Sundance Responses
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“She Has Endured So Many Tough Situations”: Director Heather Lenz | Kusama – Infinity
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your work? In my experience, there will always be unexpected situations that arise and create chaos. That said, some people enjoy creating chaotic situations. Personally, I prefer to avoid such people. I see the job of a producer as being a job of clearing obstacles and making it as easy as possible to focus on the work that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2018 -
“How Are We Not Going Insane?”: Director Sandi Tan | Shirkers
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? It’s been my fortune to have been submerged in the sticky, sometimes pungent, always time-warping swamp of personal documentary filmmaking these past three years. My own narcissism (often in the form of horror at seeing/hearing myself on camera) has helped to blot out much of the real-life cataclysms the world has been experiencing since November 8, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2018 -
“I Literally Shot the Whole Movie with Dolls on a Miniature Set”: Director Nicolas Pesce | Piercing
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? I’m too neurotic for chaos. But there’s always going to be some element of chaos in the process of making any movie. To me, it’s a matter of making sure you encounter as little chaos as possible. As such, I’m a voracious planner in an attempt to try to avoid that inevitable chaos. On my first […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2018 -
“More Used to Filming Drug Busts than Nerd Conventions”: Directors Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster | Science Fair
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Before making our first feature film, we were both investigative reporters. We’ve spent a dozen-plus combined years hanging out with drug dealers, pimps, warlords and cartel kingpins in some sketchy places, so we were pretty used to working in hard-to-predict environments. We naively thought that making a light hearted documentary about the science fair would be […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2018 -
“You Cannot Control Everything in Film”: Director Jim Hosking | An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your work? As far as last year being an increasingly chaotic backdrop, that didn’t directly affect me or the making of my film. My film is not especially attuned to the zeitgeist. But as far as chaos is concerned – and chaos might be too strong a word for it – I think it informs my work on […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2018 -
“You Have to Give Up Control to Find the Story”: Director Alexandra Shiva | This Is Home
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Making a cinema vérité-style documentary is inherently chaotic; you are immersing yourself in the lives of others and life never follows a script. You have to give up control to find the story. This film was especially chaotic though. We were following a group of Syrian refugees during their first eight months in America. We met […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2018 -
“The Rest of the Shoot Was Just as Unpredictable”: Director Alexandria Bombach | On Her Shoulders
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your work? When I packed my bags to meet Nadia Murad for the first time, I thought we were heading to Kurdistan. I was going to film the displaced Yazidis in camps north of Sinjar and possibly the mass graves where ISIS had murdered thousands of Yazidi people in 2014. It was July, so I packed for 120-degree […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2018 -
“One of the Most Chaotic and Stunning Moments of My Life”: Director Jeremiah Zagar | We the Animals
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? My wife became pregnant just before I left for the Sundance Directors Lab and I knew even then that I wanted the birth of our child to be part of the movie. On March 12, 2015 at the crack of dawn her water broke. That morning Jeremy Yaches and Christina King (my producers) dropped a camera […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2018 -
“My Own Feeling of Unease in Living with and on the Internet”: Director Bo Burnham | Eighth Grade
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Chaos was pretty much the name of the game for our film. Our film concerns two very specific and incredibly chaotic times: eighth grade and right now — and we wanted to portray those times honestly. Not to interpret what was happening and provide answers, but to capture what’s happening and pursue the feeling of not […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2018 -
“Chaos Was Our Mantra”: Director Daryl Wein | White Rabbit
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Chaos was our mantra for White Rabbit. We decided early on we wanted to embrace the unknown. To literally and figuratively go down a rabbit hole. This meant, that even though we knew the basis for our story, which was an exploration of Asian American identity, LGBTQ issues and female gender dynamics, anything was possible. Invention […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2018
