Last month, a letter from Field of Vision’s co-founder and executive director Charlotte Cook announced that the non-profit organization would be splitting from its parent company First Look Media and become an independent studio. Formed in 2015, Field of Vision has been behind documentaries like Hale County This Morning, This Evening, American Factory and Riotsville, USA among others. They’ve also had their hand in producing several films made by 25 New Faces of Film alums, with Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves and Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. As part of the split, First Look […]
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Blueback filmed in remote Western Australia at the height of the pandemic. Quarantine requirements for cast and crew were significant and the border was closed many times. Once in the extraordinary Bremer Bay where we filmed though, the local community were so supportive and appreciate of the lengths we had gone to to protect their community. Filming with young children […]
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? It’s tricky to pick a single moment because when you’re making a movie these unexpected obstacles happen—for better or worse— every day. Some days it was a piece of equipment that broke, other days it was losing a location at the last minute. Sometimes an actor doesn’t feel well or decides they no longer like their dialogue, or there’s some […]
Antonio (Ronnie Lazaro), a Filipino comprador for the Japanese Imperial Army, harasses a well-to-do family for the whereabouts of gold bars. He suspects the patriarch, Aldo (Arnold Reyes), a “great merchant importer,” of stealing some from the kōgun (Imperial Army) and hiding them somewhere among their cavernous colonial home or surrounding property. Flanked by two armed Japanese soldiers, Antonio leaves the family with a threatening impression and suggests his patience will wear thinner upon subsequent visits. Left alone, Aldo’s wife Ligaya (Beauty Gonzales) asks her husband whether he took the gold. “I will never do anything to put the family […]
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? There were many unforeseen obstacles in the making of Going To Mars, too many to recount. However, the most pressing and disturbing obstacle we encountered was the need for more available and affordable editors. We responded with a very effective strategy that may change our work in the future. We collaborated with multiple editors (in Canada and the USA) who possess […]
For their Rotterdam-premiering feature New Strains‘s poster, Prashanth Kamalakanthan and Artemis Shaw knew they didn’t want to use an actual image from their pandemic production, which was shot on Hi-8. And they wanted an image that in addition to being beautiful would formally resonate with the film itself, a story of visiting young lovers (played by the filmmakers) stuck in New York when a travel ban hits at the start of a pandemic. “We were thinking about that sense of being frozen in time,” Shaw says. “In March, 2020, everyone was obsessed with the news, but we were all stuck […]
A modern-day, female-focused retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Laura Moss’s birth/rebirth refuses to flinch when it comes to portraying the bloody viscera of the birthing process. The film follows a maternity nurse Celie (Judy Reyes) who experiences a life-shattering personal loss. Soon after, she forms an unlikely relationship with pathologist Rose (Marin Ireland), an aloof genius who’s covertly working on a medical process that can reanimate the dead. DP Chananun Chotrungroj told Filmmaker about her and Moss simultaneously attending the NYU Grad Film program, the iconic film that served as birth/rebirth‘s visual touchstone and how her own experience in the […]
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Getting into Sundance was tremendously exciting, but we had to have all hands on deck to finish the film in time for the festival. We wrapped principal photography in New Jersey in September, and once we got accepted into Sundance, learned we had to turn in our print on January 13th. With so many holidays falling in that time period, our […]
Director Laura Moss’s feature debut birth/rebirth is laden with horror references, which was a principal reason for editor Taylor Mason vying for the gig. The film is essentially a modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with an overtly femme twist. It follows Celie (Judy Reyes), a maternity nurse who experiences a sudden tragedy, and Rose (Marin Ireland), a brilliant (if somewhat anti-social) pathologist, form an unlikely bond over the latter’s experimental reanimation process. As their friendship develops, they both reassess their respective moral compasses—shocking each other, and themselves, in the process. Mason spoke with Filmmaker about the film’s myriad horror […]
In the not-so-far-flung future, a New York Couple (played by Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor) manage to snag a spot at the coveted Womb Center, which offers conveniently detachable vessels that foster fetuses without a human toll. This is the premise of Sophie Barthes’s latest film, The Pod Generation, a meditation on the rampant commodification of natural processes in our tech-obsessed culture. Cinematographer Andrij Parekh—Barthes’s husband and long-time collaborator—delves into the specifics of shooting the film, including his painstaking efforts to utilize as much natural light as possible. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and […]