The title of this installment of spot.com.mentary is a prevalent theme throughout this Directors Series issue as filmmakers ranging from emerging to established continue to be sparked by their passions, yielding notable work.
On the established director front, consider the POV below this column in which we cover director David Ramser of The Artists Company who in-between his paid professional spot gigs is pursuing projects of personal interest, including The Foreclosure of Cristina Ramos, a short which puts a human face on the mortgage meltdown. At press time, Ramser was in South Central Los Angeles–with camera in hand–covering an after-school program designed to prevent inner city kids from turning to drugs or crime.
Ramser explained, “I wanted to take on other kinds of projects that directly affect me, that have been brought to my attention by some relationship to the subject matter. For me, this is fun. This wasn’t a directorial decision so that I could skip out on comedy and get more work of a different sort. I love comedy–that’s what I do professionally. But I wanted some passion projects to express myself in other ways, to explore interesting things I care about or that just strike my imagination.”
Similarly, directors looking to establish themselves find that guided by their passions they can gain exposure for their talent, a prime case in point being Jimmy Diebold of Bodega Studios whose Midnight Lights–an art/architectural film centered on an ambitious, logistically complex light show he orchestrated at CenturyLink Field in Seattle–has generated some 500,000 hits on YouTube and counting. The light show plays like classic animation, made up of thousands of still images assembled to sync up to a dubstep rendition of “Midnight City” by M83, remixed by PatrickReza. The short has also sparked heightened industry interest in Diebold who is covered in this week’s Up-and-Coming Directors feature.
And a passion pursuit of an established yet at the same time still emerging director, Daniel Junge, who too is a focus of our Up-and-Coming Directors feature story, has yielded Saving Face, this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Short Subject Documentary.
Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy co-directed Saving Face, which introduces us to Dr. Mohammad Jawad who returns to his Pakistan homeland to help victims of acid burns. We see the women who are recovering and reclaiming their lives, and a female attorney who fights to see that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice.
Junge knew about incidents of acid attacks on women in South Asia, often committed by their husbands or boyfriends as part of an ongoing pattern of abuse.
The director found an avenue to pursue the subject when he heard a BBC Radio report about Dr. Jawad who’s based in the U.K.
The result is a documentary which movingly captures both the plight as well as the courage of these victimized women in Pakistan, chronicles the progress being made to prosecute the perpetrators of these attacks, and the efforts of a plastic surgeon to heal not just the physical wounds but the emotional scars as well.
Utah Leaders and Locals Rally To Keep Sundance Film Festival In The State
With the 2025 Sundance Film Festival underway, Utah leaders, locals and longtime attendees are making a final push — one that could include paying millions of dollars — to keep the world-renowned film festival as its directors consider uprooting.
Thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read "Keep Sundance in Utah" in a last-ditch effort to convince festival leadership and state officials to keep it in Park City, its home of 41 years.
Gov. Spencer Cox said previously that Utah would not throw as much money at the festival as other states hoping to lure it away. Now his office is urging the Legislature to carve out $3 million for Sundance in the state budget, weeks before the independent film festival is expected to pick a home for the next decade.
It could retain a small presence in picturesque Park City and center itself in nearby Salt Lake City, or move to another finalist — Cincinnati, Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado — beginning in 2027.
"Sundance is Utah, and Utah is Sundance. You can't really separate those two," Cox said. "This is your home, and we desperately hope it will be your home forever."
Last year's festival generated about $132 million for the state of Utah, according to Sundance's 2024 economic impact report.
Festival Director Eugene Hernandez told reporters last week that they had not made a final decision. An announcement is expected this year by early spring.
Colorado is trying to further sweeten its offer. The state is considering legislation giving up to $34 million in tax incentives to film festivals like Sundance through 2036 — on top of the $1.5 million in funds already approved to lure the Utah festival to its neighboring... Read More