Sundance Responses
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“The Chaos Grew into Something So Beautiful”: Director Crystal Moselle | The Skate Kitchen
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? A year ago I was just trying to find the money to shoot this film. I had no script but a great idea. I knew the film had to be shot ASAP because my subjects were quickly growing up and that magical age from 17-19 was about to be lost. I was so determined to make […]
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“We Would Have Welcomed Some Chaos As Relief”: Director Tolga Karaçelik | Butterflies
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? “Chaos… I shot my film in 18 days, two different cities and two different countries. When I learned I was blacklisted in my home country and that I wouldn’t be getting any state funding, I didn’t realize it meant that I had to shoot this film – 90 something pages – in 18 days. So I […]
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“A Film that Tries to Understand Why Peace Failed”: Director Mor Loushy | The Oslo Diaries
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? To edit The Oslo Diaries in this crazy political period was not easy. In a period during which peace is so out of reach, that only to say the word “peace” makes you sound naive and out of touch with reality, a period in which a new war happens every two years, it felt very subversive […]
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“In Argentina We’re Always Under Some Kind of Crisis”: Director Valeria Bertuccelli | Queen of Fear
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? Order works as a placebo for me. I often try to establish it to remain calm and aware. But I am certain that things that turn out OK have usually little to do with order or plans. I’d say it’s closer to a state of mind we all need to eventually submit to. Speaking of shooting, […]
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“We Lost Hours from Our Shoot Day and Gained Years of Wisdom”: Director Josephine Decker | Madeline’s Madeline
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? Red. Blue. Green. Swim. Bathroom. Crying. Lifting. Exalted dance. Small inside. Melting personality. Melting fatigue. All night cigarette dance party. Fall asleep on the floor of the set. Messy reality. Inner turmoil. Beasts but good ones. Mask. Another mask. Masking tape on the mask. Tragedy but holding tragedy. A big hand holding it all together. Fond […]
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“Stories Make Order and Help Us Understand the Awful Noise”: Director Robert Greene | Bisbee ’17
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? The relationship between chaos and order is at the heart of all documentaries, especially films like ours that play with genre, performance and narrative. This means that we kind of need to do two kinds of films at once. It’s hard to make a good documentary and hard to make a good fiction film – but […]
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“This Beautiful and Wild Community that Exists in Film”: Director Jordana Spiro | Night Comes On
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? The beautiful thing about chaos in film for me is the reminder of how much of a team sport it is. Right now, I am thinking of a particular moment in our shoot. There is a main sequence in the film that takes place in one house. As a kind of a road trip film, we […]
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“There’s an Old Saying that Restrictions are Needed to be Truly Creative. That’s Always Sounded like Stockholm Syndrome”: Director Panos Cosmatos | Mandy
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? Thematically speaking, fittingly chaos and control are themes of my first film, Beyond The Black Rainbow, and Mandy. Creatively speaking; there’s an old saying that restrictions are needed to be truly creative. That’s always sounded like a form of Stockholm syndrome to me. I believe that given complete freedom, time and resources many artists would take their respective mediums in undreamed of directions and to incredible new heights. Pragmatically speaking; the […]
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“How Do You Give Meaning and Structure to Decades of a Person’s Life?”: Director David Wain | A Futile and Stupid Gesture
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? A Futile and Stupid Gesture was my first experience doing a biopic, which I learned is a daunting task. How do you give meaning and structure to decades of a person’s life, in the course of one movie? And Doug Kenney’s life was defined by chaos. So we knew that in shooting, it was important to […]
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“Chaos Has its Own Reward”: Directors David and Nathan Zellner | Damsel
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? With Damsel almost the entire film was shot outdoors, on location, in the wilderness. With every step of the filmmaking process we try to approach it knowing exactly what we want, but with the flexibility to adapt as needed. Dealing with animals, extreme shifts in weather and remote locations, adapting was essential. When a prop was […]
