Sundance Film Festival 2013
-
The Sundance Question: What Did You Sacrifice to Make Your Film?
Each year, Filmmaker asks the Sundance Film Festival feature directors a question about their filmmaking process. We then compile any and all of the directors’ feedback and bring it to our readers courtesy of our “Sundance Responses.” This year we asked: “What did you sacrifice to make your film? Or, did your film itself have to make a significant sacrifice in order to be produced? And, looking back, how do you value that sacrifice now?” We’ll upload the responses individually, the day of each film’s premiere. So, as the festival progresses, click the links below. The Sundance Film Festival is being […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 16, 2013 -
Second-Time Director: Kyle Patrick Alvarez and C.O.G.
Industry veterans and fresh faces alike are descending onto Park City this week, and for filmmakers with premieres it’s a heady mixture of excitement and anxiety. Writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez is among this crowd, ready for not only his film’s first screening, but his personal festival debut. It’s a significant career-high for the second-time director, but Alvarez is approaching the week with the well-worn wisdom his first feature brought. Alvarez wasted little time in launching his industry career. Immediately after graduating from University of Miami’s film program, Alvarez moved straight to Los Angeles and landed a job as Warren Beatty’s […]
by Kishori Rajan on Jan 16, 2013 -
Sundance Festival Director John Cooper Previews the 2013 Fest
It’s a ritual here at Filmmaker — a pre-festival chat with Sundance Festival Director John Cooper about the films, filmmakers and what the annual Park City event might have to say about the big picture of independent film. Our style at Filmmaker is to refer to people by their last names, but in the case of Cooper, that’s doubly appropriate — that’s what everyone calls him. In our talk he was his usual unflappable self, seeming to have lost known of the palpable enthusiasm he evinced at the 2010 edition, the first after he and his Programming Director Trevor Groth […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2013 -
Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva Explore the Singularity with “MegaMega Upload”
Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva screen their latest short, #PostModem, at the Sundance Film Festival this week, but today they’ve dropped “MegaMega Upload,” the music video that takes over the movie at one point. The filmmakers say of #PostModem, “[it’s] a comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It’s the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.” I saw the short at Borscht 8 this year; Mayer and Leyva’s lo-fi riff on uploaded consciousness is super smart. Indeed, you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 14, 2013 -
Trailer Watch: James Franco & Travis Matthews’ Interior. Leather Bar
One of the more fascinating projects in the Sundance New Frontiers section this year is Interior. Leather Bar, by writer/director/actor James Franco and director Travis Matthews. Here’s the synopsis: In order to avoid an X rating, 40 minutes of gay S&M footage was rumored to be cut and destroyed from the 1980 film, Cruising. Inspired by the mythology of this controversial film, filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews collaborate to imagine their own lost footage. Amid the backdrop of a frenzied film set, actor Val Lauren reluctantly agrees to take the lead in the film. Val is repeatedly forced to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 19, 2012 -
2013 Sundance Film Festival Announces Short Film Program
I must admit that I didn’t have any real expectations about the just-announced shorts lineup at the forthcoming Sundance Film Festival, but this slate looks really strong, a good mixture of familiar names (many with feature experience) and emerging talents. Scanning through the selection, I’m excited to see new works by Cat Candler, Nash Edgerton and Spencer Susser, Guillermo Arriaga, Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva (from 2012’s “25 New Faces”), Lauren Wolkstein, Goran Dukic and Damien Chazelle in the U.S. narrative section. And kudos to a “25 New Face” from 2010, Robert Machoian, who has two shorts — Movies Made From Home # 6 […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 4, 2012 -
Trailer Watch: Matt Porterfield’s I Used to Be Darker
201o “25 New Faces” pick Matt Porterfield, the writer/director of Putty Hill, will premiere his third feature, I Used to Be Darker, at Sundance in about six weeks, and the trailer for the movie just dropped. The synopsis from the SFF press release describes it as follows: “A runaway seeks refuge with her aunt and uncle in Baltimore, only to find their marriage ending and her cousin in crisis. In the days that follow, the family struggles to let go while searching for things to sustain them.”
by Nick Dawson on Dec 3, 2012 -
Sundance 2013 Premieres and Documentary Premieres Announced
Announced today by the Sundance Film Festival were their robust Premieres and Documentary Premieres sections, which always feature a large number of well-established names both in front of and behind the camera. In the narrative section, Richard Linklater’s trilogy-concluding Before Midnight is bound to get a lot of attention, while there are also welcome returns to the festival for Michael Winterbottom, Rob Epstein, David Gordon Green, Park Chan-wook and Jane Campion. There additionally notable debuts from Joseph Gordon-Levitt from Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (the writers of The Descendants). On the doc side, Lucy Walker, Barbara Kopple, Alex Gibney, Sebastian […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 3, 2012 -
Sundance 2013 Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and New Frontiers Titles Unveiled
Today is round two of the Sundance announcements, comprised of Spotlight (notable festival films that premiered in 2012), Park City at Midnight (midnight movies) and New Frontiers, the experimental strand of the fest, which includes both films and installations. We now have a few days to parse the program announcements from the past two days, and the lineups for the Premieres & Documentary Premieres and Shorts sections will be announced Monday and Tuesday of next week. SPOTLIGHT Regardless of where these films have played throughout the world, the Spotlight program is a tribute to the cinema we love. Fill […]
by Nick Dawson on Nov 29, 2012 -
Sundance 2013 Competition and Next Sections Announced
The line-ups for the U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Documentary, World Dramatic and World Documentary sections, plus NEXT, have just been announced. There’s a lot to take in here — many films from familiar names (including a healthy number by Filmmaker “25 New Faces” and IFP Lab alums) — and also a lot of movies that I have no point of reference for and will have to do some homework on before what will be a very busy January in Park City. (Tomorrow the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and New Frontier sections will also be announced, with Premieres & Documentary Premieres […]
by Nick Dawson on Nov 28, 2012
