Sundance Responses
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“We Were Forced to Evacuate Palestine” | Cherien Dabis, All That’s Left of You
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? The day that I’ll never forget as long as I live is the day we were forced to evacuate Palestine. I had already spent nearly five months prepping with my local and key film crew on the ground. And many members of my foreign crew had just flown in from Germany. We had just […]
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“The Snow Was Deep and the Polar Night Was Underway” | Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, FOLKTALES
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Rachel Grady: Shot in the stunning Norwegian Arctic, FOLKTALES was a project that tested us daily. With long stretches of shooting while exposed to freezing temperatures, combined with the creative demands of filming, it was formidable. These challenges were matched by extraordinary moments of beauty and a deep connection to the sublime wilderness. If I had to choose […]
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“The First Day We Got Our Four Leads in a Room Together” | James Griffiths, The Ballad of Wallis Island
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? There were so many memorable days making the film—from our first meeting with producer Rupert Majende, who got behind the project and shifted the momentum, to Carey Mulligan saying yes to playing Nell that really led to us getting the film greenlit—but I think the day I’ll remember will be day seven, SC 29, […]
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“A Delusional Burst of Confidence” | Mary Bronstein, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? From creating the title page to premiering at Sundance I’ve been on a rollercoaster of pure tenacity and support from those closest to me, lasting over seven years. The most significant day of the entire process has to be the night in December 2007 when I had an existential crisis that spewed forth a […]
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“Finally Allowing Myself to Grieve” | Tony Benna, André is an Idiot
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? The night before the Sundance deadline, I found myself laying on the floor of my edit suite at 3am with a freshly self-inflicted broken hand and a waterfall of tears running down my face. To say that I had lost my mind a bit would’ve been an understatement. The post-production process had been an […]
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“Something Dangerous is Always Lurking Just Beneath the Surface” | Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Our film is set in Ocala, Florida, just a 40-minute drive from Orlando—a place where beauty and stark contradictions are in constant tension. On one side, you have sprawling, wealthy horse farms and ranches; on the other, economically vulnerable communities living in close proximity to these affluent areas. The neighborhood at the heart of […]
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“A Journey of Nearly Two Decades Had Reached a Natural Conclusion” | Evan Twohy, Bubble & Squeak
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? I started working on Bubble & Squeak nearly twenty years ago, so there are many significant days to choose from. If I had to single out just one, I would choose our final day of production. That afternoon, we moved our company to an abandoned limestone quarry outside Tallinn, Estonia. On its shores, families […]
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“Turn Her Trauma into Art” | Kate Beecroft, East of Wall
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Our film is centered around the lives of Tabatha Zimiga and her family as they reconcile their unresolved grief after the sudden death of her husband. This film took five years to make. It’s a docu-fiction film, so I lived in this specific area of South Dakota for years—embedding myself for the purpose of […]
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“I Had Succeeded in Bringing My Imagination to the Screen” | Amel Guellaty, Where the Wind Comes From
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? It’s such a tough question. Perhaps the shooting days in Djerba were the most significant. During those three days, we filmed very important scenes—difficult to perform—that we had rehearsed extensively. I was stressed because I knew that if I didn’t get them right, the film would lack emotion. But I was so happy and […]
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“Dance With Me, Ben” | Grace Glowicki, Dead Lover
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? I have been trying to pinpoint a single day of Dead Lover to answer this question…but the truth is, specific days are almost impossible for me to remember. It’s just a smattering of random memorable moments! The days from which they came are lost in my memory….probably due to the lack of sleep. So, […]
