Sundance Responses

“SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN” | director, Malik Bendjelloul

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, January 19 9:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City] I’m a filmmaker because it’s one of very few activities I know of that can completely absorb me. Both when shooting and editing, it’s a pure creative state of mind where I can forget everything else—sometimes even that I’m hungry—because I’m so absorbed. That’s why I do this—it’s a job that you can never grew tired of. Every day there are new creative challenges to overcome and new ideas to come up with in order to do that. You’re constantly moving. I like that. The choice to use […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2012 Sundance
Hello I Must Be Going | Director Todd Luiso; Screenwriter Sarah Koskoff

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, January 19, 9:30 pm –Eccles Theatre, Park City] Sarah Koskoff: I had always only written for the stage, but when I wrote Hello I Must Be Going it was a film from the beginning and could only be a film. I wanted to explore what it would be like for a grown woman to wake up suddenly in her parents’ house with nothing of her own, totally dependent–the subtle humiliations of being an adult thrust into the position of being a child. There was something just so horrible and so painfully funny to me about her situation, […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2012 Sundance
“BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY” | director, Constance Marks

Originally posted on Jan. 23, 2011 as part of our annual question we ask directors attending the Sundance Film Festival. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey is nominated for the Audience Award. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre] The most surprising thing I found while making BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer’s Journey was how insanely popular this furry red monster has become. For the past year I’ve carried a bright red Elmo messenger bag. I would get spontaneous feedback every day from almost everyone: old men, teenage girls, postal workers and especially mothers. Hundreds of times I […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Nov 9, 2011 Sundance Responses
“THE SON OF NO ONE” | writer-director, Dito Montiel

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 28, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre] So we’re filming in the Queensbridge Projects — the place I spent a million teenage days rehearsing with my hardcore band in Johnny Waste’s apartment (actually Ravenswood Projects). Back then it was the murder capital of New York. Still pretty rough though. I’m standing next to Al Pacino and we’re getting ready for a scene where he’ll talk with a little boy about two murders. He takes a minute to look at all the kids out playing in the big center playground. (We had a lot of extras all dressed […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2011 Sundance Responses
“MAGIC TRIP” | director, Alex Gibney & Alison Ellwood

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 28, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre] We initially thought that the film would be more conventional — the usual talking heads reflecting on the past. However, there was something so magical about the footage that cutting away from it to interviews of distant memories seemed wrong. Better, we discovered, to create a kind of archival immersion experience in which the footage would either live on its own or be commented upon by audio-tape recordings of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters themselves. Many of these recordings were made closer to the time of the actual bus […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2011 Sundance Responses
“I MELT WITH YOU” | director, Mark Pellington

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Wednesday, Jan. 26, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre] The biggest surprise was that I could pull it off, spend some of my own cash, raise the rest and fucking do it — under a million, 18 days, no compromise. I’ve never been happier.

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 26, 2011 Sundance Responses
“ALL YOUR DEAD ONES” | co-writer-director, Carlos Moreno

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 25, 3:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre] I believe that All Your Dead Ones is actually built upon surprise. It is a project that we decided to undertake with a very reduced production team and that meant that surprises would abound and appear around every corner: for instance, the weather conditions are very variable in the region where we shot the movie and this complicated even further our challenge of using only natural light right at the moment were the sun is completely perpendicular. Every day we were forced to expect the climatic surprise of the day, […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2011 Sundance Responses
“THE CONVINCER” | co-writer-director, Jill Sprecher

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 25, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre] I was surprised at how often life imitated art on The Convincer. Starting with my own behavior, which mimicked that of the main character, who is a salesman who uses any tactic he can to get others to do what he wants them to do. I had to convince people to work on a low-budget movie in the middle of winter. I’m from the Midwest; I know what it’s like. We had actors on a frozen lake at 3 a.m. in street clothes, and doing their own stunt driving on […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2011 Sundance Responses
“A FEW DAYS OF RESPITE” | writer-director, Amor Hakkar

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre] We had decided to shoot in a small town located in the Jura (a mountainous area), which would generate lodging problems for the technical team and for actors. The town hall and the inhabitants were really eager to welcome this shooting and had done everything to make our arrival possible. We found ourselves lodged in the former premises of a prestigious French bank, disused but yet sumptuous. We had at our disposal a significant place which allowed the technical and arts teams to live together during the four-week shoot. Villagers […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2011 Sundance Responses
“GRANITO” | co-writer-director, Pamela Yates

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 25, 12:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Destiny never fails to astonish me. In this case, a story told long ago comes back and speaks to us in a surprising way in the present. When I went to Guatemala in 1982, the sole genocide of the 20th century in the Americas was unfolding and I was shooting my first feature-length documentary there called When the Mountains Tremble. More than 25 years later that film and all the filmic outtakes are being used as forensic evidence in a genocide case against two of the generals in my original […]

By Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2011 Sundance Responses

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