The Sundance Film Festival is passing its midpoint, but there are more world premieres of some of the films that will grace the Specialty Big Screen this year. Beginning last week Movieline posted details about this year's U.S. and World Competition and NEXT films and filmmakers in their own words. In today's round Jehane Noujaim (The Square), co-directors Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson (American Promise), Yen Tan (Pit Stop), Kalyanee Mam (A River Changes Course), Chad Hartigan (This Is Martin Bonner) and Marc Silver (Who Is Dayani Cristal) preview their films.
[Related: WATCH: Get To Know 5 Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers (And Their Films) AND SUNDANCE: Directors Tease 'Dirty Wars,' 'Fire In The Blood,' 'God Loves Uganda,' 'A Teacher,' 'Narco Cultura']
The Square by Director Jehane Noujaim [World Documentary Competition]
Synopsis:
In February 2011, Egyptians - particularly young ones - showed the world the way people demanding change can drive an entire nation to transformation. The result was a profound movement toward democracy that is still evolving across the Arab world.
The Square, a new film by Jehane Noujaim (Control Room; Rafea: Solar Mama), looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Catapulting us into the action spread across 2011 and 2012, the film provides a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of the struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
The Square quick pitch
The Square is an intimate observational documentary that tells an immersive story of the ongoing struggle of the Egyptian Revolution. Beginning in the tents of Tahrir in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak, we follow our characters on their life-changing journey through the euphoria of victory into the uncertainties and dangers of the current 'transitional period' under military rule, where everything they fought for is now under threat. While much of the world thought that the Egyptian Revolution had been won, our characters had only just begun their battle.
…and why it's worth seeing at Sundance and beyond:
Our film catapults you into the front lines of the Egyptian revolution, providing a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of their struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. They know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out on the ground, and our crew is bringing the story straight to Park City.
Arrest, being shot and immersion:
The entire team was immersed in the events on the ground, many times getting tangled up in the action. For example, I got arrested by military soldiers while I was on the frontline of clashes between the military and protesters. I was detained and eventually freed by one of my characters coincidentally, lawyer Ragia Omran.
Our producer Karim Amer got arrested taking sound while walking near the square with our character Ahmed Hassan and my very talented cinematographer Mohammed Hamdy got shot in the back and in the head with a pellet while filming a battle between security forces and protesters in Tahrir. He got stitched up in a nearby hospital and went straight back to Tahrir to continue filming.
--
American Promise by Directors Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson [U.S. Documentary Competition]
Synopsis:
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys diverged—one continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.
American Promise is an epic and groundbreaking documentary charged with the hope that every child can reach his or her full potential and contribute to a better future for our country. It calls into question commonly held assumptions about educational access and what factors really influence academic performance. Stephenson and Brewster deliver a rare, intimate, and emotional portrait of black middle-class family life, humanizing the unique journey of African-American boys as they face the real-life hurdles society poses for young men of color, inside and outside the classroom. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
The American Promise quick pitch:
Spanning 12 years in the lives of two families, American Promise provides a rare look into black middle class life while exploring the common hopes and hurdles of parents navigating their children’s educational journey.
The film begins in 1999, when my husband Joe and I turned our cameras on our son and his best friend, as the boys entered kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School in New York City. Over the years, the boys struggle with stereotypes and identity, and ultimately take divergent paths on the road to graduation. Meanwhile, the parents wrestle with doubts and angst over their sons’ future, as they juggle their high expectations with the cultural and social obstacles the boys face.
Through the intimate experiences of our two families, the documentary reveals complicated truths about parenting, while challenging commonly held assumptions about educational access in the 21st century. Ultimately, it asks each of us: What is the American Promise?
…and why it's worth checking out at Sundance and beyond:
It will make you laugh and cry. It will take you on a long journey that has never been seen on film before. It will show you a side of the black experience that has rarely been exposed in commercial media since The Cosby Show. It will take you back to your first dance and then help you figure out how to (or how not to) parent. It will inspire you, shake you, and transcend all of your assumptions about black boys.
