Sundance Film Festival 2025
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“Keep Working with the Psychology of the Characters”: Editor Linda Man on Sauna
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“Draw the Audience into Johan’s World”: DP Nicolai Lok on Sauna
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“More Than a Production, It Was a Communion” | Kahlil Joseph, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? We filmed in Accra, Ghana for Track 16. Reflection Eternal, which is about W.E.B Du Bois in his later years. It was late November when we arrived, and the humid air was thick with the season’s slow, deliberate pulse. We stayed through the turn of the year, marking the holidays in West Africa, far from […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025 -
“Isaac Mizrahi in the Tub” | Douglas Keeve, Unzipped
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Isaac Mizrahi in the tub, chatting with his mother on the phone as if the cameras weren’t there. No problem being filmed mid-soak. Nudity wasn’t a thing for him—or for me, really. When you’re around supermodels like Linda, Naomi, Kate and Cindy, modesty isn’t exactly part of the gig. Clothes came off as quickly […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025 -
“I’d Have Done This One on iMovie if They’d Asked Me To”: Editor Christopher Passig on Middletown
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“The Night We Filmed the Flash Mob” | Erin Brown Thomas, Chasers
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? One of my favorite memories from production was the night we filmed the flash mob. After four long days of rehearsing and three nights of filming, we needed a boost of adrenaline, and boy did choreographer Malia Baker deliver! I remember emerging from a production meeting and walking outside to the backyard to see […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025 -
Sundance 2025: Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
Reflecting in 1983 on her early years at a literary agency, novelist Isabel Colegate ruefully recalled writing reader reports that involved ”mostly explaining in detail why the typescripts concerned were quite unpublishable, falling as they did so very far below the standards set by the world’s greatest literature, which in my ignorance of there being any other standards I was applying to them. My reports must have been deeply disheartening.” There are two tones at work here: one a rueful regret at her past self’s lack of charity, the other a reminder that if we’re not striving for greatness on […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 28, 2025 -
“We Broke a Cardinal Rule of Documentary Filmmaking” | Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, Middletown
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“We Weren’t Looking To Trick the Audience”: DP Michael Latham on SALLY
The first American woman to enter space is the subject of SALLY, Cristina Costantini’s documentary about the astronaut Sally Ride. The film also delves into an aspect of the maverick’s personal life: her 27-year-long relationship with her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy and the immense burden of keeping their love hidden from the public. DP Michael Latham talks about how he came aboard the project, the team’s mission of “serving the archive” from NASA and the difficulties inherent to the film’s interview shoots. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025 -
“Respect Goes a Long Way”: Producer Erin Williams-Weir on Never Get Busted
The docuseries Never Get Busted follows Barry Cooper, a decorated Texas narcotics officer who shifts his focus to exposing police misconduct and, in truly libertarian fashion, helping drug users avoid getting busted for possession. Screening as part of the Sundance’s episodic pilot showcase, Never Get Busted is also the first-time producing venture for Erin Williams-Weir. Below, Williams-Weir discusses the financial challenges she faced along the way and provides a glimpse at the series’ raw material. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer interviews here. Filmmaker: How did you connect with this filmmaker and wind up producing the film? Williams-Weir: My background is in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025
