SHOOT caught up with director Lucy Walker the same day (1/13) she earned her first DGA Award nomination. The honor came for her feature-length documentary The Crash Reel (HBO Documentary Films). Then this past weekend, Walker’s The Lion’s Mouth Opens debuted as part of the Shorts program at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Crash Reel introduces us to American snowboarding champion Kevin Pearce who in 2009 was enjoying the most successful season of his career, winning several events and challenging the dominance of legendary extreme sports athlete Shaun White. But while riding the slopes of Park City, Utah, in training for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Pearce suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma, followed by a long road of adjusting to what would be a lifelong disability. Still, he aspires and strives mightily to return to competitive snowboarding–a daunting proposition with doctors saying that if Pearce hits his head again, even lightly, he could die.
The Crash Reel debuted at Sundance last year. Now Walker returns to Sundance with The Lion’s Mouth Opens, a short about a young woman, Marianna Palka, who confronts her risk of Huntington’s Disease and decides to get tested for the grave genetic condition for which there is no cure. This marks the sixth film Walker has had showcased at Sundance. Among the most notable were The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom which in 2012 won the Short Filmmaking Award in Non-fiction as well as a Special Jury Prize, and her feature-length Waste Land, winner of the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in 2010.
Waste Land received a Best Feature Documentary Oscar nomination in 2011. The next year Tsunami was nominated for a Best Short Subject Documentary Oscar.
Walker is also active in commercials and branded content via Supply & Demand Integrated. Her ad exploits include docu-shorts about 2012 Summer Olympic athletes for Liberty Mutual, and a series of documentary-style spots for Target.
SHOOT: What does your first career Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination mean to you both personally and professionally?
Walker: It means a great deal to me. I want to be a great director and to have this nomination voted on by other directors is a validation about the craft of what I’m doing. I’m particularly thrilled because three of the five nominees in this DGA category [Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentaries for 2013] are female. [The other two woman helmers being Jehane Noujaim for The Square, and Sarah Polley for Stories We Tell.]
I cannot think of another directing category in any other award competition where the majority of nominees are women. Females are doing some of the best documentary work and it’s a real thrill to be part of this group.
SHOOT: Your colleague at Supply & Demand, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, is another woman whose documentary filmmaking has gained recognition this awards season [for Blackfish, which made the Oscar shortlist and earned an IDA Documentary Awards nomination]. Why has this been such a special awards season for women documentarians?
Walker: I think women have always made fantastic documentaries. I think of directors like Heidi Ewing. And of course there’s Barbara Kopple–a two-time Oscar winner [Harlan County U.S.A. in 1977, and American Dream in 1991]–whom I consider my teacher and mentor. She is one of the great role models. Women have been a great match with documentaries–the productions are harder and the budgets are lower but women are patient enough to persevere.
SHOOT: What drew you to The Crash Reel and the story of extreme sports athlete Kevin Pearce?
Walker: I got the idea to make the film just from meeting him. I saw it and went for it. Really it came down to the opportunity to make a good film. As a filmmaker first and foremost, I saw Kevin’s story as the makings of a worthwhile film. He wasn’t an obvious subject but the DGA nomination validates the decision to pursue his story.
Athletes are fascinating because their pursuit of excellence is inherently dramatic. I saw that with the Liberty Mutual shorts we did on the aspiring Olympic athletes. As for Kevin, his story is different and unique–it turns the classic comeback story on its head.
SHOOT: Nick Higgins served as your cinematographer on The Crash Reel and The Lion’s Mouth Opens–the two films that have made news on the awards and festival fronts this week. Why have you gravitated towards Nick as a collaborator?
Walker: He’s a fantastic cinematographer. Documentaries represent a different kind of filmmaking and I like working with those people who specialize in and understand it. Nick is a fantastic verite shooter. He certainly proved it in The Crash Reel and then once again in The Lion’s Mouth Opens.
He also shot a Target campaign for me highlighting some of their wonderful social responsibility initiatives. We spent time with teachers. We document Alaskan salmon fisherman because Target’s salmon is 100 percent sustainably sourced. We went out in these magical little Alaskan islands with these salt-of-the-earth fishermen.
SHOOT: How has your experience in varied branded content as well as commercials informed your longer form documentary work?
Walker: Everything is directing. I’m ambitious and believe in the craft of filmmaking and striving for excellence. With every project I do, I learn more, I practice more which is what you need to do for your craft.
With a real craft, you learn more each time you work, no matter what the project. I love every project because they all provide different kinds of challenges. Each project allows you to bring more experience and craft to the next. I feel fortunate to be gaining from so many different filmmaking experiences.