Exposing their children and their flaws:
Deciding how much we were willing to expose the boys, our friends and ourselves was really tough. Initially, our parental instinct was to avoid showing our flaws, we were reluctant to expose our vulnerabilities in front of the camera. However, over the years we realized that pushing ourselves to be transparent improved our parenting and our sons’ emotional development and made for a more a powerful story.
The second biggest challenge came in the editing room. Our film was 33 hours long in June, 6 hours in July, now it’s just over 2 hours and we’re still cutting. It’s been an agonizing process.
Insight on the trailer:
With the trailer we want audiences to get a taste of the longitudinal nature and scope of the film. In a matter of minutes we see the boys grow up before our eyes and get glimpses of the challenges they face along the way.
--
Pit Stop by Director Yen Tan [NEXT Section]
PIT STOP (Clip) from Yen Tan on Vimeo.
Synopsis:
Recovering from an ill-fated affair with a married man, Gabe finds solace in the relationship he maintains with his ex-wife and daughter. On the other side of town, Ernesto evades life at home with his current live-in ex-boyfriend by spending much of his spare time in the hospital with an ailing past love. Impervious to the monotony of their blue-collar world, they maintain an unwavering yearning for romance.
Far from the gay centers of the world, director Yen Tan explores the complex and oft-forgotten lives of gay men in small-town America. The understated, contemplative nature of Ernesto and Gabe’s story is told from the perspective of an observer, allowing us—even if just for a moment—to understand what it means to be an outsider. The emotional isolation the two men have grown accustomed to is captured in a subtle, optimistic, poetic fashion while avoiding melodrama. In a refreshingly quiet film, Tan’s protagonists never try to run away from their relatively hollow surroundings, but opt to fill life’s deepest voids with their tenacious confidence. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
The Pit Stop quick pitch:
Two working class gay men in a small Texas town are seeking love and connection. Then they find each other.
…and why it's worth checking out at Sundance and beyond:
Pit Stop revolves around characters that we rarely see in cinema. And there's a very wonderful and moving love scene that has to be experienced in a room full of people.
Animals and challenges shooting while business is running:
We shot at a gas station that was still opened for business, so there were always random cars drifting in and out of our wide shot, which was very frustrating because we were also losing daylight. After busting several takes, our very pretty production manager went up to the driveway where cars were entering and stopped traffic, literally, by nicely telling the drivers we were shooting and just needed a few minutes.
Everyone happily obliged and we immediately got the shot we needed. We also had animals in the film, a huge no-no in indies. People who've seen the film were completely charmed by our cat's "performance," not knowing that we had to roll on her for what seemed like forever to get twenty seconds of useable footage. Our dog, on the other hand, was always cooperative. This is why I remain a dog person.
Insight on the cast:
We found most of our cast through auditions. Amy Seimetz was someone we were very interested in from the beginning, and after casting her, her agency, William Morris Endeavor, put us in touch with Bill Heck. The hardest part of casting was that our short-listed actors were all very, very good. My heart definitely broke when we finalized our decisions and had to start turning people down.
And insight about the trailer:
(credit: Bill Heck as Gabe and Amy Seimetz as Shannon)
Gabe and Shannon have split up but they're still in good terms with each other, and are also raising a kid together. Gabe's gay and Shannon is aware of it. This is a pivotal scene that shows the dynamics of a conflicted love between people who are otherwise compatible. It's an extension of one of the film's major theme: our essential desire in finding someone to connect with, and its ongoing process that often involves compromising and challenging ourselves in redefining what loving another person means.
--
A River Changes Course by Director Kalyanee Mam [World Documentary Competition]
Synopsis:
In her feature directorial debut, Kalyanee Mam, the cinematographer for the Academy Award–winning documentary Inside Job, explores the damage rapid development has wrought in her native Cambodia on both a human and environmental level. Rural communities, used to reaping the bounty of their mountainous jungles and lush rivers, have witnessed their forests being cleared, land becoming scarce and costly, and fishing stocks rapidly depleting. No longer able to provide for their families, and often accruing massive debt as a result, many Cambodians have been forced to leave their rural lives behind to seek employment in the industrial factories of Phnom Penh.
