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Dispatches from Park City — Saturday, Feb 2nd: Sundance Plans Ahead, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, The Great Hack, and More
Sundance’s second weekend—the awards ceremony is tonight—provides a first opportunity to reflect on the impact of the 2019 festival. On the question of a breakout film at this edition of Sundance, the consensus (based on many conversations) seems to be “meh.” Which is not to say that a success story won’t emerge, since at least four films sold for between $13-15 million, which is encouraging. Also encouraging are signs of the Sundance Institute’s investment in the festival’s future. Last year Sundance inaugurated a new 500-seat theater with Dolby Atmos sound, The Ray, which had been converted from a former Sports […]
by David Leitner on Feb 2, 2019 -
“With Animation I Can Reach Beyond What’s Just in Front of Me”: Writer/Director Geoff Marslett on his Sundance Animated Short The Phantom 52
A restless trucker (credited as the titular “Phantom”) tugs his wheels across the highway and calls out to fellow drivers over his CB radio. No one else is on the road and no one reciprocates his cries via electronic airwaves. Eventually, the endless road gives to an endless ocean and the big rigs of the freeway morph into the whale varieties of the water. Whale calls, clicks, and songs reverberating over long distances in the ocean stand in for the Semis CB radios. But our Phantom’s whale calls out at a 52hz frequency, and no whale hears at 52hz, so […]
by A.E. Hunt on Feb 2, 2019 -
“Picture Wrapped in Early November and We Had a Cut by Mid-December”: Editors Marina Katz and Brian Goetz on The Brink
Tracking “economic nationalist” and Deplorables-rouser Stephen Bannon from summer 2017 to fall of last year, The Brink follows Bannon as he tries to rebrand himself, post-White House, as a unifier of the European alt-right, culminating in the defeat of his preferred candidates on Election Night 2018. Director Alison Klayman shot the film and edited alongside Marina Katz and Brian Goetz. Via email, the latter two editors spoke about the challenges of assembling the documentary on a tight turnaround. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 1, 2019 -
Sundance Notebook: Euro Horror, a New Cult Sensation, and Park City’s Party Hierarchy
I know we’re in high elevation here at Sundance but it still freaks me out when I go to buy coffee and also have the option of buying a small personal oxygen tank. It makes me feel like we’re preparing for some kind of apocalypse, when, in fact, people are only preparing to ski and watch movies. The altitude is tiring though, I slept so deeply the other night that I missed whatever fun my roommates had, which, judging by the drying swimsuits and empty Corona case, was plenty. There are 14 people in my condo on the outskirts of […]
by Donna K on Feb 1, 2019 -
“Cramming Remote Focus and Remote Iris Control Onto Those Tiny Lenses was Quite a Challenge”: DP Amanda Treyz on Bootstrapped
Screening as part of this year’s Indie Episodic at Sundance, the pilot for Bootstrapped draws upon star/writer Danielle Uhlarik’s background working at Google and Twitter. Uhlarik stars alongside Maribeth Monroe, playing two developers trying to get their fashion app (bitchthatwouldlookbetteronme.com) launched from Kansas City out into the world. Via email, DP Amanda Treyz spoke to staging comedy in two-shots, mixing color temperatures and getting away from the zoom lens mode of television production. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2019 -
“The Film is 99% Handheld”: DP Bryan Koss on Mope
Lucas Heyne’s feature debut Mope is based on the lurid case of aspirant porn star Stephen Hill (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and his best friend, whose porn name was Tom Dong (Kelly Sry). In 2010, Hill went on a rampage with a machete, a story is told in this LA Weekly story from 2011, forming the basis for this porn-milieu drama. Via email, DP Bryan Koss discussed taking visual inspiration from The Wrestler, shooting 99% of the film handheld and working with a complete set of all 12 Cooke Speed Panchro primes. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2019 -
Sundance Film Festival 2019: The Brink, The Wolf Hour
Learning that two documentaries on Steve Bannon would be dropping within half a year of each other didn’t bring to mind face-offs like Dante’s Peak vs. Volcano so much as a dire combination of Michael Apted’s Up series (an endless series of check-ins as Bannon ages in real time) and the pre-McQuarrie-era Mission: Impossible franchise, in which each installment would be a chance for a different documentarian to render their own personal Bannon. First came Errol Morris’s American Dharma (which I wrote about here), which has yet to receive distribution; Klayman’s film was picked up by Magnolia prior to its Sundance premiere. Morris’s premise was flawed […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 30, 2019 -
Dispatches from Park City — Tuesday, Jan 29th: The Farewell, American Factory, Luce and More
Welcome to Day Six of Sundance. The $70 parking lot sign has been marked down to $50, the first-weekend scrum of parties is history and Main Street is emptier. Time to get down to serious viewing in the days that remain. Sundance routinely programs about 120 features. (112 this year.) My personal best—four screenings a day, seven or eight days straight—is about 30 films. The math tells me that I see a quarter of Sundance each year. In other words, no two people see the same Sundance. What follows are notes on films I feel are notable. Lulu Wang’s The […]
by David Leitner on Jan 29, 2019 -
Sundance Film Festival 2019: Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Light From Light
I’m not at Sundance this year but, thanks to a generous smattering of pre-screenings, still playing along from home. Of the six titles I saw in advance, I was most curious about what kind of reception Mads Brügger’s Cold Case Hammarskjöld would receive. Based on his first two films, I’d pegged Brügger as a sort of more self-serious Sacha Baron Cohen; both blur the lines between journalist and satirist, parachuting themselves into definitely nerve-wracking, potentially dangerous situations under false pretenses in service of (at least aspirationally) a larger social agenda. Both Brügger’s The Red Chapel and The Ambassador placed the undisguisably Danish-accented, seemingly unflappable director/”star” in, respectively, North […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 28, 2019 -
“I Lost My DP To a Fancier Job”: Director Hannah Pearl Utt | Before You Know it
Whenever directors watch their own films, they always do so with the knowledge that there are moments that occurred during their production — whether that’s in the financing and development or shooting or post — that required incredible ingenuity, skill, planning or just plain luck, but whose difficulty is invisible to most spectators. These are the moments directors are often the most proud of, and that pride comes with the knowledge that no one on the outside could ever properly appreciate what went into them. So, we ask: “What hidden part of your film are you most privately proud of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 27, 2019
