In writer-director Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer, a father-son relationship becomes strained when family patriarch Bill (David Strathairn) discovers that his son David (Will Pullen) is cheating on his wife Tammy (Jane Levy). While attempting to guide David back onto the path of monogamy, he realizes that his own bad habits might have unintentionally been passed down to his son. DP Scott Miller tells Filmmaker about the shoot, including his affinity for the Alexa Mini on this project. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of […]
In filmmaker Amanda Kim’s feature debut Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV, the revolutionary 20th century video artist is conjured through archival footage, interviews with collaborators and journal excerpts read by Steven Yeun. The film charts Paik’s creative career and eventual relocation to the U.S., dissecting how his art has since influenced our understanding of moving images and the technology that produces them. Editor Taryn Gould discusses cutting the film, including the importance of highlighting Paik’s palpable sense of humor. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
When contemporary dancer Elena (Greta Grinevičiūtė) meets sign language interpreter Dovydas (Kęstutis Cicėnas), they’re immediately attracted to each other. Slowly, their bond grows more intimate, but becomes somewhat complicated when Dovydas discloses his asexuality. Yet the pair commit to recognizing and facilitating each other’s needs—until they inevitably become weary of constant compromise, leading them to explore the limits of their relationship. Slow, writer-director Marija Kavtaradze’s sophomore feature, premiered at Sundance in the World Cinema Dramatic category. Editor Silvija Vilkaite discusses how she approached cutting the film, a process which she considers “a pleasure.” See all responses to our annual Sundance […]
Dozens of Indigenous women and girls from the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Nations have gone missing over the past decade in Montana’s Big Horn County and its surrounding areas. These cases often go cold, leaving grieving families without any closure—especially when met with the ambivalence of local police. Murder in Big Horn, a documentary from directors Razelle Benally and Matthew Galkin, confronts the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) by interviewing loved ones in mourning, Native journalists and law enforcement. DP Jeff Hutchens talks about shooting this project with the utmost sensitivity while also capturing the “palette of […]
When Noelia’s (Isel Rodríguez) cancer returns, she eschews traditional treatments and retreats to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques where she spent her childhood. Suffering severe contamination from its use as a U.S. Army testing site (and with Hurricane Irma inching closer), Noelia grapples with the painful legacy that lingers over Vieques in La Pecera, writer-director Glorimar Marrero Sánchez’s feature debut. Editor Clara Martínez Malagelada talks about cutting La Pecera, coming on board after the film’s original editor left the project. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
When high schooler Itsy (Emma Tremblay) moves to Pebble Falls with her family, she befriends the neighbor kid Calvin (Jacob Buster) who has a strange obsession with outer space. Soon, he reveals the true root of his fascination: Calvin believes that his parents have been abducted by aliens, and he desperate watches the skies for an opportunity to join them among the stars. Jake Van Wagoner weaves a tale of adolescent anxiety and adjustment in Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out. Cinematographer Jeremy Prusso discusses the process of shooting the film, which premiered in Sundance’s […]
Having amassed an impressive CV of high profile music videos and commercials with A-list talent, director Sing. J Lee makes his feature debut with The Accidental Getaway Driver, a narrative based on true events. Not the only film at Sundance this year based on an article from a major publication, Lee’s film takes as its inspiration a 2017 GQ article that recounted the night an elderly Vietnamese-American cab driver picked up three customers who, unbeknownst to him, were recent escapees of the Orange County Men’s Central Jail. As the evening quickly devolved into danger and chaos, the driver was held hostage, […]
From the 1940s until 2003, the U.S. Navy used Vieques as a bombing range and military-training site, deploying heavy metals and toxic chemicals, such as napalm and depleted uranium, that left the island contaminated. Today, Vieques has some of the highest cancer rates in the Caribbean, though the U.S. government continues to deny that its activities are responsible. In writing La Pecera, Glorimar Marrero Sánchez sought to reflect the symptoms of colonialism both literally and symbolically, through the character of a woman whose body has been colonized by cancer—a disease, the film asserts, connected to the Navy’s pollution of Vieques. […]
Twice Colonized, the documentary from filmmaker Lin Alluna, focuses on the life and activism of Aaju Peter, a Greenlandic Inuit who advocates for the human rights of Arctic Indigenous people like herself. As a lawyer, she fights for accountability from Danish and Canadian colonizing forces, all while inspiring Westerners as a whole to confront their own colonial attitudes. As she’s preparing for an Indigenous forum at the European Union, she goes on a journey of personal healing and sudden loss when her youngest son tragically passes away. DP Iris Ng discusses how she came aboard the project, the third cinematographer […]
A folkloric African water deity is the titular focus of Mami Wata, the Sundance-premiering film from writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi. The revered Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) serves as the conduit between the inhabitants of the seaside village of Iyi and the sacred water spirit, but a brewing period of civil unrest threatens to throw the entire village into extended tumult. When a young boy dies of a virus, neither human nor spirit can intervene to stop more bloodshed. Cinematographer Lílis Soares discusses the influences and approaches she utilized while shooting the sumptuous black and white film. See all responses to […]