiere section is the debut of Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, a sly comedy […]