Following her subjects for more than two years, Mam achieves a profound intimacy with them as they confront these challenges in this stunningly shot vérité portrait. Unable to pursue an education, and forced to separate from their families, they find it hard to imagine a better future when they can barely survive in the present. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
A River Changes Course quick pitch:
Three young Cambodians struggle to overcome the crushing effects of deforestation, overfishing, and debt in this beautiful story of an ancient culture ravaged by globalization.
…and why it's worth checking out at Sundance:
A River Changes Course is a universal story of struggle, survival, love, family, and hope. It is also a sensory, beautiful, and magical journey into the lives of three individuals and their families. Instead of being told what to see and how to feel, the audience is deeply immersed in a unique world they have never seen before, navigating the deep jungles, the turbulent waters, and the tapping and humming of garment factories and wanting to learn, explore, and discover more about this world, these families, and ultimately, themselves. It is a journey that will leave you breathless, impassioned, and uniquely connected to this beautiful but also challenging world we live in.
Filming in the Cambodian jungle:
Ratanak Leng was with me throughout most of the filming. We often joked with each other that each of the regions and stories had their own unique qualities and challenges.
When we filmed in the Northeastern jungles of Cambodia, we hired and packed nine motorcycles with our equipment, food, water, and a small generator to provide power for uploading footage onto our hard drives. We placed the motorcycles on boats, crossed a tributary of the Mekong River, and climbed nine mountains to reach Sav Samourn and her family living in the deep jungles. There, we trekked through thick forests, bathed in the local spring, and slept in a small hut where the family stored their rice grains and chickens. We dreamt of ice-cold drinks, long showers, and the hot and delicious sour fish soup that awaited us at our favorite restaurant in Stung Treng.
In the floating village on the Tonle Sap River, filming Sari and his father on a small, rocking boat in the extreme heat was both challenging and draining. I stored all the camera equipment in a tin box to keep them from getting wet and Ratanak and I managed as best we could to keep from falling into the river since neither of us knew how to swim! But the best part of filming on the river was the floating café that always delivered a nice, cool glass of iced coffee served with plenty of condensed milk, sometimes a half glass full!
The most challenging day of filming with Khieu was when I decided to follow her back home at 2 o’clock in the morning. I went alone because I didn’t want to bother Ratanak or Piseth to drive me there. We took a motorcycle through the rain from Phnom Penh to Svay Rieng. I used my raincoat to cover up the camera equipment and emerged at the ferry drenched. We arrived in Svay Rieng at 8 o’clock in the morning and I continued to film throughout the day in the heat. After that day, I was sick in bed for two weeks.
And thoughts on the trailer:
Chris Brown, our editor, did an amazing job on the trailer and an even more incredible job editing the entire film. In the trailer, it was really important for us to reveal the beauty and subtlety of the film while sparking a curiosity to further explore and immerse in a unique and beautiful world.
--
This Is Martin Bonner by Director Chad Hartigan [NEXT Section]
Synopsis:
Chad Hartigan’s moving second feature has an air of simplicity but proves a subtle meditation on friendship, faith, and human connection.
In his fifties, Martin Bonner leaves his old life behind and relocates to Reno, where he finds work for a church-based program that helps released prisoners transition to life on the outside. Divorced with two adult children, he tries speed dating and passes time as a soccer referee on weekends. Meanwhile Travis Holloway has just been released from a 12-year prison stint. His program mentor, Steve, is charitable and helps him adjust, but Travis finds Steve’s Christian devotion uncomfortable and reaches out to Martin instead. The two men form an unlikely friendship that offers them unspoken support and understanding.
