nofilmschool » sundance2013interviews

Exclusive Interview: Writer Chris Galletta on Sundance 2013 Film 'Toy's House'

Christopher Boone — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:00:08 +0000

For those of us who can remember life before we were plugged into technology, we may remember a time when we had nothing better to do but disappear into a forest with our buddies and wreak havoc out of the eyesight and earshot of the grown-up world. Those days, however, have come to pass. Now that Sundance 2013 has also come to pass, so too shall our series of interviews with screenwriters of feature films from this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition. For our final interview, we present our conversation with Toy’s House screenwriter Chris Galletta, who describes the influence of Amblin Entertainment movies on his first produced feature-length screenplay, the waiting game to find the right director for the project, and the decision to stop trying to write like the next Charlie Kaufman and start writing what he knows. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer/Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez on Sundance 2013 Film 'C.O.G.'

Christopher Boone — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:37:56 +0000

As the Sundance Film Festival continues in Park City, we continue our series of interviews with the writers of the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films. Today, we present our interview with Kyle Patrick Alvarez, writer/director of C.O.G., based on a short story by author and storyteller David Sedaris. C.O.G. (which stands for “Child of God”) marks the first adaptation of a Sedaris story to film – or more importantly, the first time Sedaris has given a filmmaker permission to adapt one of his stories to film. During our interview, Alvarez describes adapting a story from one of the most distinctive storytellers of our time, how his experiences with his first feature film shaped his approach to this project, and what Sundance means to him now after getting rejected with his first feature film. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer Darci Picoult on Sundance 2013 Film 'Mother of George'

Christopher Boone — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:45:09 +0000

As writers, some stories grab us and won’t let go. They hit us in the gut, they work their way into our bones, and they won’t release us until we write the story. For films, writing the story is merely the beginning. For many independent films, writing the story launches a journey over many years to see the film finally come to life. For Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition film Mother of George, the project first traveled to Sundance as part of the Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab back in 2005, and the story’s origin goes back further than that. To share with us the long journey of Mother of George from concept to finished film, we continue our series of interviews with Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition screenwriters with an extensive and generous interview with the film’s screenwriter and a producer of the film, Darci Picoult. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Author and Co-Writer Shannon Hale on Sundance 2013 Film 'Austenland'

Christopher Boone — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:00:43 +0000

Jane Austen has certainly been fodder for several film adaptations (thank you, public domain and large fervent fanbase). To further illustrate this point, at least nine versions of Pride and Prejudice have been produced as films, mini-series or television series with a tenth film version currently in development (and no, I’m not including the future production of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on that list). Sometimes, it makes you wonder if this obsession with Jane Austen has gone too far (blasphemous, I know). To answer this very question, we get to look forward to the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition film Austenland, adapted from the novel by Shannon Hale, directed by Jerusha Hess (Napolean Dynamite, Nacho Libre, Gentlemen Broncos) in her feature film directorial debut, and co-written by Hale and Hess. In our continuing series of exclusive interviews with the screenwriters of Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films, we hear from Shannon Hale on her experiences adapting her novel into a screenplay and collaborating with Jerusha Hess. (more…)

Exclusive Interview: Writer/Director Stacie Passon on Her Sundance 2013 Film 'Concussion'

Christopher Boone — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 14:00:29 +0000

With Sundance 2013 just around the corner, NoFilmSchool is reaching out to the screenwriters of the Sundance 2013 U.S. Dramatic Competition films (most of whom are also the directors as one might suspect from a Sundance line-up) to ask them about their screenplays, their screenwriting processes, and their experiences bringing their screenplays to life as films. We hope to publish a series of interviews over the next several days and weeks from these writers as schedules permit. First up, we hear from Stacie Passon, writer/director of Concussion. (more…)