A mother and daughter bond on a balcony, soaking in the sights and sounds of Karachi with a strange sort of pre-nostalgia, before embarking on a new life in the US. This is the opening of Amman Abbasi’s beautiful Udaan, which screens this week in the Hindsight Shorts program of CAAMFest (May 13-23). (CAAM, in partnership with Firelight Media and Reel South, launched the Hindsight initiative to provide “funding and support for diverse BIPOC filmmakers from the American South.”) Rendered with loving care and utmost nuance the scene is a reminder of something we in the US so often forget […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 18, 2021Dominic LaPerriere has edited three feature films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival: Fishing without Nets (2014), The Free World (2016) and, this year, Dayveon. From first-time director Amman Abbasi, Dayveon tells the story of a 13-year-old boy’s coming-of-age after the violent death of his big brother. LaPerriere co-edited the film with Michael Carter. Below, he speaks with Filmmaker about how he got into editing and finding the right balance between moving a plot forward and letting an audience savor the moment. Dayveon premiered at Sundance last week in the NEXT lineup. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 29, 2017Hailed one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces in 2016, Amman Abbasi makes his Sundance and feature film debut with Dayveon. The film stars Devin Blackmon as a 13-year-old kid coping with the violent death of his older brother in small-town Arkansas. Given the setting, age of the characters and Abbasi’s lyrical approach to the story, the film has strong echoes of George Washington by David Gordon Green, who served as an executive producer here. Below, Filmmaker speaks with Dayveon DP Dustin Lane about his connection to the American South, shooting in a small town and his visual approach to this story. Filmmaker: How […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2017During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? One of the great powers of cinema is its ability to create empathy and communicate with the world. How people live, what people dream of, what we all struggle with. Ultimately it’s all pretty similar and, in my opinion, film has a unique ability to transcend barriers of place, time and condition to allow us to understand we all are more alike than different. In my opinion, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2017