Winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Waves ’98 is the debut film from writer/director/animator Ely Dagher. The film is set in Beirut – Dagher’s hometown – and concerns a young man who becomes isolated from reality. Filmmaker spoke with Dagher about the film’s blend of video footage, still photography and animation. The Sundance Film Festival presented Waves ’98 in 2016 as part of its Animation Spotlight shorts program. 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 […]
From the director of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Author: The JT LeRoy Story charts the literary universe created by writer Laura Albert. LeRoy, her literary alter ego, has enraptured and enraged readers since the 1990s. Filmmaker spoke with DP Richard Henkels about he sought to have the documentary “feel like a feature film, not a TV doc.” Author had its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. 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? Henkels: I was on a […]
The producers of ESPN’s acclaimed 30-for-30 documentary series deliver a nearly eight-hour opus with O.J.: Made in America. The film was shot by Nick Higgins, a seasoned cinematographer behind more than 30 non-fiction shorts and features. Below, Higgins speaks to the visual ideas of a film that’s 90 percent talking heads. He also discusses shooting “eight hour mega monster marathon interviews,” his love of classical portraits and working with a crew of two. 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? Higgins: In the […]
Documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter first entered the Sundance arena in 2013 with Gideon’s Army, a paean to the work of public defenders. She returns to the festival in 2016 with Trapped, her film about abortion in America. Porter and co-cinematographer Chris Hilleke speak with Filmmaker below about the many hurdles – both aesthetic and ethical – of filming a documentary in an abortion clinic. 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? Porter: It was really crucial that everyone who shot on this film […]
American indie film champion Bob Hawk has, to date, 28 “special thanks” credits to his name. An early friend and supporter of Kevin Smith, Ed Burns, the Duplass brothers and many others, Hawk has served as a consultant, producer and promoter for many Sundance regulars. In 2016, Hawk gets a Sundance film his own with Film Hawk, a documentary on the man and his influence. Below, Film Hawk DP David “Daps” Reinert discusses the film’s visual style and the stress of filming your idols. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and […]
An accomplished photographer hailing from Mexico, Maya Goded has had her work shown in solo exhibits in the U.S., Spain, Peru, South Africa and elsewhere. She makes her debut as a filmmaker with Plaza de la Soledad, an intimate documentary on a group of sex workers in the La Merced neighborhood of Mexico City. As she told Filmmaker, Goded has been meeting with and photographing these women for more than 20 years. Below, she speaks about how she cultivated such a strong sense of intimacy with her documentary subjects. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the […]
An entry in the Sundance Kids program at Sundance 2016, The Eagle Huntress tells the story of a young girl who trains to participate in the Kazakh tradition of hunting with golden eagles. The documentary charts her ascent as she breaks down gender barriers and masters her craft. Filmmaker spoke with Christopher Raymond, the co-DP on the film, about The Eagle Huntress ahead of its Sundance premiere. 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? Raymond: I was hired to shoot some […]
Receiving its U.S. premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontier section is Loic Suty’s The Unknown Photographer, the sole work that blew my mind just a couple of months earlier at Montreal’s RIDM. It’s an incredible, immersive Oculus Rift project inspired by the discovery of a photo album in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Suty’s piece takes us on a WWI photographer’s journey both familiar and foreign, equal parts timely and timeless. Filmmaker spoke with the Montreal-based “experience designer” prior to the piece’s Park City premiere. Filmmaker: So I believe this project originated with an actual […]
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s transporting historical drama about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award last night at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival closing awards ceremony. Josh Kriegman and Elye Sternberg’s Weiner, a documentary about beleaguered NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, scored the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. With its record-breaking, $17.5 million sale to Fox Searchlight, The Birth of a Nation had dominated conversation at the festival earlier in the week. Said Turner at the film’s Q&A, “I made this film for one reason […]
A garish, absurdist riff off The Shining, The Chickening is prime fodder for Sundance’s Midnight Shorts Program. Animation duo Nick DenBoer and Davy Force wrote and directed the film, which blends shots from The Shining with a Tim & Eric-esque cocktail of inventive, abrasive imagery about a fried chicken tycoon. Below, DenBoer discusses how he and Force created the meticulously crafted images of their giddy short film. 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? Nick DenBoer: My co-director Davy Force and I collaborated […]