Sundance Responses
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“Find the Story Only You Can Tell and Make It on the Scale You Can Make It” | Lena Dunham, Sharp Stick
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? In March 2020, I was just a few weeks out from production on my first film in 10 years and my first studio film. When it […]
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“I Thought About How Crucial It Is to Try to Extract Meaning From the Visible and Invisible Historical Layers of a City” | Sierra Pettengill, RIOTSVILLE, USA
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? Across a year molded by the pandemic, RIOTSVILLE, USA.‘s writer Tobi Haslett, editor Nels Bangerter, and I did the entirety of our collaborative work remotely. While […]
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“So Much Is About Responding in the Moment and Not Living in an Idealized Reality” | Mariama Diallo, Master
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? I’ve become a lot more flexible. As a person, I tend to be rigid. I make plans and stick to them. As a director, I used […]
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“There’s Nothing Like Being in a Room Together and Bringing a Project to Life” | Ben Klein & Violet Columbus, The Exiles
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 conceptualized this project in 2016 and started shooting in 2017. We shot on and off in various sprints until March of 2020. When the pandemic […]
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“The Experimental Works I Was Already Creating Had Huge Potential to Invent a New Form of Immersive Global Filmmaking” | Joe Hunting, We Met in Virtual Reality
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? I began my filmmaking journey inside social VR during the fall of 2018, not foreseeing how valuable that endeavor would be. When the pandemic hit, it […]
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“Consideration of Our Own Mortality Provides Our Work With Urgency and Focus” | Phyllis Nagy, Call Jane
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? The pandemic served as a potent reminder that a consideration of our own mortality provides our work with urgency and focus—and with a decidedly necessary dark […]
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“The Pandemic Just Exaggerates All the Issues You Already Face in Production to an Almost Comedic Level” | Chloe Okuno, Watcher
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? Personally, I feel that the pandemic just exaggerates all the issues you already face in production to an almost comedic level… you have to laugh so […]
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“This Was the First Film I’ve Ever Made Where Every Day of Shooting Started With Dread” | Oliver Hermanus, Living
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? Having shot a film as vaccinations rolled out in the United Kingdom, and knowing that our project could be doomed if we had an outbreak of […]
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“We Started to Realize That Our Film Connects to the Current Moment in a Powerful and Urgent Way” | Julie Ha & Eugene Yi, Free Chol Soo Lee
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 always knew our film would tell the story of how one Asian-American’s life was shaped by racism in the second half of the 20th century. […]
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“Getting the Opportunity to Work on a Feature Brought Me Back From the Dead” | Mimi Cave, FRESH
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? In the last two years so much has changed, yet the basis of why we make films is the same. Our need to connect through our […]
