Debra Granik Quotes
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I'm doing my best to stay off that financing scheme that relies on this one strip of capital, which is the red carpet. And - no sob story - but it's hard. It takes a while.
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When I find those actors who are going to work that hard and collaborate that deeply, my role is to make sure there's a whole lot there for them to work with.
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Festivals are where I see other peoples' films, where we talk, where I get to learn what was working about the film, I get to have a discussion with viewers... and people who enjoy reading films - I enjoy reading other peoples' films, and what discussions can come of that.
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I bring forward stories from the lives of everyday Americans: those whose path hasn't been set out on easy street or who haven't been given it all, those who are actually forging ahead because of their own personal resources, their moxie, their survival instincts.
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#TimesUp is you can't hold it in anymore: Time's up! The doors have to give way. It can't be that every 27-year-old born into a male body is a designated genius. It can't be that the language used to review male and female films is different.
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There are so many American experiences that we can't know about unless we venture out to create a dialogue, to observe, ask questions, and stay there for a while.
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You have so much more time to observe and learn with a documentary because of the time between the shoots. You get a much deeper understanding of day-to-day life and its themes. It's also much more of a mess after three years; you have to comb it out carefully and see what fits together and makes sense.
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I'm someone who's always looking for hope - if there's a ray of hope, a shrapnel, shred, a flake of hope - because I take the misfortune or hard times of others very seriously.
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I get very caught up in the day-to-day and immersed in the scenes as they unfold. It's harder for me, as I'm filming, to see the larger story.
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There's all these costs of war, and they're huge and long-lasting. It's not just the numbers CNN broadcasts. And we never want to pay the VA bill; we never want to pay the bill to take care of these warriors after we applaud their sacrifice.
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I like to make films about how people survive living in the United States.
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I'm a trudger.
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I would fail if I had to work with stars. And I also can't afford to work that way. I can't afford to have special circumstances for rarified individuals. So, I work with actors who have given me a sign that they're willing to work in these more humble circumstances, in real-life locations.
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I always think that my assignment is to seek out stories that are experienced by people who don't get the ticket for Easy Street.
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I find it so hard to make films about my own region, but it could happen.
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Make your film for the least amount you can.
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My producing partner and I were shown a novel we really liked. It was called 'My Abandonment' by Peter Rock, and we enjoyed reading it.
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I love to champion some of the hardworking actors where, it's been said to me, they don't bring money. But to me, they bring everything. They bring their wonderful selves.
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You can't make movies without known names, and unknowns can't become known, because they can't get work.
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Some people have these small, positive schemes for survival, a kind of strength that I am attracted to, maybe because I'm prone to the blues.
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I think, in some ways, that is the balm of stories, of fables, of tales: it's the way we're wired. We have always needed to distill what we're going through and try to understand it by looking either backwards or forwards. And the hardest is to look in the now.
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Our necks are getting injured from looking down, and the movie screen gives you opportunity to look up, you know? It gives you an opportunity to possibly have a discussion with someone afterwards.
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The social-media discourse is very different from what it might be on the ground. It's easy to bloviate without having to look anyone in the eye and then having those sentiments swell and amplify and go viral.
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There are documentaries that will just save your life and be the conduit to the art form you started out loving.