Sundance Responses
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Fill the Void | Director Rama Burshtein
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, Noon — Temple Theatre, Park City] Being an ultra Orthodox woman is about inner spiritual work, away from spotlights, and inside a “home” where my husband is the king. It is the only way for me to stay in love and feel safe. Making Fill the Void meant scarifying the right order of things I truly believe in. Looking back, what made making the film possible, and also surprisingly rewarding, was going to my imaginary “island” where there are no people, titles, honor, or fame. Just me and my thoughts, my passions and my creator. […]
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A Teacher | Director Hannah Fidell
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, 5:30pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] I like to tell people that I moved to Austin, Texas in order to make A Teacher even though nothing about the story necessitates that it needs to be made in Texas. The film is about a high school teacher who has an affair with one of her students. It could have been made anywhere, but after one too many blizzards a few years back, I was looking for any excuse to move out of Brooklyn, at least for a little while. It’s no secret that moving to […]
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Manhunt | Director Greg Barker
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, 11:30am — The MARC, Park City] Sacrifice? Come on! For the past 18 months I’ve had the opportunity to immerse myself in the fascinating and morally complex world of the CIA’s long search for Osama bin Laden and conflict against al Qaeda — a secret war that began nearly 20 years ago for the small team of extraordinary women inside the CIA, known as “the Sisterhood,” whose stories are at the heart of my film. These are people for whom trust is everything. Very little could be discussed on the phone, and almost every conversation […]
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Blood Brother | Director Steve Hoover
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, 11:30am — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Blood Brother was built on of the sacrifices of many people. Personally, I sacrificed time, money, comfort and security. I think I even sacrificed a bit of my fading youth, as aging seemed to speed up over the course of production. But I can’t confidently call these things sacrifices in light of the true sacrifices made by the lives of those featured in Blood Brother. My passion to make Blood Brother created a willingness in me to pay whatever price necessary in order to tell this amazing story. It […]
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In a World… | Director Lake Bell
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, 5:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Anybody who’s ever made an independent film will attest that “making sacrifices” isn’t a potential occurrence in the process, but a means to an end. Whether it was re-writes, locations or editorial cuts, babies were slain left and right. I was in a constant state of negotiation with producers, means, and… the world. In that way, I’m no different than anyone else in this business. It’s hard as fuck, which is why not everyone gets to, nor has the audacity to do it. That all said, I became […]
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kink | Director Christina Voros
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 11:59pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] “ The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster” – Elizabeth Bishop The word “sacrifice” bears with it an inherent quality of loss. And the word “loss” carries an inherent quality of cost, or of damage. But sometimes we are lucky enough to lose things that we were better off without. In my case, with this film, that loss was fear. My first exposure to pornography was playing hide and seek […]
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The Lifeguard | Director Liz W. Garcia
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 5:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] In order to make The Lifeguard this summer, I had to sacrifice time with my son, nine months old when we began prep in Pittsburgh. He moved with us – me, my husband (a producer on the film) and his babysitter from LA, and we set up camp at a residence hotel. There were days when we barely saw him, because we shot all night and slept into the afternoon, only to leave again just as he was having his evening bath. What time we had together was […]
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It Felt Like Love | Writer/Director/Producer Eliza Hittman
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 6:00pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] It Felt Like Love is about a young girl struggling to form connections — with herself, her peers, and with an intriguing older guy she sees on Rockaway beach — and her willingness to degrade herself to experience intimacy. When I started writing, in 2011, I wanted to create an unsentimental coming-of-age film and show outtakes from childhood: the lonely moments, the surges of false confidence, and small humiliating details that are often buried in our memories. I wanted to explore taboos around female adolescent sexuality and identity. […]
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I Used to be Darker | Director Matt Porterfield
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 3:00pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] As far as I can tell, besides the obvious sacrifices of sleep and mental health, making a film is a series of sacrifices to the gods of fingers-crossed-there’s-something-real-here. Each vision must be sacrificed to practical reality (no way we can afford to light that field, no one here knows how to wrangle a calf), ego must be sacrificed in deference to other people’s genius or inclination or shortcomings. The first draft of the screenplay is sacrificed to the second, the film we shot is sacrificed to the edit. […]
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Toy’s House | Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 8:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] What did I sacrifice to make this film? Well for starters, I promise you I will die at least 10 years younger than my body had naturally intended because of this movie, but one of my producers keeps reassuring me that the last 10 years of your life are the least productive, so I guess it all works out in the end. That initially sounds like a bunch of tortured-artist-nonsense but this isn’t some woe-is-me ennui filled sob story. Making Toy’s House was the most gratifying and rewarding […]
