6295 Results for “Open ”
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“The Ending Was Always Clear for Us”: Editor Emma Backman on As We Speak
Born and raised in the Bronx, rapper Kemba guides viewers through some of the largest issues involving rap lyrics, freedom of speech and the First Amendment in As We Speak, the directorial debut of J.M. Harper. Looking at cases both in the U.S. and internationally, Harper’s documentary poses insightful questions about who is protected, or perhaps left vulnerable, by these legislative battles. Emma Backman, who previously collaborated with Harper on a series of commercials, discusses her experience cutting the film, which served as one of her first major feature-length projects as an editor. See all responses to our annual Sundance […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“A Level of Determination That Can Border On Insane”: Producer Sam Widdoes on As We Speak
As We Speak, the directorial debut from J.M. Harper, follows the growing phenomenon of rap lyrics being used during legal battles both in the U.S. and abroad. Rapper Kemba acts as a guide through the murky waters of the First Amendment, investigating who it protects—or doesn’t—when musicians and their art stand trial. First-time producer Sam Widdoes, who currently works as an attorney and was formerly a journalist, chronicles how he came aboard As We Speak and the myriad ways that his career background acted as a boon during the development of this documentary. See all responses to our questionnaire for […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“Take Care of Your Community and They Will Take Care of You”: Producer Daniel Tantalean on In the Summers
In the Summers follows two sisters who, during their formative years, spend the summers visiting their caring but volatile father in New Mexico. The film is the feature debut of Alessandra Lacorazza and also the first producing credit for Daniel Tantalean. Below, Tantalean details the long journey in getting the film made, extols his mentors and community, and shares what he learned. See all responses to our questionnaire for first-time Sundance producers here. Filmmaker: Tell us about the professional path that led you to produce this film, your first? What jobs within and outside of the film industry did you do, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“Light Cannot and Should Not Limit the Movements of the Actors”: DP Diego Romero Suarez-Llanos on Reinas
In the midst of the chaotic Alberto Fujimori dictatorship, two girls and their mother plan to leave Lima for the United States, but they first attempt to reconnect with the estranged father. Such is the premise of Reinas, the third feature film by Klaudia Reynicke (Love Me Tender, The Nest). A proper emulation of 1992 Lima was of particular importance to the filmmakers. Below, cinematographer Diego Romero Suarez-Llanos dives deep into the lighting schemes the filmmakers used to pull it off. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“We Allow Each Person to Identify with Any or All of the Main Characters”: Editor Adam Dicterow on In the Summers
Director Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers follows two sisters who, over several formative summers, visit their caring but tempestuous father in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The cast includes Lio Mehiel, who won an acting prize at last year’s Sundance for Mutt, as well as Sasha Calle and René Pérez Joglar (also known as Residente, co-founder of the rap outfit Calle 13). Adam Dicterow, whose previous credits include the aforementioned Mutt, as well as Dear Evan Hansen, and HBO’s Succession, served as editor. Below, he talks about why the film moves through different styles and recalls the editing room deliberations about the film’s ending. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“Is There a Difference Between Theater Improv and Doing a Psychic Reading?”: Lana Wilson On Her Sundance-Premiering Look Into My Eyes
It was 2016, the day after the presidential election, when filmmaker Lana Wilson (Miss Americana, After Tiller, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields) was filming an omnibus film about the election night in Atlantic City, NJ. To her, the night was like living in a horror movie. It was when she was waiting for her ride back to New York that she noticed a sign that said, $5 Psychic Readings. “I was feeling depressed, sad, confused and really frightened of the future,” Wilson tells Filmmaker recently, before the Sundance premiere of her latest film, Look Into My Eyes. “Without even thinking, I […]
by Tomris Laffly on Jan 22, 2024 -
Sundance 2024: Presence, A Real Pain
An experiment in shooting a movie entirely from a first-person POV, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence has conceptual precedents but no meaningful ones in terms of the camera’s weight and the operator’s resulting physical relationship to it. 1947’s Lady in the Lake tried nonstop subjectivity with a bulky 35mm camera; 2009’s Enter the Void eliminated the embodied camera in its second half of weightless drifting. More recently there’s Hardcore Henry, which strapped GoPros to its protagonist’s head for a bouncy embodiment of a stuntman’s hardest workday. In Presence, Soderbergh’s longtime practice of acting as his own cinematographer and operator takes on an […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 21, 2024 -
“…The Relationship Between This Father and Daughter is Forever Changed”: India Donaldson on Her Sundance-Premiering Wilderness Drama, Good One
India Donaldson has been ready to make her narrative feature debut for a while now, with three short films under her belt already. But it was only after the pandemic hit and she moved in with her family for a few months that she found her story around family dynamics in isolation. So she poured that inspiration into Good One, a terrific slow-burn at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (US Dramatic Competition) that follows the 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) on a Catskills camping trip with her dad Chris (James Le Gros) and his longtime friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). As the […]
by Tomris Laffly on Jan 21, 2024 -
“Operating Handheld for the Whole Film”: DP Matthew Ballard on Tendaberry
23-year-old Dakota (Kota Johan) finds herself unmoored in South Brooklyn after her boyfriend returns to Ukraine in order to tend to his ailing father in Tendaberry, the feature debut from writer-director Haley Elizabeth Anderson. As she navigates the city over the course of an entire year, she finds moments of tenderness and trouble, all while wondering when her lover will return to join her on the shores of Brighton Beach. Cinematographer Matthew Ballard discusses how he collaborated with Anderson to capture her vision on 16mm for Tendaberry, also Ballard’s first feature-length project. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2024 -
“This Particular Film Felt Like Whittling Down a Single Object Until It Was Smooth”: Editor Graham Mason on Good One
The feature debut of writer-director India Donaldson, Good One follows 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) during a weekend camping trip in the Catskills with her father and his oldest friend. As the two men continuously clash throughout their extended hike, Sam becomes uneasily aware of the frailty of male egos, even amid a landscape that ostensibly shields the group from broader societal pressures. Serving as the film’s editor (as well as a producer), Graham Mason tells Filmmaker about the challenges and rewards of cutting a film that revolves around a pointedly un-chatty central character, as well as his affirmed hunch that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2024
