2018 NEXT Section Sundance Trading Card Series: #19. Aneesh Chaganty (Search)

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Eric Lavallee: Name me three of your favorite “2017 discoveries”.
Aneesh Chaganty: Literature: “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande (2014). Poetry: “Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur (2014). Architecture: Tadao Ando (1941-Present). Music Album: “Down to Earth” by Flight Facilities (2014)

Lavallee: Your body of work so far is in the short form, in your experience, how does packaging “small” help when working in a longer narrative format.
Chaganty: Making short films, especially the ones at Google, allowed me to experiment a lot and experiment quickly. Those sprints were crucial for me to understand not only how to make a film effectively but more importantly: to understand myself, the emotions I was attracted to and the kinds of messages I wanted to put out into the world.

Aneesh Chaganty (Search)

Lavallee: Your lead player is the seasoned vet John Cho. Could you discuss your early pitch to him, why did this become a project and become a character he wanted to play?
Chaganty: John was always our first choice to play David. But what I think what attracted John most to our pitch was the film’s daring. SEARCH is a story that most people have a hard time imagining when they just hear about it or read about it. But I think John was really attracted to that: that we could make something people hadn’t seen before. At least not the way Sev (co-writer, producer) and imagined it.

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Aneesh Chaganty (Search)

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury 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 was a New Flesh Juror for Best First Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival. His top films for 2023 include The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An), Totem (Lila Avilés), La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson). He is a Golden Globes Voter.

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