Tucked away in the NEXT section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival we were reminded of the singular stroke of genius that is vision of Haley Elizabeth Anderson. We attempted to keep tabs on the filmmaker since discovering her short feature “Pillars” (also a Sundance selection – circa 2019) but Tendaberry was flying off our radar – which is not surprising when we consider the size, scope, style and seasonal strategy for this feature debut. A film about agency, ownership, absence, growth, memory, manifesting desire to belong, and recalibration, as I mentioned to Haley this was a world I wanted to live inside. Inspired by the works and sounds with deep connections to New York city, plus Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog films, I was reminded of early Ramin Bahrani cinema, La Jetée and Brett Story’s The Hottest August. In our lengthy conversation, we discussed how it was to work on a micro-budget film working with different seasons, how Haley found and then worked with her lead Kota Johan, how she embedded cinema within her own film, and of course discussed her choice in aesthetics. Here is our sit down in Park City.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
