Sundance Film Festival 2023
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“It Was -30 to -40 Degrees Celsius for Most of the Shoot”: DP Bryn McCashin on My Animal
Heather (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), a hockey player with a troubled home life, becomes instantly drawn to figure skater Jonny (Amandla Stenberg) who’s just rolled into town. Despite being held captive in her own house during each full moon, Heather yearns to escape and have Jonny by her side. Teeming with queer sensuality and lust-fueled lycanthropy, director Jacqueline Castel’s My Animal injects originality into a classic monster mythology. DP Bryn McCashin tells Filmmaker about lensing the film, which entailed frigid night shoots in Northern Ontario, Canada. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“It Cost Us Nearly a Quarter of Our Budget To Be Shut Down for Two Weeks” | Jacqueline Castel, My Animal
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? My Animal was not an easy shoot—we shot nights in the dead of winter in an isolated community in Northern Ontario. While there were a lot of challenges, the biggest and most obvious crisis we faced as a team was a COVID shutdown that resulted in a two week suspension of the shoot. This was what I had feared the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“Marjaneh Moghimi, the Lead Producer of the Film, Unfortunately Passed Away” | Babak Jalali, Fremont
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? The way Fremont went into production was influenced by a very sad event. Marjaneh Moghimi, the lead producer of the film, unfortunately passed away a couple of weeks into pre-production, which was also about two weeks before we started shooting. This was a film we had worked on together for a few years. Once we knew about her condition, the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“A Rare Series of Earthquakes Shook the Island” | Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, La Pecera
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Unpredictable events and obstacles were constant factors during the development of La Pecera (The Fishbowl). In 2017, Puerto Rico was embattled by a category 4 hurricane that caused catastrophic damage across the island and impacted the priorities of many people involved in our production. Then in 2020, a rare series of earthquakes shook the island. These two events led to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“We Had To Capture Bioluminescence on Camera in the Most Organic Way”: DP PJ López on La Pecera
In La Pecera, the feature debut from writer-director Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, Noelia (Isel Rodríguez) decides to relocate to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques where she grew up after her cancer returns. Reunited with her mother and the island’s natural beauty (and traumatic past of being a U.S. Army testing ground), Noelia refuses treatment and reflects on the root of her long-term illness. DP PJ López discusses lensing the film, which included a difficult night shoot that captured bioluminescence on camera. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“Don’t Settle for What Your Eyes See on the First Day”: Editor Clara Martínez Malagelada on La Pecera
When Noelia’s (Isel Rodríguez) cancer returns, she eschews traditional treatments and retreats to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques where she spent her childhood. Suffering severe contamination from its use as a U.S. Army testing site (and with Hurricane Irma inching closer), Noelia grapples with the painful legacy that lingers over Vieques in La Pecera, writer-director Glorimar Marrero Sánchez’s feature debut. Editor Clara Martínez Malagelada talks about cutting La Pecera, coming on board after the film’s original editor left the project. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“I Love To Look For Good Reactions”: Editor Whitney Houser on Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out
In Jake Van Wagoner’s Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out, new kid in town Itsy (Emma Tremblay) befriends her neighbor Calvin (Jacob Buster) who harbors a strange suspicion. Obsessed with the cosmos, he constantly gazes at the stars and hopes that an alien spaceship that he believes abducted his parents will return to beam him up as well. Editor Whitney Houser discusses cutting the film, which premiered in Sundance’s Kids section. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“Shoot Wide and Close!”: DP Jeremy Prusso on Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out
When high schooler Itsy (Emma Tremblay) moves to Pebble Falls with her family, she befriends the neighbor kid Calvin (Jacob Buster) who has a strange obsession with outer space. Soon, he reveals the true root of his fascination: Calvin believes that his parents have been abducted by aliens, and he desperate watches the skies for an opportunity to join them among the stars. Jake Van Wagoner weaves a tale of adolescent anxiety and adjustment in Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out. Cinematographer Jeremy Prusso discusses the process of shooting the film, which premiered in Sundance’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
“On the Last Day We Needed That Driving Scene”: Sing J. Lee on The Accidental Getaway Driver
Having amassed an impressive CV of high profile music videos and commercials with A-list talent, director Sing. J Lee makes his feature debut with The Accidental Getaway Driver, a narrative based on true events. Not the only film at Sundance this year based on an article from a major publication, Lee’s film takes as its inspiration a 2017 GQ article that recounted the night an elderly Vietnamese-American cab driver picked up three customers who, unbeknownst to him, were recent escapees of the Orange County Men’s Central Jail. As the evening quickly devolved into danger and chaos, the driver was held hostage, […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 3, 2023 -
“On Any Road of Vieques, There’s Beauty Around”: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez on La Pecera
From the 1940s until 2003, the U.S. Navy used Vieques as a bombing range and military-training site, deploying heavy metals and toxic chemicals, such as napalm and depleted uranium, that left the island contaminated. Today, Vieques has some of the highest cancer rates in the Caribbean, though the U.S. government continues to deny that its activities are responsible. In writing La Pecera, Glorimar Marrero Sánchez sought to reflect the symptoms of colonialism both literally and symbolically, through the character of a woman whose body has been colonized by cancer—a disease, the film asserts, connected to the Navy’s pollution of Vieques. […]
by Isaac Feldberg on Feb 3, 2023
