Sundance Film Festival
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“The Grandeur of this Exceptional Human”: DP Alice Gu on Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
Among the world’s most well-known surfers, Laird Hamilton has surfed professionally since he was 17 years old. Now in his 50s, he’s the subject of a documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Rory Kennedy. Take Every Wave offers a profile of Hamilton as a surfing innovator, celebrity and family man. Below, DP Alice Gu discusses the challenges of shooting this fast-moving, larger-than-life figure. Gu, one of two DPs on the project, goes into detail on the cameras and lenses required for the project. Take Every Wave will screen four times during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
“I Want the Viewer to Feel Totally Immersed in My World”: Director Francis Lee | God’s Own Country
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? For me God’s Own Country is an investigation into authenticity of emotion and landscape. Having grown up on the same hillside where the film is set, it was critically important to me to communicate what this very specific landscape not only looks like but how it feels, sounds, tastes, smells. The wind, the cold, the rain that gets into your bones when you work outside all day. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
Sundance Dispatch 3: Columbus, Golden Exits
Columbus certainly doesn’t look like a standard American independent film: even if you didn’t know debuting director kogonada’s background as a video essayist primarily concerned with High Art (Bresson, Tarkovsky et al.), it’s clear this is made by somebody who’s studied the framing of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang et al. quite closely. No matter how mundane the setting — average small downtown streets, a drab university library — kogonada and DP Elisha Christian stick to the visual philosophy espoused by architecture-obsessed protagonist Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) as she annotates one building’s properties, noting how it’s “asymmetrical but also still balanced.” I […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 23, 2017 -
“A More Elegant and Softer Image Inspired by Turn of the Century Painters”: DP Kat Westergaard on Novitiate
Director Maggie Betts and DP Kat Westergaard became creative partners on The Carrier, a 2010 documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The two worked together again on a 2014 short (Engram) and again on Novitiate, which debuted at Sundance last week. The film marks Betts’ fiction feature debut and stars Margaret Qualley and Melissa Leo. Westergaard spoke with Filmmaker ahead of the festival about the film’s painterly aesthetic, lighting challenges and “ghostly intimacy.” Novitiate will screen in competition six times during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
Five Questions with Golden Exits Director Alex Ross Perry
The worlds of Alex Ross Perry tend to thrive on confrontation. In 2014, the writer/director arrived at Sundance with Listen Up Philip, an acerbic comedy that showcased his knack for characters at once repellent and compelling. He followed that film with Queen of Earth, a feverish two-hander that pitted Elisabeth Moss and Katherine Waterston in a cage match of sniping and passive-aggression. For his fifth feature, Perry gave himself a challenge: To write a film with no outward hostility. That film is Golden Exits. Perry calls it his “mellow drama.” An NYC-set ensemble starring Emily Browning, Mary-Louise Parker and Jason Schwartzman, Golden Exits premieres this week in competition […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 23, 2017 -
“Cate Outstripped Us All with Her Immeasurable Enthusiasm”: Director Julian Rosefeldt | Manifesto
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Manifesto was originally planned as a 13-screen installation for the art context, so it is touring museums and art festivals now. But I also got some funding from a German TV channel and I needed to consider how to bring that multi-screen-concept later into a linear version. Given the fact that we only had 11 days to shoot with Cate, the entire project, running in my mind parallel […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
“Like Nothing Else I Have Shot”: DP Sean Price Williams on Marjorie Prime
Sean Price Williams has become an indomitable force in American independent cinema. Filming regularly on Super 16mm, Williams has served as DP on the films of Alex Ross Perry (Queen of Earth, Listen Up Philip), Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine), Albert Maysles (Iris) and the Safdie brothers (Heaven Knows What). Williams sought to shoot something unlike any of his previous work for his latest feature, Marjorie Prime. With a cast that includes Jon Hamm, Geena Davis and Tim Robbins, Marjorie Prime is the latest film from writer/director Michael Almereyda. The film will have its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
“An Interactive and Realistic Amazon Environment”: Directors Milica Zec and Winslow Porter | Tree
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Tree transports users into the body of a rainforest tree, where they can experience not only its splendor but also its untimely fate. One challenge we faced was how to communicate with our audience without using traditional dialogue – and to keep that message and execution organic while in a CGI landscape. Essentially, to “show,” via real-time experience and interactivity, rather than “tell.” In order to immerse users […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2017 -
“Hiring All Women Isn’t a Gimmick; It’s Progress”: Director Jovanka Vuckovic | XX
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? Bela Lugosi once famously said, “It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out — and come back for more.” He was as right then as he is now. Women love horror. And yet here we are in 2017, and even though more than half of all horror film ticket buyers are women, people […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2017 -
Sundance Dispatch 2: Dina, Quest, My Happy Family
Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles’ Dina is incredibly hard to write about without exposing my underlying biases. Shot by DP Adam Uhl in almost entirely rigorously locked-down static 1.66 (!), Dina tracks the uneasily evolving relationship between its title subject and fiance Scott in the months up to and after their wedding. (She’s the main subject, he the supporting player: the end credits cutely add his name to the title.) Both are, by their own admission and diagnosis, somewhere on the spectrum — where precisely is unclear, as it so often is — and in something like love. The major issue, which becomes increasingly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 22, 2017
