Sundance Film Festival

“HIS AND HERS”‘ KEN WALDROP | By Alicia Van Couvering

Ken Waldrop’s His & Hers is a documentary focusing on 70 women from the Irish Midlands, arranged chronologically from age 0 to 90, telling small stories about their lives. Irish Midlands women, being funny, sarcastic, charming and warm, are good subjects; Waldrop knew that because he grew up the son of one of very funny and sarcastic Irish Midlands mother. He constructed the film to mirror his own mother’s life; the women speak of their marriages in their twenties, their sons, and, finally, their husbands and these men’s deaths. Some of the interviews are about tiny things (who controls the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2010
“THE ROMANTICS”‘ GALT NIEDERHOFFER | By Alicia Van Couvering

Galt Niederhoffer is no stranger to Sundance, having produced films that won awards there beginning in 1997, when Morgan J. Freeman’s Hurricane Streets won the Audience Award. As a founding member of Plum Pictures, one of New York’s most active independent film production companies, she has produced over a dozen films, including Grace is Gone, Dedication, Prozac Nation, Lonesome Jim, The Winning Season, The Baxter and After.Life. Niederhoffer grew up in New York, one of six daughters of a squash champion-turned-hedge fund maverick, in a rambling, eccentrically decorated house. In her first novel, A Taxonomy of Barnacles, Niederhoffer may have […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2010
“RUSSIAN LESSONS” | co-director, Andrei Nekrasov

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] The most difficult decision was the one to expose the mistakes of fellow film and TV program makers. The related question is why I decided to do it. There were two reasons for that. Firstly those mistakes were instrumental to the justification of an unjust war; secondly in many instances there were grounds to doubt that those mistakes were innocent. In other words, those mistakes were probably lies. To me personally they were shocking because I’d seen with my own eyes what havoc Russian bombs wrecked in the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“ODDSAC” | director, Daniel Perez

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 8:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Deciding not to do a tour documentary on the band, which was what was first proposed. I have strong feelings about the distance between performer and audience, and I didn’t want to contribute anything more to this gap. I wanted to make something that I would be psyched to see and here it is. That and deciding which kid to kill in a scene were pretty difficult. In the end it was a combination of his hair and fake blood that did it.
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“ALL MY FRIENDS ARE FUNERAL SINGERS” | writer-director, Tim Rutili

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 9:00 pm — New Frontier on Main, Park City] The most difficult decisions on our film were made in the editing process and had to do with balancing music, tangent and story. We had one scene in particular that looked great and had a really good friend of mine and her son acting in it. Everywhere we placed the scene in our movie seemed to throw it out of balance or clutter the narrative. The last thing I wanted to do was lose some of those shots, and I especially didn’t want to cut my […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“LOUIS C.K.: HILARIOUS” | director, Louis C.K.

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 5:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision was the location. I had to choose between Boston, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Minneapolis. The criteria was that I needed a theater that I could sell out twice in order to shoot two performances. Those were the cities where I was selling tickets the fastest. Minneapolis has great crowds but the theater is white and kind of sterile and the audience is separated from the stage. Cleveland is great but the show I had booked there was a little too late in the year. I […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“ME TOO” | co-writer-co-director, Alvaro Pastor

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 9:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] We made lots of hard decisions making Me Too. I think, in fact, directing is making decisions all the time. For both of us, me and Antonio Naharro, the hardest one was to ask for the real Pablo Pineda to play Daniel on this film. It was difficult because when we realized that nobody else could play this role we had no choice. In fact the film couldn’t have been made without him playing this kind of alter ego of himself. How it affected the film? Well, the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“SOUTHERN DISTRICT” | writer-director, Juan Carlos Valdivia

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 6:00 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] I chose to work with an ensemble of mostly non-actors in a choreographed and precise mise-en-scene that allowed little improvisation. I had become disenchanted with film and with filmmaking. I knew that only a strong element of risk could bring back my sense of wonder. What makes a story unique is not what you tell, but how you to tell it — and the choices you make are the core of creativity. We shut ourselves in a house full of mirrors with a revolving camera that observed everything […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“CANE TOADS: THE CONQUEST” | writer-director, Mark Lewis

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] The easiest decision that I made with respect to the film was to film it in stereo (3D). In hindsight, this became the hardest decision as the creative and technical challenge was with us every single day and continues through the post and the exhibition path. The outcome, however, is stunning.
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010
“CONTRACORRIENTE (UNDERTOW)” | writer-director, Javier Fuentes-León

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 3:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] Probably the hardest decision during the whole process of making Contracorriente was casting the lead role of Miguel. The story of Contracorriente relies completely on the shoulders of the main character and so I needed a talented actor that could be both strong and vulnerable, masculine and sweet, who wouldn’t shy away from playing a man in love with his wife and with another man and who would be believable in the role of a fisherman and leader of his town. I also wanted him to be Peruvian […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 26, 2010

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