Pete Ohs
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“Foreign Aid for American Indies”: US in Progress 2024
Here’s a funny thing to think about: One of the best places to get a handle on what’s happening in American (and sometimes Canadian) independent film is a very long travel day away from New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, a millennium-old city with a historic Old Town. Adjacent is the very modern cineplex New Horizons, which shares its name with a sprawling summer festival and each November also hosts AFF and its industry-only sidebar, US in Progress. Described by one attendee as “foreign aid for American indies,” USIP has, over its […]
by Steve Dollar on Dec 5, 2024 -
“I’m Constantly Creating Things and Questioning If the World Even Needs More Movies”: Pete Ohs on His Slamdance-Premiering Love and Work
Pete Ohs, a 2013 Filmmaker 25 New Face, describes his Slamdance-premiering comedy/drama Love and Work as “a film about an imaginary past as a way to figure out where we went wrong in the present.” A minimalist, slightly absurdist romantic comedy, the picture represents both a continuation of the pared-down production model Ohs described to Filmmaker upon the release of his previous Jethica as well as a dramatic departure. Instead of the Jethica‘s lo-fi naturalism, Ohs here goes for a clipped rhythms and a more deadpan affect as his two potential workmate lovers who meet in a shoe factory navigate […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2024 -
Trailer Watch: Pete Ohs’s Jethica
The trailer has dropped for director Pete Ohs’s microbudget horror film Jethica, which premiered at SXSW earlier this year. Ohs is also credited as the film’s cinematographer, editor and producer. Additionally, he co-wrote Jethica with cast members Callie Hernandez, Ashley Denise Robinson, Andy Faulkner and Will Madden. Acquired by Cinedigm today, the film will begin its theatrical run on January 13 at LA’s Lumiere Music Hall. Editor Scott Macaulay wrote of Jethica‘s premise in an interview we published with Ohs and the cast/co-writers out of SXSW: “Jethica is framed as a kind of post-coital campfire tale — Callie Hernandez’s Elena […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 8, 2022 -
Truly Micro: Pete Ohs and Tzvi Friedman on Their Ultra-Low-Budget Features, Jethica and Man
While most producers these days are worried about the latest CPI number—that’s the Cinematic Price Index—one group of filmmakers is, somewhat paradoxically, not: those working on the lower end of the microbudget, or “no-budget,” continuum, producing finished features for the very low five figures. For them, production is retrofitted from whatever money can be raised, and if the price of gas goes up, well, the shoot just has to make do with less in another area. Among such filmmakers, there’s perhaps no one whose model is as stripped-down as Pete Ohs, who recently premiered his latest work, the well-received Jethica, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2022 -
Building a Microbudget Ghost Story Around an AirBnB Location: Director Pete Ohs and Cast on the SXSW-Premiering Jethica
Two women, each fleeing unspecified trauma, holed up in an aluminum-sided mobile home in the middle of a desolate patch of New Mexico flatlands is an apt set-up for a microbudget horror film, but the pleasures and originality of Pete Ohs SXSW-premiering Jethica are in the ways in which it avoids all the more obvious narrative pathways it might have taken. (Indeed, it’s an exemplar of George Saunders’s dictum of “ritual banality avoidance” — rejecting the “crappo version” of a story.) There are no screams or shaky-cam chases, no woman-in-jeopardy jump scares. Instead, Ohs has worked with his actors to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 11, 2022 -
“Ultimately, the Solution Isn’t There Until the Pressure Has Been Lifted”: Youngstown Director Pete Ohs on Microbudget Filmmaking and the Benefit of Being One’s Own Crew
As pre-production was ramping up on his first narrative feature, the pressure to find the perfect shooting location was weighing on Pete Ohs. While he and co-director Andrea Sisson eventually shot the film several hours outside LA — Everything Beautiful is Far Away stars Julia Garner and Joseph Cross, and was released by The Orchard in 2017 — Ohs theorized that knowing his shoot location before coming up with his next story idea would relieve some pressure from the narrative filmmaking process and, in turn, win back invaluable time for creative exploration. The result is Youngstown, Ohs’ sophomore feature which […]
by Taylor Hess on Dec 29, 2021 -
“It’s Kind of Scary to Think About Letting Anyone and Everyone Into the Edit Bay”: Jethica Director Pete Ohs On Twitch Livestreaming His Edit
Drawing from the world of gaming, writer/director Pete Ohs is embarking on a post-production experiment for his pandemic-shot film, Jethica: live-streaming his edit. “I know that YouTube is overflowing with editing and software tutorials but I’ve never heard of anyone actually editing a movie live,” he writes in an email, and I can’t think of anyone who has done this either. Beginning this week, Ohs is using Twitch to transmit his editing screen as well as webcam footage of himself behind the console, allowing viewers to track his process cut-by-cut. “I imagine the audience for this stream is going to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 11, 2021 -
Watch (and Look): Teaser and Poster for LAFF Premiere, Everything Beautiful is Far Away
Several 25 New Faces — directors Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs as well as star Julia Garner — grace the Los Angeles Film Festival premiere, Everything Beautiful is Far Away, which screens tonight at 9:10 PM. Here’s the festival capsule: Traveling across a barren landscape, Lernert digs through piles of rubbish in an attempt to build a body for his companion, Susan, the unresponsive robot head who hangs from the back of his pack. The pair come across Rola, a spirited young woman who lacks survival skills but makes up for the deficiency with sheer determination. This unlikely trio navigates […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2017 -
Nandan Rao on The Other Men of Dodge City
The following interview took place after 2013 “25 New Face” Nandan Rao had seen for the first time The Other Men of Dodge City, a re-edited version of his own movie The Men of Dodge City cut by fellow 2013 “New Faces” Pete Ohs and Andrea Sisson. The film debuts on NoBudge from Wednesday February 19 at 7pm. You can read Ohs and Sisson’s take on the film here. Filmmaker: What was your reaction when Pete and Andrea first got in contact with you? Do you remember what their pitch was in terms of what they wanted to do? Rao: We have a mutual friend who […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 19, 2014 -
Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs on The Other Men of Dodge City
The following was written by 2013 “25 New Faces” Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs in advance of the first screening of their film The Other Men of Dodge City, a re-edited version of The Men of Dodge City by fellow 2013 “New Face” Nandan Rao. The film plays on NoBudge from Wednesday February 19 at 7pm. Check back tomorrow for Rao’s response to seeing the reworking of his film for the first time. First and foremost, Nandan’s eye is a force to be reckoned with. When we first saw The Men of Dodge City, we laughed at the snail’s pace and non-existent […]
by Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs on Feb 18, 2014
