Sundance Film Festival 2021
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“My World Outside the Cutting Room Is Richer”: Editor Géraud Brisson on CODA
Siân Heder’s CODA is the tender story of Ruby (Emilia Jones), the sole hearing member of her deaf family. After joining her high school choir, she finds herself torn between pursuing her passion for singing and helping her family with their fishing business. Editor Géraud Brisson tells us why his team decided to leave some scenes in that may feel “awkward” for hearing audiences. 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? Brisson: I met Siân Heder, the director of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 3, 2021 -
“We Like the Poetic, Dreamy Quality”: DP Edu Grau on Passing
Rebecca Hall’s Passing is an adaptation of the Harlem Renaissance era novel by Nella Larsen of the same name. Starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as two mixed race women who “pass” for white in the 1920s, the film explores their acquaintanceship as one “pretends” to be white while the other lives life as a black woman. DP Edu Grau shares why they opted to film the Passing with a more vintage style. 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? Grau: […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 3, 2021 -
“This Film Needed to Embody a Feminist Perspective”: Editor Kevin Klauber on Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided Go For It
Rita Moreno stands as one of the few entertainers to attain EGOT status. Mariem Pérez Riera intimate documentary on the West Side Story star the racism Moreno faced as a Puerto Rican immigrant with aplomb, featuring interviews other iconic entertainers such as Gloria Estefan, Whoopi Goldberg and Eva Longoria. Editor Kevin Klauber shares the importance of recontextualizing Moreno’s story through a feminist lens. 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? Klauber: I was contacted by Brent Miller after being recommended […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 3, 2021 -
Coda, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised) Take Top Prizes at The 2021 Sundance Film Festival Awards
“When we dreamed this idea, this is what we dreamed, but you all made it a reality,” said Sundance Festival Director Tabitha Jackson during the introduction to this evening’s 2021 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony. Like the festival, the ceremony was a smoothly running virtual one, connecting the at-home Sundance directors and programmers with the filmmakers similarly ensconced around the world (or, in the cases of Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised) director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, All Light, Everywhere director Theo Anthony and Users director Natalia Almada, respectively, in a car on his way to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2021 -
Sundance 2021 Critic’s Notebook 1 (Steve Dollar): The Pink Cloud, In the Earth, Searchers
Something about sitting alone in my living room in the Florida Panhandle, staring at a 55-inch television screen, watching actors playing people alone in their homes staring at screens, while outside an invisible virus continued to wreak havoc on a world radically and irreversibly changed from only a year ago, really defined a lot of my experience with this week’s largely virtual Sundance Film Festival. Of course, festivals worldwide have made the pivot to online presentation, and they’re getting better and better at it. Meanwhile, it’s become almost habitual to describe a film as uncanny or prescient in the way […]
by Steve Dollar on Feb 2, 2021 -
“The Lighting Started from a Real Place of Honesty”: DP Mia Cioffi Henry on Superior
Having lensed several notable works that have been released in the last couple of years (Jeremy Hersh’s The Surrogate, Ja’Tovia Gary’s The Giverny Document, and the shorts In Sudden Darkness and Dominant Species, among others), New York-based DP Mia Cioffi Henry arrives at Sundance with Erin Vassilopolous’s stylish psychodrama, Superior, based on the director’s 2015 short, which Henry also shot. Below, Henry discusses her own journey back to this material following the short, how references find their way into finished works, and being open to the truth of practical locations. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2021 -
“This Room had Even Scared Off Another DP”: DP Ryan Jackson-Healy on Mass
Fran Kranz’s Mass is the rare film that explores the aftermath of a tragedy rather than the tragedy itself. Some years after the events of a school shooting, the parents of a victim (Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton) plan to meet the parents of the perpetrator (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd). DP Ryan Jackson-Healy speaks to not being scared of shooting primarily in a white room, switching lenses tied to emotional cues and creating a subtextual lighting arc. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2021 -
“The Complexities of Being a Hearing Child in a Deaf Family”: DP Paula Huidobro on CODA
Sold for a reported $25 million-plus, CODA (the title is an acronym for Children Of Deaf Adults) stars Emilia Jones as the hearing child of a deaf fishing family. DP Paula Huidobro discusses the process of coordinating with deaf actors onset, learning about fishing and her ongoing collaboration with director Sian Heder. 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? Huidobro: I first met Sian at the DWW program at AFI and we have continued to work since then in two […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2021 -
“The Resiliency of Youth Is Inspiring”: Editor Kristina Motwani on Homeroom
Homeroom, the final entry in Peter Nicks’ Oakland trilogy, couldn’t have come at a more bizarre time. Amid the early days of the pandemic and movements to defund the police, Oakland High School’s class of 2020 prepares to graduate into an unforgiving world fighting for justice. Kristina Motwani, one of the film’s co-editors, shares how the film’s arc changed but their goals remained the same as the world around them changed more and more. 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 […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2021 -
“Eye-Opening How Much We Could Achieve in This Process”: Editors Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney on Strawberry Mansion
Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s surreal sci-fi romantic comedy Strawberry Mansion reimagines the dystopia as something shockingly similar to our own world: a society where even our dreams are plagued with marketing and advertisement. The director duo also acted as editors for the film, and share the joy of working with post-VFX for the first time. 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? Birney: We’ve always edited our own work—it just seems like a natural part of our process. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2021
