Cusp
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Sundance 2021 Critic’s Notebook (Vadim Rizov and Abby Sun): Cusp and Close
Hello Abby, We’ve been Gchatting through our initial Sundance 2021 reactions in between filing festival coverage proper, so it only seems logical to finish out this year by doing a direct handoff in public view. While our experiences were complementary, we had different timelines and levels of willingness to engage. You tried out a good chunk of New Frontier material and went to virtual gatherings in avatar form; true to usual IRL form, I kept a skulking low profile. Our coverage overlapped a few times online (thanks, by the way, for getting into the political dimensions of El Planeta I […]
by Vadim Rizov and Abby Sun on Feb 4, 2021 -
“The Colors and Textures of Being a Teenage Girl”: Director/Cinematographers Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt on Cusp
Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s Cusp embeds itself with a trio of teenage girls, all sustaining best friends, over the course of a long, alcohol-sodden rural Texas summer. Relationships come and go, but cycles of systemic sexual abuse and misogyny structure the lives of its indefatigable protagonists. As photographers, Hill and Bethencourt speak to acting as their own cinematographers, lighting from the Texas sun and capturing the textures of teen girl life. 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? Hill and Bethencourt: We […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2021 -
“These Girls Say So Much with their Faces”: Director/Editor Parker Hill on Cusp
Parker Hill and Isabel Bettencourt’s Cusp embeds itself with a trio of teenage girls, all sustaining best friends, over the course of a long, alcohol-sodden rural Texas summer. Relationships come and go, but cycles of systemic sexual abuse and misogyny structure the lives of its indefatigable protagonists. Hill, who also served as Cusp’s editor, discusses the project’s winnowing down, working with a consulting editor and learning to let go of footage. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Hill: Impatience, stubbornness, and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2021 -
“The Pandemic Meant There was Nothing to Do All Summer Except Sit at Home and Edit”: Directors Parker Hill & Isabel Bethancourt | Cusp
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Making our first feature in 2020 was definitely a rollercoaster. In some ways the pandemic meant there was nothing to do all summer except sit at home and edit, which was a very intense process, but it was helpful to fully immerse ourselves in the footage day in and day out. We were definitely fortunate to have something to focus on at home. In post production, it was certainly challenging to work with so […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 31, 2021
