Sundance Responses
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“You Will Come Through This”: Dreamcatcher | Director Kim Longinotto
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I’m always terrified before making a new film because so much of it’s down to chance…will I find a story? Will I be able to film it? Will I be able to get a beginning, middle and end? It always suddenly feels really daunting. The worst time was before Salma, as most of her story had happened in the past and I wasn’t sure how to make her life […]
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“There is Always a Lot of Pressure to Keep Your Main Character Likable”: Advantageous | Director Jennifer Phang
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Preparing the visualization and unfolding of the story and its themes, I had to plan carefully how we could scale our visual ambition with the resources available. In working with designers on the technology and the city buildings, I emphasized our Victorian Futurist aesthetic. It felt fitting for a story inspired by Victorian period novels. I’ve always been intrigued by stories about class mobility, devotion to family, and hidden […]
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“We Began Production with No Money in the Bank”: Knock Knock | Director Eli Roth
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I swore I would never do this again, but we began production of Knock Knock with no money in the bank. The last time I did this was on my first film, Cabin Fever, when an investor backed out 3 days before shooting and we made the first two weeks on credit cards, making phone calls to investors to beg for money between takes. This time, with no commitments, […]
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“I Can’t Imagine Just Leaving Behind an Ugly Corpse and an Unpaid University Debt”: Sam Klemke’s Time Machine | Director Matthew Bate
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Fear is my prime motivator, the force that scares me to make films in the first place. Maybe it’s egotistical but I can’t imagine just leaving behind an ugly corpse and an unpaid university debt. I was scared the entire time making this film, listening to that demonic, self-doubting, nagging Woody Allen voice in my head, telling me no one is going to want to see a film about […]
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“Inexpensive Garbage and Free, Filthy Snow”: Ten Thousand Saints | Directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Ten Thousand Saints is a period film set primarily in New York’s East Village in 1988. Unfortunately for us, that neighborhood today is nearly unrecognizable from the one we sought to dramatize. As New Yorkers, it was important to us that the movie looked authentic, despite our limited, indie film budget. What kept us up at night was figuring out a way to represent a world of tent cities, […]
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“Being Brave Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Scared”: Unexpected | Director Kris Swanberg
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I talk about fear all the time with my son, Jude. He’s little still, and he gets scared a lot. Things are scary for a little guy. Dogs can be the same size as you, for instance, and they can be pretty scary. Or going underwater and, you know, not being able to breathe – also pretty scary. So I comfort him and let him be scared. He’ll grow […]
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“Your Vision or Idea Must Have Stamina”: The Visit | Director Michael Madsen
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I suppose that fear, a very strong term, when it comes to filmmaking, is if the film you try to make will turn out to be crap. The problem is to keep fresh your own initial fascination and trust that this will also be interesting for other people – simply because you find it interesting. And your idea or vision must have stamina, as when a film — as […]
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“I Look Forward to Finding More Fears to Address”: Z For Zachariah | Director Craig Zobel
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Trying to name what fear I’ve confronted in making Z For Zachariah is difficult. I am starting to think the entire work of making films is just chock-full of fears to be faced. In my previous film, Compliance, I was honestly afraid of the subject matter; it was a fraught, dark, true story that needed a thought-out approach. But in making that film, I found that those fears created […]
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“Did I Waste Everyone’s Time?”: Songs My Brothers Taught Me | Director Chloé Zhao
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? My biggest fear making Songs was the fact that life doesn’t wait around for us to capture it. We worked with mostly non-actors who are from Pine Ridge. The casting process was endless. However, because it takes time for a narrative film to go into production, we started losing our cast to different life circumstances. That fear forced me to go ahead and make the film without the intended […]
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“The Worst Four Letter Word that Torments My Favorite Four Letter Word: Hope”: Seoul Searching | Director Benson Lee
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? FEAR. The worst four letter word that torments my favorite four letter word: HOPE. I have lots of fears for different stages of my film but I will focus on the primary ones. The biggest fear I had during the entire process of making my film were actually two things. The first is the most common one that most filmmakers have which is the fear that your film doesn’t […]
