Sundance
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“We All Brought Something Unique to the Table” | Rashad Frett, Ricky
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? The most significant day for me was when my editor, Daysha Broadway; my co-writer, Lin Que Ayoung; and I gathered at an amazing restaurant in Chinatown to brainstorm and finetune the film’s edit. Over delicious food, laughter and deep conversation, we made key adjustments that truly elevated the project. That moment of collaboration felt […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2025 -
“It Was the Movie I’d Been Waiting For”: DP Paul Meyers on Omaha
Sundance 2025 U.S. Dramatic Competition entry Omaha follows a father and his two young children on a cross-country journey that follows an unexpected family tragedy. The film is the feature debut of Cole Webley after a series of shorts and commercials. Making the leap to features alongside Webley is his frequent partner Paul Meyers, who served as DP on Omaha. Below, Meyers elaborates on the challenges of shooting a film with child actors and how it necessitated an ingenious solution to a day-for-night sequence. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2025 -
“We Wanted a Visual Language That Was Both Filmic and Intimate”: DP Guy Mossman on Speak.
<i>Speak</i> follows five high school Speech & Debate students who dream of winning at the event’s annual national tournament, one of the world’s biggset public speaking competitions. Jennifer Tiexiera (Unveiled, Subject) teamed up with Guy Mossman (The Human Trial) to direct the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition premiere. Below, Mossman, who also served as the film’s director of photography, gets technical as he discusses the different equipment he used in <i>Speak.</i> He also recounts the difficulties of shooting the 2023 Nationals tournament in the blistering Phoenix heat and how it prepared him for the following year’s tournament. See all responses to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2025 -
“It Became My Therapy, My Hope in the World” | Jennifer Tiexiera, Speak.
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? I remember switching off the news the night before and hoping for the best. Instead, I woke up to the news that Trump had won the election—again. One would think that I would be more prepared for this the second time around, but I wasn’t. I was anxious, sad, frustrated and really, really scared. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2025 -
The 2025 Sundance Question: What Was Your Film’s Most Memorable Day?
Each year, Filmmaker asks all the incoming feature directors at Sundance one question. (To see last year’s question and responses, click here.) We also send out cinematographer, editor and first-time producer questionnaires. This year’s question: 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? Below, find links to each director’s individual response to the prompt. Keep checking back here during the festival, as […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2025 -
“My Hope Is That the Film Itself Is An Impact Campaign”: Alex Hedison on Her Sundance Short Alok
“What lives outside of the frames of this camera and your own eyes?” is the question the poet/comedian/actor/public speaker Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the viewer to ponder at the very start of Alex Hedison’s Sundance-premiering short Alok. Currently on the Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour, and premiering at IFC Center on June 14th (with both the nonbinary star and Hedison, who also happens to be married to her EP Jodie Foster, in attendance), the doc is based on footage Hedison shot during the performer’s recent international tour and is supplemented with highly stylized interviews with the spiritually enlightened artist and […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 13, 2024 -
“We Imagined the Queer London of Our Dreams” | Amrou Al-Kadhi, Layla
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Layla is a film of imagined space. Though set and filmed in East London, home to a vibrant queer scene and history, LGBTQ+ spaces in cities around the globe are currently victim to rapid gentrification. London is no exception. The majority of the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2024 -
“The Biggest Challenge Facing Producers and the Film Industry at Large Is an Unhealthy Relationship to Labor”: Producer Jesse Hope on A Love Song
Max Walker-Silverman’s A Love Song pits a pair of reconnected childhood sweethearts—both now widowed—against the backdrop of an intimate American West. Shot in rural Colorado in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the film required precautions in excess of what was stipulated in then-new union guidelines, necessitating everyone involved to enter and form a “bubble” for the duration of production. First-time producer Jesse Hope discusses the difficulties and rewards of such an approach and how his experience working on sets with directors like Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers prepared him to take the reins. Filmmaker: Tell me about the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2022 -
“There Are Sequences That Still Make Me Shudder”: Editor David Pelegrín on Piggy
Piggy‘s protagonist, Sara, is a victim of intense bullying who one day watches as an unknown man kidnaps her tormenters. When the police begin to investigate, Sara remains silent, and as the film continues her relationship to the unknown man, equally repelled and thankful, complicates. Editor David Pelegrín remarks on the importance of keeping the film close to Sara’s perspective and of the potential follies of relying on test screenings. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Pelegrín: […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2022 -
Sundance 2022 Critic’s Notebook: Fire of Love, Every Day in Kaimukī and Shorts
Derrida’s “archival turn” of the ’90s has officially taken over mainstream documentary filmmaking—a trend that has been covered in general interest thinkpieces in Indiewire as well as in academic scholarship, and one that’s proven more lucrative than I could have ever imagined. For the second year in a row, Sundance opened its U.S. Documentary competition selections with a blockbuster archival film, and National Geographic Documentary Films won the bidding frenzy for Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love with a “mid-seven figures” purchase almost a year after reports that 2021 Sundance “Day One” film Summer of Soul sold for north of $12 […]
by Abby Sun on Jan 24, 2022
