6294 Results for “Open ”
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“We Began To See the Zoom Calls as a Kind of ‘Virtual Vérité'” | Laura Gabbert, Food and Country
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? As COVID took hold in March 2020, we knew we had to capture Ruth Reichl’s journey chronicling the food security story unfolding in real time. But, unable to travel, how would we solve the problem of distance: the miles and miles lying between her and her subjects, and the continent between her, in upstate New York, and our crew, in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2023 -
“It Was a Blessing in Disguise To Have More Time” | Thembi Banks, Young. Wild. Free.
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 […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2023 -
“I Wanted To Face History So That I Could Understand It” | Milisuthando Bongela, Milisuthando
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 […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2023 -
“I Had No Idea How Filmmakers Actually Raise Huge Amounts of Money”: Alison O’Daniel on The Tuba Thieves
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?), […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jan 25, 2023 -
Sundance 2023: Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, Sorcery
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 […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 24, 2023 -
“It’s a Good Thing We Didn’t Shoot in New Zealand”: Writer-Director Laurel Parmet and Producer Kara Durrett on The Starling Girl
The following interview first ran as part of our Sundance 2023 coverage. The Starling Girl releases in theaters today in NYC and LA via Bleecker Street, with more cities to follow. — Editor Telling the story of Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen), a 17-year-old living in a Christian fundamentalist community in rural Kentucky, Laurel Parmet’s debut feature, The Starling Girl, has been years in the making, Parmet first began writing the screenplay in 2017, soon after the premiere of one of her shorts and the wrap of another. Like her previous work, The Starling Girl positions the viewer within the complex […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 23, 2023 -
Sundance 2023: Cat Person
To recap recent internet history: Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” is about a first date between younger undergrad Margot and older man Robert that ends with them having bad sex. After, she—via a friend’s intervention—texts him that she’s not interested and, to her pleasant surprise, he leaves her alone. Later, after seeing Margot in a bar, he (presumably drunk-)texts her and the story ends with her being called a “whore.” Rouopenian presents two initially equally but differently flawed characters—Margot’s vanity is gratified by Robert’s desire for her, he’s a little pathetic—but their ethical imbalances are ultimately resolved in a […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 22, 2023 -
“Independent Media Can Strengthen Tribal Sovereignty”: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler on Bad Press
While freedom of the press has certainly been a newsworthy topic these past few years, those of us in the US can at least take comfort in (i.e., take for granted) the fact that our First Amendment firmly protects this inalienable right. That is, unless you happen to likewise be a citizen of one of the sovereign nations sprinkled throughout this occupied land—aka Indian Country—where only a handful of tribes have seen fit to enshrine such a guarantee into their constitutions. Which is a problem not just for the average, truth-seeking Native populace at large, but especially for a dogged […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 22, 2023 -
“Pregnancy Became Integrated as a Storyline” | Alison O’Daniel, The Tuba Thieves
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? I truly welcome the unexpected, the miscommunicated, the “obstruction” as a co-author of the film. When I started this project, I decided I would make a film as a listening project that is not tethered to the ears. I am d/Deaf/hard of hearing. I can hear, but constantly experience fallout from mishearing things and I second-guess what I hear, because […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2023 -
“I Wanted To Take a Closer Look at How People Shut Down”: Veerle Baetens on When It Melts
It’s somehow been a decade since Veerle Baetens was named best European actress for her incandescent, heart-wrenching turn in The Broken Circle Breakdown. As a bluegrass-loving tattoo artist gradually obliterated by tragedy, Baetens’ performance was complex, unflinching and emotionally raw. When It Melts, the Flemish filmmaker’s Sundance-premiering feature directorial debut, cuts similarly close to the bone. Adapted by Baetens and co-writer Maarten Loix from Lize Spit’s bestselling Flemish novel, it centers on an isolated woman named Eva (Charlotte de Bruyne) who returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. There, […]
by Isaac Feldberg on Jan 21, 2023
