Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Suncoast is set in the gulf coast of Florida, a state known for beaches, spring break and sunburns; the place you go when you want to let loose and have a good time. It might not be the first location you think […]
A decade after Buffalo Juggalos, which explored the Faygo-spattered milieu of the Juggalo subculture in his native Buffalo, N.Y., Scott Cummings returns with a full-length immersion into another misunderstood community, the Church of Satan. Realm of Satan, which premieres Jan. 21 in the NEXT section of the Sundance Film Festival, is a deeply collaborative endeavor that adapts the philosophy and practices of the church into a rigorous yet playful visual approach that also takes liberties with observational form through inspired use of VFX. Cummings, who began work on the film in 2016 and persisted through the pandemic, spoke with Filmmaker […]
It’s rare to see a comedy immediately get going in its first shot as Between the Temples does—no credits, throat-clearing establishing shots or slow unveiling of protagonists, instead a slow zoom out introducing cantor Ben (Jason Schwartzman) being cornered at the dinner table by his moms Meira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly De Leon). The two mothers lovingly hector him (this movie operates at dizzying levels of Jewishness), saying it’s time to seek out a doctor for his problem: following the death of his alcoholic novelist wife, Ben is a cantor who can’t sing. This gives Temples a surprisingly normal […]
Tackling a timely but under-discussed contemporary issue in both the United States and Canada, journalists Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie investigate a string of abuses and missing persons cases at an indigenous residential school in Sugarcane. The film, naturally, spends a great deal of time with indigenous peoples, and the filmmakers sought to maintain evidence of the deep culture and community of their subjects. Below, editor Nathan Punwar explains how they reconciled that goal with the need to keep the film moving. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
While tripping on mushrooms during the summer before her first semester of college, Elliott (Maisy Stella) encounters a future version of herself (Aubrey Plaza) in My Old Ass, the sophomore feature from writer, director and EP Megan Park. What ensues is a process of self-discovery that eschews scientific conventions of time and space. Jennifer Vecchiarello delves into her experience cutting Park’s film, where her duties included “teasing out the relationships” between characters and utilizing temp ADR and voiceover during the edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: In terms of advancing your film from its […]
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? When I was writing the movie, I remember saying, “I want Elliott’s home to feel like the type of cottage where you are always hearing a screen door slam in the background.” That was such a familiar and memorable sound from my […]
The advent of AI now offers the bereaved an opportunity to connect with deceased loved ones via avatars, a creation that captured the interest of filmmakers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck. Their documentary Eternally You investigates the benefits and dangers of digital immortality. Cinematographers Tom Bergmann and Konrad Waldmann reveal how they collaborated on this project, which required equal parts empathy and adhering to a specific artistic vision. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? Bergmann: Georg Tschurtschenthaler, producer extraordinaire, reached out to me […]
By the time in 2010 Martine Rothblatt completed the first iteration of Bina48, the “social robot” modeled after her real-life partner, Bina Aspen (now Bina Rothblatt), she had already trailblazed an extraordinary career across multiple industries. A lawyer and entrepreneur, she cofounded Sirius Satellite Radio as well as biotech company United Therapeutics, the latter an outgrowth of her work developing a medication that saved her daughter Jenesis’s life, along with over 40,000 others suffering from pulmonary arterial hypertension. So when Rothblatt, a transgender rights activist, who, at one point, was declared the world’s highest paid female CEO, and her wife […]
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required ingenuity, or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically, or creatively? Our film Girls Will Be Girls (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) is a sexual awakening story set in the Indian Himalayan foothills, in an area which is known for its stunning views and an unusually high concentration of boarding schools. As a young girl, […]
The prospect of creating personal AI avatars to comfort loved ones after death is the premise of Eternal You, a film by co-directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Below, co-editors Anne Juenemann and Lisa Zoe Geretschläger discuss how they divvied up the workload while being based between Berlin and Vienna, with Block and Riesewieck also splitting their time between the two cities. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor questionnaire here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What […]