Sundance Film Festival 2016
-
Experience Designing a Surrealist Museum: Loïc Suty on The Unknown Photographer
Receiving its U.S. premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontier section is Loic Suty’s The Unknown Photographer, the sole work that blew my mind just a couple of months earlier at Montreal’s RIDM. It’s an incredible, immersive Oculus Rift project inspired by the discovery of a photo album in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Suty’s piece takes us on a WWI photographer’s journey both familiar and foreign, equal parts timely and timeless. Filmmaker spoke with the Montreal-based “experience designer” prior to the piece’s Park City premiere. Filmmaker: So I believe this project originated with an actual […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 31, 2016 -
The Birth of a Nation, Weiner Top 2016 Sundance Film Festival Awards
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s transporting historical drama about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award last night at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival closing awards ceremony. Josh Kriegman and Elye Sternberg’s Weiner, a documentary about beleaguered NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, scored the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. With its record-breaking, $17.5 million sale to Fox Searchlight, The Birth of a Nation had dominated conversation at the festival earlier in the week. Said Turner at the film’s Q&A, “I made this film for one reason […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 31, 2016 -
“A Poultry-Infused Visual Remix” of The Shining: Nick DenBoer on The Chickening
A garish, absurdist riff off The Shining, The Chickening is prime fodder for Sundance’s Midnight Shorts Program. Animation duo Nick DenBoer and Davy Force wrote and directed the film, which blends shots from The Shining with a Tim & Eric-esque cocktail of inventive, abrasive imagery about a fried chicken tycoon. Below, DenBoer discusses how he and Force created the meticulously crafted images of their giddy short film. 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? Nick DenBoer: My co-director Davy Force and I collaborated […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
“Why Is This Film So Angry?”: Director J.T. Mollner | Outlaws and Angels
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? On the surface, Outlaws is a family drama and well as revenge film with a female empowerment […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
DP Philippe Bellaiche on Israel/Palestine Doc The Settlers
Documentary DP Philippe Bellaiche has worked steadily on more than 30 documentary features and shorts over the past 16 years. On The Settlers, the Israel/Palestine documentary from Shimon Dotan, he had his first encounter with physical violence. Below, Bellaiche speaks about the film’s evolving structure, the region’s landscapes and getting assaulted by a group of young men while on a shoot. Dotan and Bellaiche’s previous film together, Hot House, won the Special Jury Prize in the World Documentary program at Sundance 2007. 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 […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
“Inside a Minivan with a Huge Hog”: DP Damian Garcia on Diego Luna’s Mr. Pig
Actor Deigo Luna visits the Sundance Film Festival for the first time as a director with Mr. Pig, a rural road movie starring Danny Glover and Maya Rudolph. The film was shot by Damian Garcia, a DP with more than a dozen Spanish-language shorts and features to his name. Filmmaker spoke with Garcia about the film’s location shooting and unobtrusive visual style. Mr. Pig played in the Premieres program at Sundance 2016. 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? Garcia: […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
Co-Director/DP Michael Palmieri on the Arkansas-Set Sundance Short Peace in the Valley
Filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher have collaborated on four documentaries since 2009: October Country, Off Label, Rougarouing and, their latest, Peace in the Valley. Presented in the Shorts program at Sundance 2016, their new film concerns issues of religion and LGBT rights in a small Arkansas town. Below, co-director and DP Palmieri discusses his visual approach for the film. 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? Palmieri: One of the reasons I gravitated towards documentary film had to do […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
Veteran Doc DP Robert Richman on the Direct Cinema Approach of HBO’s Suited
Veteran DP Robert Richman has shot more than 60 documentary films since 1985, including such heavyweights as An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for ‘Superman’ and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. His latest work is Suited, an HBO documentary produced by Lena Dunham. The film profiles Bindle & Keep, a tailoring company in Brooklyn that caters to an LGBTQ community. Richman speaks below about direct cinema, the Maysles brothers and why “pure verite films” are his favorite kind to shoot. 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 […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
“A Beloved Charming Guy with a Dark Side”: Director Steven Caple Jr. | The Land
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? On surface you see a film about four boys who are trying to escape their troubled circumstances, […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016 -
“What it’s Like to Lose One’s Sight”: DP Gerry Floyd on Notes on Blindness
An entry in the New Frontier program at Sundance 2016, Notes on Blindness began in 2013 as a four-minute short from writer/directors Pete Middleton and James Spinney. The film attempted to capture the sensory experience of blindness through the audio diary of John Hull, a writer and theologian who had lost his sight. The following year, Middleton and Spinney adapted Notes on Blindness into a longer New York Times Op-Doc. Now, they have adapted this story to a feature length. Below, Notes on Blindness DP Gerry Floyd speaks to how he and the directors sought to offer a “sensory insight” into blindness. Filmmaker: How and […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 30, 2016
