Mia Threapleton and Benicio Del Toro in The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson has retroactively described the over-schedule and over-budget making of his fourth feature, 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, as the kind of production that would never be allowed to happen now. That’s partly because of shifting Hollywood windows of financing possibility, but that’s likely also in part because the writer-director wouldn’t let it happen again. On 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson made sure to work in a more sustainable and flexible way. As Jason Schwartzman told Richard Brody in 2009, “Wes not only pitched a rough idea for a movie, he also pitched a rough idea of how he’d like to make the movie, which was ‘I want to do a movie with no trailers; all the… Read more
By Vadim Rizov
Chheangkea at the Sundance Institute Directors Lab
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Chheangkea, who traveled to the Lab with Little Phnom Penh. Here’s the description: “Spanning two ever-changing decades, from post–Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California, a Cambodian woman grapples with her deep personal desires, untimely love, and shifting family roles amid profound cultural and historical upheavals.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
All I wanted when I arrived at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park for the Directors Lab was an “Estes Park” sweatshirt to keep me warm. The desire consumed me. I had packed light, too excited for the summer… Read more
By Chheangkea
Diffan Sina Norman (right) and advisors on set
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Diffan Sina Norman, who traveled to the Lab with Sitora. Here’s the description: “A young doctor arrives in a Malay village to establish its first health clinic, jeopardizing the community’s allegiance to a racketeering shaman and his unlikely accomplice: an elusive half-man, half-tiger.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
It’s two days after my return from the lab. My memory of the last two weeks are a little hazy and scrunched like an elastic band. I can’t wait to crack open my script, but I start The Godfather at 11 pm and… Read more
By Diffan Sina Norman
Alexandra Qin on set at the Sundance Institute Directors Lab
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Alexandra Qin, who traveled to the Lab with Thirstygirl. Here’s the description: “When Charlie is forced to drive her estranged younger sister cross-country to rehab, her own secret addiction comes to the surface in the most devastating and hilarious ways.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
What they don’t tell you about the Sundance Directors Lab.
You’ll feel like a big shot when you land at the Denver airport. You’ll float a few inches above the ground because this feels like you’ve made it. Don’t worry, this won’t last long.
You’ll be scared. Not… Read more
By Alexandra Qin
Ed Harris and Chloe Sarbib on-set (photo by Saffron Burrows)
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Next up is Chloe Sarbib, who traveled to the Lab with Trou Normand. Here’s the description: “As her family prepares to leave their Normandy home, an aging actress becomes convinced that a lost Vichy-era heirloom is the magical solution to all her problems — but the search may dig up more than she bargained for.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
In the afternoon, I hit a low. I chose this scene, my second scene, because Michelle Satter and Ilyse McKimmie told us to explore what makes us nervous, and this scene does. It’s a major turning point.… Read more
By Chloe Sarbib
Cast and crew after scene one
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we're sharing the diary of Leo Aguirre, who traveled to the Lab with Verano. Here’s the description: “An unruly teenager’s summer plans are upended when his parents decide to foster an adolescent from Central America who is seeking asylum in the United States. As the two teens realize they must share more than just a bedroom, they are forced to confront their differences amid their harsh realities.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
JUNE 1: Couldn’t get any sleep before my flight, so both the flight from New York and the arrival felt extremely surreal. To top… Read more
By Leo Aguirre
The Jag (Photo: Geve Penaflor)
The titular sports car of Robin Schavoir's The Jag is parked in an imaginary space off-stage at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, where the play is currently running in a production directed by Paul Felten. The existence of this symbolic object structures the matrix of resentment, envy and desire searchingly embodied by The Jag's on-stage trio: struggling screenwriter Tyler (Gilles Geary), rich guy art collector Brian (Mickey Solis), and nursing student Cori (Giovanna Drummond). (A fourth character, the renter of the Catskills home the three converge at, and voiced by a "downtown icon," is only heard via recited emails on the soundtrack.) The play's set-up is simple. Tyler arrives at the house expecting to spend time alone finishing the… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
Castration Movie
Louise Weard is obsessed with castration. The idea for her five-part DIY epic Castration Movie came when she was reviewing footage for a supercut of onscreen “dick destruction” subtitled Texas Birth Control—and, she notes with amusement, eating little phallic pickles.
Weard has an infectious laugh, and the things she finds funny tend to reflect her unique form of good-natured miserablism. Her characters are marginalized people who get the shit beaten out of them, physically and emotionally. Some are marginalized in ways that attract sympathy from her audience. Others, like the incel who’s the protagonist of the film’s first chapter, are not. Either way, their suffering is fodder for abject cringe comedy, and Weard puts herself at the center of the narrative… Read more
By Katie Rife