Oscar nominee and Sundance alum Maite Alberdi (with 2020’s surprisingly lighthearted The Mole Agent, which followed an endearing octogenarian with no private investigative skills on an undercover mission to expose retirement home elder abuse) returned to Park City this year with a much different follow-up. While The Eternal Memory likewise deals with both the joys and indignities of aging, Alberdi trains her lens this time on a dynamic duo who’ve been together for a quarter century, much of it in the media spotlight. Paulina Urrutia was (and still is) an actor and former State Minister, while Augusto Góngora was one of Chile’s most […]
Like most conflicts heavily documentedby Western media, the ongoing Syrian civil war is one in which nearly all nuance has been left on the cutting room floor. Fortunately, Lina’s 5 Seasons of Revolution, a revelatory Sundance debut from a Damascus video journalist who (for safety reasons) goes simply by her first name, shatters the trend. Currently based in Europe, Lina spent 2011-2015 filming her country’s path from high revolutionary hopes to ultimately shattered dreams. But even more importantly, she did so in the most personal and truthful way, by turning the camera on herself and four of her closest friends—all educated, […]
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? On March 11, 2020, we shot and completed our first day of principal photography of Young. Wild. Free. On March 12…well, you know what happened that day. Our entire industry and the rest of the world shut down because of COVID. I, along with the rest of the producers who had worked so hard to get to the point of […]
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? Our film has a lot of rare, never-before-seen propaganda footage of apartheid that we were given, kind of in secret, by people who had access to it and wanted to share it with “the right people.” The footage itself was emotionally very challenging, as this was hours of footage of the planning and execution of apartheid by its masterminds. What […]
In visual artist Alison O’Daniel’s debut feature The Tuba Thieves, a local news story serves as the impetus for an abstract investigation into the cultural significance of sound, music, communication and the act of hearing itself. From 2011 through 2013, schools in Southern California experienced a common (and confounding) crime—tubas were stolen en masse, leaving marching bands without their lowest-pitched instrument. When O’Daniel—who is d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing—first listened to the developing news story via car radio, she was immediately intrigued. Yet she wasn’t interested in the conventional questions pertinent to such a crime (e.g. who is stealing these instruments and why?), […]
In celebrating a radical artist via conservative formal means, Amanda Kim’s Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV represents a familiar contradiction. Paik’s legacy as a video artist and sculptor of television towers hasn’t yet gotten the full-length doc treatment; as a textbook talking-heads-plus-archival assemblage, Kim’s movie is easy to envision becoming a PBS staple. The film is fueled by a genuine desire to introduce his work to a wider audience, and it may well serve that commendable purpose; as an example of the current biodoc form, it’s slow going. Like many such works, it opens with a montage that’s essentially a […]
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? Our lead character is 12 years old and I had always wanted to cast someone who had no filming experience. Lola, who played Georgie, was the most incredible human I’d ever met. But I think going down this route meant totally catering our filmmaking process to her and Alin. I think filmmaking is intimidating enough without it being your first time […]
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? Initially we thought we might have seven weeks for production, but that quickly turned into five. So, we had to be more strategic about sequences, shots and coverage. For example, we originally planned an elaborate effects sequence that was going to take days to shoot. But when we lost those two weeks, we came up with an alternative solution using […]
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? For the most part, this film was a good portion of night shoots. When we shot exteriors in daylight, we were aiming for early mornings or late afternoons, in some cases, gearing towards either of the twilights and the minutes proceeding or preceding it. The importance of the light at these times holds meaning for the moments they appear in […]
British TV and film star Joanna Scanlan won the Best Actress BAFTA award last year for her incredible performance in After Love. She plays Mary, a devout convert to Islam who, shortly after becoming a widow, discovers her late husband’s secret family. In this episode, she takes us on a little tour of the meaningful aspects of her acting process—the investigative phase of initial script reading, the “harnessing” of feelings, the mystical “clicking in” that happens through the words, and why it’s always been about the love of it. Plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever you get […]