Sundance Responses
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“This Field Beneath the Field Kept Showing Up in My Dreams” | Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Just past the far end zone of the high school football field in my hometown of Ardsley, NY there’s a short but steep fenced-off decline down a hill towards a second, smaller field: a baseball diamond with a big outfield of grass […]
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“Malia Will Now Always Be the Right Location for the Film” | Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? How to Have Sex is set in European party town. Teenagers from all over the UK flock to various Mediterranean towns. It’s funny that we recreate our culture somewhere hot. Pints and full English breakfasts. These towns are all fairly similar. They […]
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2024 Sundance Questionnaire: Editor Responses
Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series editors a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out a single question for feature directors to answer as well as questionnaires for cinematographers and first-time Sundance feature producers. Below, find links to individual editor responses, which will be updated daily during the festival. “Anyone That Watched the Early Cuts Had the Same Reaction”: Editors Dashya Broadway and Jon Higgins on Your Monster “I Approached Each Edit as I Would an Onion”: Editor Julian Ulrichs on Kneecap “We Realized During the Edit That There Were Several Options […]
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“It Was an Interesting Challenge to Take a Real Place and Mold It” | Josh Margolin, Thelma
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? We shot a portion of the movie in my real grandma Thelma’s condo. That space is incredibly meaningful to me. Growing up, it always felt like a second home. I wanted to utilize it for the movie because it feels so connected to […]
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“It’s Surprisingly Difficult to Find a Closet That is Spacious Enough” | Caroline Lindy, Your Monster
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? For Your Monster, a magical and spooky love story between a young woman and the monster in her closet, finding the right closet was critical to the mission of the film. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a closet that is spacious enough to […]
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“We Imagined the Queer London of Our Dreams” | Amrou Al-Kadhi, Layla
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Layla is a film of imagined space. Though set and filmed in East London, home to a vibrant queer scene and history, LGBTQ+ spaces in cities around the globe are currently victim to rapid gentrification. London is no exception. The majority of the […]
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“I Knew Right Then the Filmmaking Gods Were Looking Down on Us” | Rich Peppiatt, Kneecap
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Belfast is more than just a setting of my film Kneecap—it is almost a character itself. It is a city that wears its heart both on its sleeve and on its walls. Colorful graffiti, often politically charged, is everywhere. And for a […]
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The 2024 Sundance Question: What Place Tells Its Own Story About Your Film?
Each year, Filmmaker asks all the incoming feature directors at Sundance one question. (To see last year’s question and responses, click here.) We also send out cinematographer, editor and first-time producer questionnaires. This year’s question: Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Below, find links to each director’s individual response […]
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“Raising Funds for a Film ‘About Abortion’ Is Never Easy” | Tracy Droz Tragos, PLAN C
Opening today in 20 markets across the United States is Tracy Droz Tragos’s Plan C, a documentary about social scientist Francine Coeytaux and her team’s work on expanding access to abortion pills online. With Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul opening today, and New York’s IFC Center run beginning October 13, we are reposting the director’s answer to our annual Sundance Question about the various challenges she faced while making the film. — Editor Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, […]
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A Look Back at Sundance 2023: Remote Viewing, Favored Cameras, Standout Films
Some set their calendars by January’s Sundance, which like clockwork kicks off each new year of indie releases. For me, these 11 intense days of nonstop screenings are a rich bounty that takes time to digest. Ergo my slow coverage, below. Usually I manage to see about 30 of the 120 features Sundance typically selects. This has always worked out to a quarter of the program. What are the odds someone else saw the exact same combination? My dictum for years now has been that no two people see the same Sundance. Even the most diligent reviewers and audience members […]
