Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) is director Joel Alfonso Vargas’s feature adaptation of his short film May it Go Beautifully for You, Rico. The film follows Rico, his family and his girlfriend as they adjust to the latter’s new pregnancy. The film is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival NEXT selection and was shot by Rufai Ajala, who also served as DP on the original short. Below, Ajala discusses translating New York’s summer heat into visuals and the advantages of shooting in New York City. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer […]

The post “We Wanted to Get Across a Sense of the Overbearing Heat”: DP Rufai Ajala on Mad Bills to Pay first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Joel Alfonso Vargas has adapted his short May It Go Beautifully for You, Rico into the feature-length Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section. The film follows the carefree Rico as he attempts to get his life together when his girlfriend gets pregnant. Editor Irfan Van Tuijl, who edited May It Go Beautifully for You, Rico reprised his roll for Mad Bills to Pay. Below, he explains what it’s like to cut a film that is composed entirely of master shots and what kind of material was left […]

The post “Loads of the Story Was Abstracted”: Editor Irfan Van Tuijl on Mad Bills to Pay first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Three weeks before the Sundance Midnight Madness premiere of her zombie dramedy Didn’t Die, director Meera Menon (whose credits appositely include episodes of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead) and her partner Paul Gleason (who co-wrote and shot the film) lost their home in the Eaton fire that devastated Altadena, Los Angeles. Not only that, the film’s producer Erica Fishman and her partner Geoff Boothby, who edited the film, also lost their home in the fire. The irony is that Didn’t Die centers on a group of five in the zombie apocalypse, trying desperately to hang on to their […]

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Rashad Frett arrives at Sundance with his debut feature, Ricky, following work as a combat medic, a stint in business school, and directing an independent TV pilot he called “a Connecticut version of The Wire.” Along the way, he heard the stories of peers who cycled in and out of the criminal justice system system. So, when enrolled at NYU Tisch Graduate Film School, he used those stories as inspiration for his thesis short, Ricky. “We had ex-offenders, police officers, parole officers, judges and family members of the incarcerated all involved and consulting on the script,” Frett told Filmmaker when […]

The post “The Story Is Like a Lot of My Peers, Friends and Family”: Director Rashad Frett On His Sundance Competition Drama, Ricky first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Meera Menon’s Sundance Midnights selection Didn’t Die, a podcast host in a post-apocalyptic finds herself faced by challenges both familial and professional. Didn’t Die was produced by Menon; her husband, co-writer, VFX supervisor and DP Paul Gleason; Erica Fishman; Luke Patton; and Joe Camerota. Camerota and Patton are both first-time producers, and below, they talk about the beauty of making small art with friends and the value in pressing on until you find solutions. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer interviews here. Filmmaker: How did you connect with this filmmaker and wind up producing the film? Camerota: I met […]

The post “I Just Wanted to Make Art with My Friends”: Producers Luke Patton & Joe Camerota on Didn’t Die first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Meera Menon’s 2025 Sundance Film Festival Midnights selection follows Vinita, a snarky podcast host in a post-apocalyptic world dealing with a philandering ex, traumatized siblings, and a dwindling audience. The film is a low-budget, black-and-white homage to George Romero updated for contemporary anxieties. Geoff Boothby served as the film’s editor. Below, he talks about cutting in placeholders that allowed for future shoots to be carefully designed and how choices of what equipment to use in the shoot reverberate in the edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]

The post “Any Type of Work Has Things to Teach”: Editor Geoffrey Boothby on Didn’t Die first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Didn’t Die, the host of a podcast continues broadcasting even after the apocalypse, using irony to mask her fear. The 2025 Sundance Film Festival Midnights selection contrasts her podcast demeanor with her family life and takes inspiration from George Romero and Post-Impressionism. Paul Gleason wore many hats for the production of Didn’t Die. Below, he answers questions in his capacity as DP, elucidating how to navigate budgetary limitations with carefully chosen equipment and connecting the effect budget has on aesthetic to film noir and horror films. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did […]

The post “Perfection Can Be Your Enemy”: DP Paul Gleason on Didn’t Die first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi, a middle-aged divorcee in a remote and extremely conservative region of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What makes the scenario rather remarkable that Shahverdi is neither pariah nor wallflower in her tiny town. On the contrary, the onetime midwife, who quite literally brought an entire generation of her village into the world, is also a loud motorcycle-riding rebel who ran for a seat at the government table and won. And now, as the first elected councilwoman, a woman who finds herself at the center of an incompetent bureaucracy, one […]

The post “Making Films in Iran Is Not an Easy Task at All”: Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni on their Sundance-debuting Cutting Through Rocks first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Buck County, USA observes both adults and teenagers in the eponymous location, one of Pennsylvania’s pivotal counties for national and state elections. The series, directed and produced by Robert May and Barry Levinson, focuses on the political battles as seen through teens, looking at conflicts from the eyes of students across the political spectrum. Hannah Gabriel, Rubin Daniels Jr., Leslie Simmer and Elise Ahrens all served as editors on the series. Below, they discuss how the project showed them the common ground in viewpoints they would have otherwise dismissed and the challenges of telling a story that weaves together ten separate […]

The post “Enter into Disagreements with More Compassion”: Editors Hannah Gabriel, Rubin Daniels Jr., Leslie Simmer and Elise Ahrens on Bucks County, USA first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Serious People, a music video director hires a doppelganger to take his place at work after he learns that his wife is pregnant. The film, co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood and is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival NEXT selection. Neema Sadeghi (Noel Miller: Stop Crying) and Nicholas Bupp (Aporia, Salam) served as co-cinematographers. Below, they talk about working without a crew and contrasting a calm visual style with a mounting sense of narrative tension. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The post “Forgetting the Camera Was Rolling, It Hit Me”: DPs Neema Sadeghi & Nicholas Bupp on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.