Sundance Film Festival
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“Dread, Trepidation, Anxiety and Misery”: Meru | Directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Chai: Fear is one of the central themes in Meru. Dread, trepidation, anxiety and misery plague the subjects of the film throughout both 2008 and 2011 climbs; their physical fears of falling, starvation, frostbite or dropping the camera and the more psychological dimensions of fear like failure, risk, and the unknown, often quite literally not being aware of what’s beyond the next pitch. In the film, Jimmy describes the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2015 -
“We Brought the Fear, He Brought the Loathing”: Best of Enemies | Directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? It’s heady air in the worlds of William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal, two esteemed public intellectuals of, mostly, the latter 20th century. Buckley died before we began this film but Gore was alive, if in his declining years. Cantankerous and mean in his prime, he’d commented on his own persona saying, “Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.” Gore not only didn’t […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2015 -
Director James Ponsoldt on his David Foster Wallace Drama, The End of the Tour
Are you one to meet your heroes? By reading, watching, listening to their work, do you feel a connection to them? Or are they enigmas whose mysteries you need to crack? In the world of contemporary letters, few figures loom as large as David Foster Wallace, whose sprawling, wickedly funny, fiercely observant works grappled with both the necessity and near impossibility of sincere, non-ironic expression in the age of commodified mass media and a meaningless public discourse. In essays about punctuation and cruise ships, tennis stars and cooked lobsters, and in stories and novels including his protean cultural phenomenon, Infinite […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2015 -
“I’ve Been in Shootouts”: Cartel Land | Director Matt Heineman
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Cartel Land follows two modern-day vigilante groups fighting a shared enemy – the ruthless Mexican drug cartels. When I first heard about the Autodefensas movement in Michoacán, Mexico, and the American paramilitary group Arizona Border Recon, I was immediately drawn to know more about their worlds and their leaders, Dr. Jose Mireles (“El Doctor”) and Tim “Nailer” Foley. It took many months to gain their trust and the access I […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“The Director is the Film’s Immune System”: How to Change the World | Director Jerry Rothwell
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Fear is a constant companion when filmmaking, in my experience. I’ve learned to welcome it, as a sign that I‘m pushing my own boundaries a bit, not retreating into the easiest option. The absence of that nagging background anxiety is a sign I may have settled for less than I should have. With How To Change the World the biggest fear was about the narrative: whether the complex story […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“Much of What We Do is Spycraft”: Racing Extinction | Director Louie Psihoyos
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? “Racing Extinction is like The Avengers but real, but you might want to bring Kleenex.” There’s an annoying film industry “truism” that a director’s second film after a successful first will be a bust. A well known and respected Hollywood director told me, “Don’t even try to make another movie after The Cove, you’ll never top that one.” We didn’t break any box office records with The Cove but […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“Fear Will Keep Me Cool and Calm”: The Chinese Mayor | Producer Qi Zhao
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I have learned to be fearless in my career as an independent documentary producer in China. There is almost no public funding to support independent documentaries, there are very few theatrical permits issued to independent documentaries and there is virtually no distribution platform for independent documentary either. If these are the reasons to fear, it will be endless. Personally, fear for me is a mixed feeling of anxiety to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“The Party Had So Often Been Misportrayed”: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution | Director Stanley Nelson
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Early in the development phase of this project, I was apprehensive about approaching former Black Panther Party members because the Party had so often been misportrayed by popular media. I had a great fear of being turned down and not having any former Party members be part of the film at all. At some point I decided this was a film that needed to be made and in order […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“The People Behind the Crimes”: Directors Frida Barkfors & Lasse Barkfors | Pervert Park
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? When we first got to Florida Justice Transitions in 2010, we expected to make a film about the parallel society that we had read the sex offenders in this trailer park lived in. Very soon we met the people in the park, and by sitting with them in therapy, talking to them, and getting them to open up about their situation, we learned about sex offences and sex offenders […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2015 -
“Know Your Beat”: (T)ERROR Director Lyric Cabral Offers Advice on Documentary Pitching on the She Does Podcast
This week on the show, we interviewed photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Lyric Cabral. She, along with her co-director David Felix Sutcliffe, is premiering her feature-length film (T)ERROR at Sundance this year in the U.S. Documentary category. (T)ERROR is billed as “the first film to document on camera a covert counterterrorism sting,” but the documentary has been in the works for over a decade. Lyric came across the film’s subject, an FBI informant, when she was only 19, but knew she was too young to tackle the story then. Lyric talks about the uncomfortable situations she’s found herself in as a […]
by Elaine Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg on Jan 21, 2015