In this quietly observational film, Hartigan affects naturalism but hints at unnerving disquietude as both Martin and Travis struggle in an unfamiliar place—looking for a second chance at life. The storytelling is intimate, witty, and personal, while Paul Eenhoorn (as Martin) and Richmond Arquette (as Travis) offer standout performances, approaching their characters with a low-key restraint that evokes the awkwardness of starting life afresh, well into middle age. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
This Is Martin Bonner quick pitch:
This Is Martin Bonner is the story of a man in his late 50s who has to relocate to Reno for a job and the difficulties one faces starting over at that age. He works with a prison rehabilitation program and eventually finds himself befriending a recently released prisoner who is in similar circumstances.
…and why it's worth checking out at Sundance and beyond:
The goal was to make a film about characters you don't often see in mainstream or independent cinema so hopefully that's what makes it unique and their story will resonate. Hopefully it also leaves viewers with a smile on their face.
Raising money and age disparity:
Raising money was, of course, a challenge. Every filmmaker in the festival would say the same. So outside of that, it was a challenge for me to try and tell the story of characters far beyond my own age and experiences in a truthful way. That was a constant battle in the writing. Casting was also difficult and if Paul Eenhoorn hadn't serendipitously read a casting notice online and flown himself from Seattle to LA to audition on a hunch, I probably wouldn't be on my way to Sundance.
More about the cast:
I wrote the part of Travis for Richmond Arquette, who I had met through a previous job. As I mentioned, Paul showed up at an open call in LA and gave a great audition but when I got in touch with him to schedule a callback, he admitted that he lived in Seattle and flown down just to read because he felt strangely compelled by the breakdown. Robert Longstreet and Demetrius Grosse were both 11th hour replacements for actors who had to drop out and I would now consider that to be both serendipitous and extremely fortunate for us as well.
A thought about the trailer:
It was a tough movie to encapsulate in a trailer but hopefully the clip gives you a sense of the relationship between the two characters and where they both are, emotionally, in their lives.
--
Who is Dayani Cristal by Director Marc Silver [World Documentary Competition]
Synopsis:
August 3, 2010, Pima County, Arizona—Deep in the sun-blistered Sonora desert beneath a cicada tree, border police discover a decomposing male body. Lifting a tattered T-shirt, they expose a tattoo that reads "Dayani Cristal." Who is this person? What brought him here? How did he die? And who—or what—is Dayani Cristal?
Marc Silver’s masterful documentary assembles the answers to these questions using beautifully realized dramatic sequences with famed actor Gael García Bernal. Silver and Bernal reconstruct this John Doe, denied an identity at his point of death, into a living and breathing human being with a full and deeply engaging life story. Unfolding like a thrilling crime drama, the film builds to an emotionally devastating climax. Who Is Dayani Cristal? tells the story of one migrant who found himself in that deadly stretch of desert known as “the corridor of death” and how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
Who Is Dayani Cristal quick pitch:
An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for identity leads us back across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo.
…and why it's worth checking out at Sundance:
I hope that we have created a documentary film that allows the audience the chance to leave the cinema with a feeling of deep empathy - that shifts their perspective on any prejudices they may have towards so called 'illegals' and 'aliens'.
I want them to ask themselves how far they would go for their own family if push came to shove? I want them to look at migrants in the knowledge that their journey did not just start easily on the other side of the Wall, but that they had to leave loved ones for very universal reasons, whilst hoping they will survive an incredibly dangerous journey across Mexico and into the U.S. And all this before they even try and get a job.
I want them to feel proud of the humanitarian work Americans are doing in helping to end other peoples' pain by repatriating remains to families.
Returning with no coffin:
The most challenging moment for me was when I returned with the body to Honduras. The airline had actually left the body in a U.S. airport when we transited because the plane was full, and they insisted on carrying 'luggage before bodies'. I arrived in Honduras to meet 30 family members waiting at the airport, and the cargo handler explaining to all of us that there was no coffin on the plane. When eventually the body was returned home and the community were lowering the coffin into the grave, many people were demanding that the coffin be opened so that they could ensure it was actually the right person in the coffin.
There have been stories of the wrong body being returned to the wrong family. I remember turning the camera off as they attempted to unscrew the coffin lid - but fortunately it was the wrong type of screwdriver and the coffin remained sealed.