Sophy Romvari
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My Job During a Pandemic: Producing 100+ DVDs and Blu-rays in 2020
When I left Kino Lorber’s office on Friday, March 13th, I was expecting to return on Monday. I was wrapping up the DVD and Blu-ray of Jia Zhangke’s I Wish I Knew (2010), getting final proofs of Adam Nayman’s booklet essay and waiting for the test molds (the final check disc the replicator sends for approval before the title goes into manufacturing) to come in. But then the lockdown hit, and the scramble to improvise and adapt to the situation. One of my colleagues lives nearby our office, so he shipped the I Wish I Knew test molds to our […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Feb 10, 2021 -
Exquisite Shorts, a New Model for Online Shorts Programming, Launched by Sophy Romvari
Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) has announced the launch of a new online short festival. Exquisite Shorts is designed to create a new model for shorts filmmakers, paying them for their work while enabling the public to watch for free. The newly launched crowdfunding campaign explains how online screenings will work: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short film from a pool of submissions that they love, that inspired them, or that they feel could use a platform. The filmmaker making the selection will record a video introduction that will play prior to their selected film, which will […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 29, 2020 -
Where Do I Go From Here?
I’ve had depression described to me as an obsession with the past, anxiety as a fixation on the future. In my experience with both, this has proven to be accurate. With my filmmaking, I feel in control, but when it comes to my own life and my influence over my mental health, often feel powerless. When framing a shot, there is a desire to capture a moment in time—emphasizing the particular light, the diegetic sounds, perhaps a slight breeze. This process is not unlike attempting to ground myself through meditative mindfulness: noticing my surroundings in detail, trying not to let […]
by Sophy Romvari on Dec 10, 2019 -
True/False 2018: What Can the Documentarian Do?
In 1976, German screenwriter/producer Peter Märthesheimer wrote the punchily titled essay “What Can the Hero Do? He Can Change the World! A Few Problems Concerning Drama Production.” He began: Many television plays, good and bad, have come about because a drama producer or script-writer has said at some time or other, ‘Something ought to be made about…’ Then a so-called ‘theme’ usually follows, a ‘problem’ which the person who thought it so serious that he wanted to ‘make something about it’ considers relevant […] Now there would be nothing against this approach, which cautiously and discerningly commits itself to the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 14, 2018
