Filmmaker Panel – SDFF 2023 Directors Talk Documentary Style

DATE: Saturday, March 17, 3 p.m.
LOCATION: Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA

Of the decisions a director makes as they bring a film to life, the choice of style is paramount. For documentarians, this is doubly true, as style is bound up with how the reality captured in raw footage will take shape on-screen. Style not only impacts what a film says through, and about, its subjects, it can, in effect, shape how its viewers perceive reality.

Panelists Janek Ambros (Ukrainians In Exile), Mimi Chakarova (The Block), Nina Nawalowalo (A Boy Called Piano), and Jaime Sunwoo (Handwritten) will join SDFF Co-Director Jane Winslow in an insightful conversation about the variety of stylistic elements they used to craft their films; from animation, live action and performative elements, to rich audio beds with narrations that tell vibrant and personal stories. To illustrate their thoughts, we will show clips from their films that will give you a taste of their stylistic choices and excite you about seeing the films during the festival.

Conversation On Style will be held at 3 p.m. on March 17 at Sebastopol Center for the Arts and moderated by SDFF Director and filmmaker Jane Winslow.

The 16th SDFF runs March 16-19, 2023, followed by a Virtual Festival March 20-29, which features a selection of films from the live fest. Tickets cost $12 and are available to the general public now.

Style panel participants: Janek Ambrose, Ukranians In Exile Director; Nina Nawalowalo, A Boy Called Piano Director; Mimi Chakarova, The Block Director; and Jaime Sunwoo, Handwritten Director. All of the directors are showing films at SDFF 2023.